You with the Sharpie, rock on.

I started out happy yesterday morning. I like all the rain up here in the Pacific Northwest, and I particularly like the secret world of walking in the rain under my own umbrella. It's like being in my own protective bubble where I'm untouchable. I think that's pretty widely acknowledged as part of the romance of rain and umbrellas, but it is also a fact that an instrument with sharp points around the edge really does keep people at a genuine physical distance. This is particularly comforting if you are an introvert with agoraphobic tendencies.

I also like autumn leaves, and I like puddles, mostly because puddles are hard to come by where I spent most of my life in the Nevada desert and if you do come by one, it's probably considered a lake and has a name. I liked this leaf. I liked the way the raindrops looked rippling out all over this puddle around this leaf. The whole thing made me absurdly happy, which is why I stopped to take a picture of it.

And it's called...ta-daaah...Autumn! I know it's not high art. It's a crappy little hundred-dollar digital camera.

And now it's making me sad. Yesterday was the first day that it felt noticeably cold outside when I left work in the afternoon, and with the magical rain stopped it was just dreary and windy and yuck. Pretty autumn days are crisp and the colors are stunning and I love apple cider and then there's Halloween and Smarties. Smarties! I love it and at the same time I get melancholy, knowing it doesn't last for long and then here comes winter, which I do not like. Not a winter person at all. I accept cold weather grudgingly for Christmas' sake but when that's over, I want Spring and I want it now. I would probably do fine in Florida even though I hear they grow spiders the size of small dogs there. There's always a tradeoff.

And because there's always a tradeoff, so it is that there's always something to make you smile, too. There's a woman in an ad posted in various Metro buses who looks vaguely, a little bit, if you cock your head and squint your eyes just right,* like the horrible woman I worked for in my epic tale of the Job From Hell. I don't hate her, because my parents taught me that hating is wrong and futile and I know it's bad karma and I've got enough trouble with the karma I already have, thank you, but whenever I see this ad I feel creeped out, like I escaped and finally started breathing and living my life again only to see that she's stalking me. Even though I know she wouldn't be caught dead on the bus because public transportation is for peasants, I feel disquieted and edgy the entire trip whenever I see this particular ad.

Yesterday afternoon I boarded, shook off the cold wind and got settled in my seat and pulled out my book and looked up and saw the ad and laughed out loud. I would never have thought to commit this defacement myself, because my parents also taught me that vandalism is bad, but I'd like to hug whoever did do it:

It's like Monster Spray! The bad lady is gone now. The magical power of the graffiti artist is revealed.

This gives you some insight into both my sense of civic responsibility and my spiteful immaturity. These are things you may want to know about me if we're going to be friends.

*The difference is not that drastic. I just said that because I don't want her to sue me.