Spring took a turn for the worst a week or two ago and I began to have flashbacks to the first 20 years of my life spent in Western New York where "spring" was a torturous illusion, each month captured in an optimistically, saccharine proverb: "March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb" or "April showers bring May flowers"; ideas obviously conceived of elsewhere. More appropriate to my childhood home would be "March comes in like a case of Seasonal Affective Disorder and goes out like borderline suicidal" or "A few days of hope in April bring May snowstorms." I guess here it wasn't so bad, just cold and rainy. And as I have been married to my books, notes, laptop, and notecards for the past few weeks, it hasn't really mattered to me anyway.

But TODAY, not only does it feel like spring, but I would go as far as to say that it is summer-like. We had a half-assed yet lovely picnic next to the lake (ok, it's more of a pond) before going to see the new Almodóvar (La Mala educación). I said to Stéphane that I felt a little guilty spending such a beautiful afternoon at the movies and he told me that I should be whipped for such a blasphemous statement. Such is the attitude of a born-again cinephile. In any case, he abandoned me after the movie and I find myself laying on the non-broken end of my bed (don't ask...) cuddled by French grammar and sunshine that gets my seratonin hopping better than MDMA.

I wonder if I would be a better person if I lived in a sunny climate. Would I be happier? Would I be more active and productive? Would I be all radiant and blond and carefree? Or is sunshine not the panacea that I think it is? But oh, how beautiful it is in my golden apartment. It almost makes me comfortable with the idea that I am forging a route in life so bizarre that even I am confused by it.