Complex Numbers

Chill

There was a football game tonight.

I live close to UVA, close enough that I can hear the announcer and the music. Sometimes, even the crowd. When I do, I know two things:

1) I'm staying home; the streets are a goddamn mess.
2) Things will be crazy later.

It doesn't matter whether Virginia wins or not; people get riled up either way. Just now, sitting on my deck freezing my ass off, I heard firecrackers. At least, I hope they were firecrackers. Not much in the way of gun violence in Charlottesville; just the occasional white supremacist coming in from out of town to run us over.

I like my deck. I'll like it better when it gets replaced, if I can ever get someone to commit to giving me an estimate for the work. Right now, it's aging and weathered, but it serves its primary purpose, which is letting me sit outside while still being mere feet from a portal to the great indoors, where it's warm.

Oh, lovely. Now there are sirens. There are two times I can guarantee hearing sirens around here: just as a storm begins, and after a football game ends.

It rained here, earlier, and the air still smells of wet decay. I think, judging from the odor when the breeze shifts a certain way, that one of my cats brought me a present again, but I'm not going to root around in the dark looking for a dead mole or whatever it is.

And it's getting colder.

At least there are no bugs right now. When I sit out here in the summer, it's warm, which I prefer; but bugs crawl, fly, and hop all over the place. Few bugs appear this late in the season, but it's cold. If I'm lucky, there's one or two days in the year when I can sit outside and be warm but not plagued by arthropods.

Maybe I can get a firepit installed with the new deck. Preferably one that works off the city gas lines, because I'm lazy.

There are some advantages to being outside, I suppose. It helps me keep in tune with the seasons, for starters. While I don't much like fall or winter, they do help me appreciate spring and summer more. I live in a city, but it's a kind of suburban area of the city with actual plots of land, and my backyard is all trees and nature so I don't have to go up to the Blue Ridge to freeze my ass off.

Mostly, though, I can enjoy a cigar without stinking up the house and pissing off my housemate. I think if I didn't spark up a stogie every once in a while, I'd only be outside long enough to walk to and from my car.

Soon, it will be too cold even for that, and I'll spend all my time inside, where I belong. This outdoors shit is for the birds - and even most of them have the good sense to fly south for the winter.