In which I pretend it's spring and proceed to ramble

You can laugh, but it's spring in my apartment. I couldn't handle it anymore, and the springtime curtains, bath things, etc., are up, thumbing their airy, pastel-colored nose at the snow and ice that still cover the playground beneath my window. Gone is the dark red shower curtain that made my bathtimes a shrouded, darkened thing of winter.

Light! Light is back, and I can see the color of my shampoo (white) and whether I really nicked my legs while shaving them (I did). Spring means (more) light, and something about light has been hard-wired into my brain to mean that happiness and lighter moods will soon come. They may actually come; they may not. But the fact that warmer weather and greener things are there, somewhere on the calendar, just waiting to burst forth, makes me believe that even if bad things happen, light and color and warmth and joy will be around to make them seem not so bad.

What is it about season, color, temperature and growth that does this for us?

Is it the tangible, visible, fragrant proof that after the deathly, colorless chill of winter, life can be young and green and warmly embracing again? Is it the memories of childhood and summer break, splashing in puddles, playing in mud, getting sunburned in the park and having breath-holding contests at the city swimming pool? Or is it simply just the science of more vitamin D and those blessed, happy endorphins from the excess sunshine we're suddenly absorbing and the exercise we're more induced to do outside, whether it be actual exercise or just walking down the street to a neighbor's house?

Maybe it's all of these things, combined with the anticipation we've learned to live in while subconsciously hoping for these things. Crap. I'm rambling.

Even MORE rambling

— Shut up, Bob.

We say it all the time. Every day. Every. Stinking. Day. Whatever it is that Bob thinks is hilarious, it's met with a resounding "Shut up, Bob!"

"He's gonna start thinking that's his name," I told Deb tonight. "He's gonna fill out a name tag, and it's gonna say, 'Hi! My name is Shut Up Bob.'"

"Kind of like the Bill Cosby thing," B said. "'For the first ten years of my life, I though my name was god****it ...'"

— Cliffs

Bob: "Are we close?"

Deb: "I don't know how close Sarah is."

Sarah: "I'm close to jumping off a cliff."

That's a typical night (for me) in sports.

— Meet Lisa

Tonight was leg kicks, and Jason was kind enough to point out where the "sweet spot" of a bundle of nerves is in the upper thigh, about a finger length below the hip bone.

It's only "sweet" if you're not the one getting kicked, and even at practice strength and speed, it frickin' hurts. And so, I've named my bruise "Lisa," in honor of the person who left me limping my way back to the locker room. That after a brutal cardio-intensive conditioning segment. Frickin' ouch.

— Shucks

It has to be said — a vase full of tulips delivered to your office on a Monday makes that Monday pretty stinkin' nice. Just sayin' ...