It’s been raining for two days here.

This is good, actually, because there was a fairly major explosion at a chemical processing plant yesterday, which involved a roving cloud of chlorine slinking through the suburbs, waving chartreuse tentacles, and the obligatory raging fires and whatnot. They evacuated most of the town of Apex. (We’re fine here–Apex is a few miles away, and there’s no concern that it might head this way.) Rain is supposed to help get this down out of the air and presumably also help put the fires out. So I’m glad we have rain! Rain is good!

Unfortunately, ever since living in Arizona, rain has depressed me. I used to enjoy it, when I lived in Oregon. Now it’s just rather dreary.

I’m not sure if somewhere in the shuffle between states, my mental filters got reset, or what. Actually, I wonder if some places are just plain better at rain.

Now, Oregon was a champion at rain. The world went misty and indirectly lit. It went…soft, for lack of a better term. Rain was like Vasoline smeared on the lens of the world. Suddenly the state went beautiful and vague.

Part of the reason this worked, I suspect, is because there’s a strong undertone of grey to the pallette in Oregon. I used to think it was a very green state–then I moved to the South and realized that I didn’t know shit about green. This place does green like Genghis Khan did real estate. Oregon was grey-green instead, heavy on the pine trees. Possibly that’s why the rain worked. It coordinated.

Rain in Minnesota was like all other weather in Minnesota–something we endured, but we’ll manage, we can’t complain, after all, it could be a lot worse, and at least no one was hurt. Minnesota is a state driven almost entirely by the need to be indoors. This has bred a kind of grim Lutheran stoicism and some really cutthroat bridge players.

Rain did not belong in Arizona at all, that bleached bone country, and compensated for this by getting the job done quickly, dramatically, and then fleeing immediately for more hospitable climates.

Rain here is something you’re glad to have happen, because we’re in a drought and again, the roving clouds of chlorine gas, but it’s not really enjoyable. It wanders between the hard, pounding, back-breaking rain and the delicate fine spray. Possibly there’s just too much green in the foreground–the sky picks up no grey in the ground, so it looks like an intrusion, something that happens to you, not an integral part of the system. The landscape is wearing a drab sweater over screaming kelly green pants, and the resulting fashion snafu is subliminally depressing.

Possibly I’m nuts.

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