Gotta get out more

          A friend of mine hasn't seen the light of day for the past three weeks.
          He gets up early - not before sunrise, he says, but early enough that the morning is still vague and tentative. He heads over to the science building, descends into "the dungeons" (also known as the physics floor), and doesn't leave until two in the morning. The rest of the time he spends in his room, in front of his laptop, listening to classical music, doing homework.
          I think he's driving himself crazy.
          Last night, I was wandering around the dorm in an attempt to wake myself up. I dropped by his room to say a quick hello, and an hour later I walked out, having been regaled with his thoughts on philosophy, religion, science, social dynamics, and feelings. I think he desperately needed human contact. I told him that he needed to get out more.


          It's still bitterly cold outside (it seems that the season is, whether I want it to or not, weighing pretty heavily on my thoughts), with a high of zero and wind chill of twenty below. But it's sunny out, and the wind is low.
          I walked to Brewed Awakenings (the local coffee place) with a few friends, and considered a hot chai tea (with soymilk, of course). But that raspberry smoothie sounded too good. So, despite the cold, I ordered one, and held it in already numb fingers. It tasted like summer.

          I'm really looking forward to spring. We had a couple thaws in January, days when the temperature soared to the forties, even the fifties, and the air smelled like loosening earth and hidden greens. You could taste the oxygen. I pulled out my brown corduroy jacket and felt the skin on my cheeks warm in the sun. Of course, winter slammed down again with merciless beauty - after those misplaced spring days, everything was rimed with frost, and even the sidewalks glittered.
          But - that green air, the feeling of things stretching and unwinding after the long cold - I'm looking forward to that. Picnic weather. Kite flying weather. Sloppy, wayward, galoshes-wearing weather. It happens twice a year, between the extremes of summer and winter. I'm ready for that.
          But it probably won't happen for another six weeks.
          Something to look forward to.