Flurries

Woke up this morning (from a dream in which I was auditioning drunk to play Ado Annie, I think -- from Oklahoma for those of you that aren't completely up on your Broadway character parts), and was have convinced I heard people shoveling outside. We'd been warned of another snowstorms -- flurries, they promised -- and I'm still enough of a child to get that thrill of waking up in the morning and seeing snow outside my bedroom window.

Alas, no snow. Just my imagination playing tricks on me.

Still, my good friend Al Roker continued to speak of inclement weather, and by the time I left my apartment, there was definite wetness falling from the sky. Not "I need an umbrella" wetness; more a kind of "I should have worn a brimmed hat." I had a sense, walking up Third Avenue, that the city was empty. That people heard the weather and decided to stay home -- or were stuck at home already in the suburbs or outer boroughs, where the weather always seems to hit first, and harder. Took the bus down Lexington Avenue, staring out the window at an ever-increasing swirl of snowflakes, clusters of white dancing, wondering if I could capture the image on my camera, or if it'd just look like any other street scene.

Walking from the bus stop to the office, I kept my head down, re-evaluating my decision to wear my glasses today rather than put in my contacts, moving among other pedestrians with a kind of Manhattan sixth sense. Now, sitting in my office, I watch bigger and bigger clumps of snowflakes falling past the 13th floor windows, some at different speeds, it seems. Some more sideways than down.

It's pretty. I like snow.