There was a thunderstorm yesterday afternoon. It was the first proper torrential rain we've had since fall. It's nice to know summer's coming. I stood out on the porch and watched the rain blow down the street. When I was little I used to watch the street fill with water and pretend it was the ocean. When the wind's really going it almost looks like it. Then Allison came out and shreiked about how very wet it was and had I noticed how hard it was raining and that the street was full of water? Finally she went in, though, and I had the storm to myself again.

Then last night around four Mom came in to shut the window. I don't think I would have woken had she not, but the bed was all wet with the rain blowing in and the thunder was really loud. When I slept in the attic I woke more easily during thunderstorms because the rain was hitting the roof about a yard above my head and the sound of the thunder came in more easily through the air vent next to the bed, which is part of why I loved sleeping up there. I love storms. It's been raining steadily since I woke this morning, but not hard. That's good because it's been really dry lately, but I almost wish it weren't raining because we're going out today and I've just washed my hair and it'll never dry.

I like birds. I was watching them yesterday and I think that if I were an animal I would be a bird. This came up a few months ago when Caelia was reading The Golden Compass. I haven't read it, but apparantly in the book everyone's soul kind of follows them around in the form of whatever animal they are most like. I'm sure that's a very distorted description, but that's the best sense I could make of it. Anyway, a bunch of us were trying to figure out what form our animal-things would take. Caelia said hers would be a big cat, a tiger or jaguar or something. Danny would be a mongoose, everyone agreed. I think I would be a bird most of the time, or possibly a housecat. A while ago at dinner Mom and I were trying to figure out what Meyers-Briggs personality label everyone in the family would have. We decided that I was the same as the cat (INFJ) and Allison was the same as the dog (ESFP), which was very funny. But I think I like birds more. I wanted to get a zebra finch last summer, but I didn't because we didn't want to leave it in the hands of the neighbors when we went on vacation and we were afraid the cat might get at it. Also I didn't like the idea of its not being able to fly around. Our friend Patricia has two dogs and a cat and a cockatiel that flies around the house and perches in her hair. I'd like that, but it's not practical in this house. Last year a girl I know told me that one day when I hadn't ridden the bus, they found a baby bird that had fallen from its nest in the rafters above the bus ramp. They hadn't known what to do with it, and she said she had wished I had been there because I would have known what to do. I think that's the best compliment anyone has ever given me.

May 23
June 2