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And it snowed and it snowed and it snowed. For twenty-four unrelenting hours it snowed. Were it just a bit colder outside, there would be eight to ten inches of standing snow outside– but dreams of eight to ten inches have been melted away to patches here and there by the pertinacity of 40 degree weather.

But perhaps I’m wrong to see the snow from above and the ground below in confrontation. Perhaps I’m missing the grander scheme– the picture in which the sky and the ground are complementary forces. Could it not be that the ground, bringing up new life, had exhausted itself of moisture, and it put in a plea to the skies to replenish it? Could it not be that the skies, in response, came and bountifully bestowed their moisture to sate the parching ground and allow for new life? Why shouldn’t this be by design– why shouldn’t it have a purpose beyond the endless cycle of frozen ground, mud and parched earth?

Maybe I’m just reaching too far– trying too much to project my mental state on the enviroment around me.

Sitting, slumped in my chair, I can see the wet, heavy spring snow falling outside. Snow. At seventy degrees it was 2:00 and I walked to work in a t-shirt. At fifty degrees it was darkening and the four of us went out for a walk. At dark, the rain started to fall. At forty-five degrees, we found our way back to the Quad, exulting in the rain and lamenting the abused and battered wife-to-be of every Ben Untereiner.

Five hours later, the rain gave up its gentle fall from the heavens. Five hours. Each rain drop’s decent from the vast, clouded window to the stars. To the roofs below– broken shingles on soggy wood. Each striving to be swept into the gutter, awash with a million identical once-individual drops of rain, who all have no succumbed to gravity’s dictate: down! down! everyone all together!

But no– now snow. Wet, clumsy flakes. Their resistance is more visible and their end less fulfilling. Each is begrudgingly pulled to the brown each below– each so volatile as to disappear at the earth’s briefest touch, leaving only a cold, wet smear where once there was a snowflake. And on and on and on and on ad infinitum until the heavens abandon their assualt on the ground outside the window where I sit, slumped. They must find some other ground to die on.

I thought I’d post the music video for The Decemberists’ Sixteen Military Wives, which I found quite enjoyable. If you enjoy Wes Anderson, you’ll certainly enjoy this:

It’s snowing outside. Yeah, that’s right. After four days of playing Ultimate until 11:30 at night, today it decides to snow. Fortunately, none of its sticking and it’s pretty warm– I suppose I should be happy because snow = precipitation and precipitation = a greener Bozeman, but just the same I’m going to complain. =P

In other news, it’s Thursday which means that it’s practically the week-end. Whoo! I’m excited to go to the Lacross game tomorrow night– that’ll be something of a new experience.

William asked a great question yesterday. He asked, “why is the flag at half-mast?” Thinking about it, he answered his own question, “oh, it must be because the Pope died.”

A week after the death of the Pope, the flags are still at half-mast. If the flags had been down for a day or two, I would have few complaints, but being humbled as a nation for a full week due to the fully anticipated death of a man seems obscene (especially here on our so-called “secular” campus). Sure, maybe the Pope was a good man. But a lot of good men die everyday. Men who’ve lived with integrity and honor and have made the world a better place are found in the obituaries of the local newspapers across the nation, and yet the flag is not lowered for these– even though many of these were not leaders of organizations that harbors and provides sanctuary for child-sex-offenders (ooh! cheap shot, I know).

He was just another man. John Paul II. The second. How pretentious. How is it that this man, for the last two weeks, has dominated the headlines of our nation’s newspapers (the Financial Times, thank god, made no mention of his death) and even warranted uninterrupted televised coverage of his funeral on CNN. People are born, people live, and people die. Why is the death of this single religious figurehead the biggest news story since invasion of Iraq?

Put the flag back up. Let’s be a proud nation, or let’s be a humiliated nation, but for the love of god, put the flag at half-mast for something worthy. Put it at half-mast to commemorate the 1,100+ soldiers that have been killed fighting Bush’s war in Iraq– who died fighting for their home and country. Perhaps if each of those soldiers, killed in the line of duty, gained a small portion of the news frenzy that the pope has, then maybe the American populace would be more adamant about bringing our troops home.