Juxtaposition

The world is fantastic.

Today my professors were laughing and joking, people are stumbling around decked out in Green Beer Day shirts, there's only a hint of the blizzard in the snowy gutters around town.

There's a tiny flower in the garden out front. On Saturday we're flying into Dallas where the temperature should hover right around 72 degrees. No school for a week. Randy's Burgers. My grandmother promised me a chicken pot pie. I'm going to sit outside and let my skin drink the sun. I'm going to watch to The Wheel at a torturous volume. I'm going to drive out past Bo Pilgrim's giant fiberglass head on my way to antiques. I'm going to ask Jack about his boots (the ones with the round toe, made of soft leather that don't come up so high). I'm going to walk barefoot in the broad, sharpened edges of the arid grass. I'll play with Ringo and Ginger and watch my grandma put food in their mouth and move their jaws "just so they get a taste of it." I'll forget to pick up the milk again and have a perfect excuse to drive into town with the windows down and the conversation up. I'll walk around the pasture with that mean ass pony, trying to get a look at the goose. I'll probably have fried chicken and talk about how it tastes just the same as it always did (she won't believe me). The mashed potatoes will be better than they used to. I'll hug them both and say goodbye. We'll fly back to Columbus on the 23rd and I might cry. I'll be rejuvenated, the summer will come and there will truly and honestly be no other time than the present.

The world is fantastic. So much more fantastic that it has ever been.