overcast birdmad just before sunset a storm rising. the clouds to the east and south shifting visibly in the undercurrent of a strong wind just before the rain began to fall i stepped outside and for a moment it seemed as if the whole world was blue 010406 ... unhinged it was another worm massacre today. the worst of the spring so far. there were some hefty nightcrawlers out this morning. all bloated on alien ground, just looking for some dirt. i feel bad for the poor things but they still gross me out. worm guts all over the hem of my jeans..... 010406 ... tender square michael hates the six months that he lived in california before moving to michigan. “it was almost always sunny,” he recounts. “once in a while, a layer of clouds would appear in the morning; i think it rained once, for two minutes, the entire time i was there.” there’s this video he used to watch on youtube filmed by someone living in ann arbor, it was before he’d ever visited. the footage is from a camera aimed out of a passenger-side car window as it passes various streets and landmarks in the city, and new order’s “ceremony” plays with the slipping scenery. the last vestiges of winter haunt the sidewalks and the sky is overcast and linen-tinged, it’s ghostly. the video left him with the impression that the city was a peaceful, calming place—one that could potentially be home. on beautiful days, we bicker about whether to walk outside because the sun is too much for him. if the day is cloudless and warm, it’s as though the sun pierces through him, wounds him. “an open sky is too much like an open-concept office,” he says. “an overcast sky means having your own space.” he prefers smaller containers for his introspection, a room unsaturated by color and shape. sometimes i understand what he means; i think back to the over-washed, white cotton comforter i had growing up, and my habit of pulling it over my head while lying in bed so that i could study how the light winnowed its way through the gaps. 210913 ... tender square the streets and sidewalks were sparse as we drove through downtown this afternoon; michael supposed it was because the day was overcast. it felt like the ann arbor of five years ago, there was an unhurried idleness to the drift of what few cars and people were about. i felt a glad recognition for what once was, knowing this scene to be a mirage unlasting. typically, overcast days are not my favorite; they can be too gloomy for my mood. but the way the honeyed leaves rose and fell along packard as we passed through state infused the scene in a golden cast reminiscent of sunshine. 211007 what's it to you? who go blather from