"Gabardine" always sounded more luxurious than it was.

I thought I had outwitted that cold last week. But it doubled back and got the best of me. I haven't been sick in quite some time. It's humbling. And I can't even take advantage of that sickness-mediated excuse to stay in bed all day and recuperate while dozing in and out of I Dream of Jeannie reruns. I have deadlines that would set a deadline fairy's hair on fire.

Perhaps because I'm under the weather, perhaps because of the familiarity of driving home on Sunday nights, perhaps because of the great lot of things I still keep wanting to get done -- it makes me feel soft and fragile and contemplative. My body wants me to take medicine and let the gravity of delirium pull me down to the ocean floor. My urgency doesn't like that idea.

I was listening to music in the car, and I thought of secret messages I wanted to send. But I outgrew them nearly as soon as the ideas hatched. That's the thing about being stuck in traffic. It's like an incubator. And sometimes you can pass in and out of phases without ever leaving your seat. And you can't help but wonder what things might happen if you let the whim be the plan instead of letting the pragmatism digest the folly. Even moreso in the lusty month of May. I played violin for Camelot one summer. There were lyrics in those songs that had their way with me. Those dreary vows that everyone takes, everyone breaks. Everyone makes divine mistakes.

You can learn a lot of things from the flowers. But apparently that's for next month.