Okay rain, you win

All along during this 30-day stretch of rain, I have been saying that I don't mind it. It keeps me focused, I don't feel like a kid trapped inside on a sunny day, and there's a certain amount of coziness to it. Today, however, I have had enough. It's not that I don't like the rain. In fact, I still love it. It's just that right now it is threatening to swallow me. I'm one Law and Order marathon away from not even getting out of bed anymore. I can justify this in the wintertime, what with SAD and bad driving conditions and the fact that nature encourages hibernation. But I need a kick in the pants right now and the rain is not doing it.

Mostly it just makes me so tired. After a weekend away I was hoping to have a productive catch-up day and instead, I have accomplished little more than an hour and a half of writing and a hot bath. Could I really have the winter blues at the end of June?

I attempted to go for a walk when the skies seemed clear enough, only to be poured down on 15 minutes into it. I would have stayed out---I love walking in the rain---but I worried that my iPod would get damaged and that would ruin my life. (I love my iPod. It's my rock.) Sometimes when it rains, especially when it rains hard, I just want to lie down on the ground and let it cover me; let the hard pelting water strike my face in heavy drops, let my hair go limp, let it soak through my clothes. During difficult times I often stay out in the rain just a little longer than I need to, my face lifted up to it, just so I can feel something else.

Today though, I'm hoping it's tiredness disguising itself as sadness. After a weekend away and a stretch of late nights and early mornings that started the night of Michael's death, I'm feeling a tired fog descend. The grayness, of course, never helps.

After a wedding in CT on Saturday, Dan and I made our way up to RI for a visit with the fam and then home last night. The last hour of the trip, as we drove from a dry Massachusetts into a rainy New Hampshire, I rested my tired head on Dan's shoulder and closed my eyes. Dan once told me that before we met, when he would travel to CT to visit his family for holidays, he was always envious during the trip back home to NH of the couples whom were riding together in one car, back to shared lives and homes. A solo driver himself, he would feel lonely. So I always feel a bit of this-is-what-I-bring-to-this-marriage, when he leans his head down to meet mine as we drive.

When we got back to the apartment though, after 48 hours with each other and family and after lots of driving, we both needed a minute to ourselves. I went on the computer (read this depressing article)and headed to the bath. (Yeah, that's two baths in less than 24 hours...I'm telling you, this rain is going to have me taking my meals in bed soon.) Dan put on the Yankees game and then opted to play a video game. When I heard the clicking and maneuvering of the XBOX controller I must admit I was, at first, annoyed. (Even though I enjoy video games---and can beat Dan's ass at Simpson's Road Rage---I still have a hard time with his being a gamer, however rarely he plays. It defies logic since, again, I would beat up a kid to get first dibs at the Pac-Man machine, but I think that maybe women are hardwired for irritation when their partners play video games.) Anyway, I didn't express my annoyance which is progress. (If progress means passive aggressively mentioning it a blog entry instead of having a confrontation.)

Then, when I was in the bath, I heard Dan's footsteps outside the door and again experienced aggravation, thinking that I was going to be disrupted. When I realized he was putting the laundry away and not bothering me (or bothering with me) in any way, I felt like an ass. This low threshold for irritation is sometimes how I know when I need to take some me time. And I'm honest about it and Dan almost gets it. I require more alone time than he does (maybe even more alone time than most people) but without it, I'm exceedingly unpleasant and if Dan doesn't quite understand my need for quiet time, he certainly understands that. Still, he is not entirely guilt-free when it comes to cutting into this time like an attention-starved kid.

But last night, it was all me. I'm grumpy and tired and this close to being a fist-pounding, tantruming child. If I don't get a full eight hours tonight (or at least seven, maybe six) then we're in the danger zone. And if the sun doesn't shine for at least 10 minutes tomorrow---I'm talking solid warmth through closed eyelids---then I'm going to put some time in with the guy upstairs...Jerry Orbach, of course.