On pollen

It's pollen season.

If you haven't spent any amount of time in the South, this probably doesn't mean much to you. If you have, you understand that this is a strange thing to make me smile.

But it does, in part -- in large part -- because this pollen season has been worse than any other. The pollen has hit record levels. The pollen is falling from the sky. The pollen isn't just covering cars in a film, it's covering everything in a thick, impenetrable blanket.

And it reminds me of snow.

I'm lucky in that it doesn't make me sneeze and itch and want to be indoors (knock on wood). So I can marvel at the way the wind moves the pollen on the ground, and smile at way it comes down in clouds and feel like I have some semblance of winter, even though it's in the 70s, and no one got any winter to speak of.