and then i heard a gunshot, 17th and Madison, 23:01.

the thunder started this morning. my lair was full of grey light. the cats didn't flinch. I heard it over the weak shower. the rain hit the air-vent, 3 stories up; leaves danced. it smelled like hot dust. when I emerged from the building, it was raining hard enough to create bubbles in the gutters. a guy further down the block was under a tree, waiting it out. my car was across the street. I took the picture below, grinned at him, grinned at him grinning back, and got drenched as i ran to my car.

the radio played "diamonds on the soles of her shoes." empty as a pocket. I sang along as I drove to work. the world presented itself in soft gradiation.

things aren't neccessarily EASIER when things are more unavoidably poetic, but it makes the potential grimness of reality a bit more loaded and salubrious and "I felt the rain on my bare arm as I blinked at the grey"- the novelty of dissonance allows for a moment to really LIVE, not merely stumble through.
on the way to work I saw lightning flash over Wallingford. "yay!" I said aloud in the car by myself.