Last night I slept as well as I’ve ever slept. I woke up at one point just long enough to think Oh God I’m sleepy! Could I sleep any better than this, ever? before falling asleep again.

But now that I’m up, my head feels like a bowling ball. How much does this thing weigh anyhow?

I just looked it up: about 12 pounds. That is a lot of weight for my delicate neck to manage. No wonder I have tight shoulders and suffer from neck pain. No wonder my trapeziuses are overdeveloped and make me look slightly freakish with my shirt off. (And yes, trapeziuses is the plural form of the word trapezius. I looked that up, too.)

My shades are closed because I still want to inhabit the small domain of my house for a while longer before acknowledging that the world extends beyond my doors, windows and walls.

I can tell it’s out there even without seeing it. Birds twitter and cackle. I just heard the shrill reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee of someone’s scooter trying to make it up our hill. The street’s incline is so steep that it always taxes underpowered vehicles and makes them sound like wind-up toys.

Now I hear a small airplane rattling its way from somewhere to somewhere else.

If I were to tell you what the world consists of based solely on what I hear, I would say there are scads of birds, a scooter and a single plane. Wait, there go two cars. Add two cars to the list. The world is growing larger with each moment.

Now it’s silent. The world, for the moment, is empty.

Even with the shades closed, I can tell it’s cloudy and will probably rain. What little light comes through the blinds is as diffuse and gray as the sky. I hate it when the sky holds the sun hostage this way, blanketing it in dark wool as if its rays need to be dampened for our protection.

This is another reason I am reluctant to look outside. I know we’re in for about six months of this nonsense, and I am not ready to acknowledge it: sky whose color ranges from wet cement to drying cement to freshly dried cement, mountains obscured by clouds that try but fail to mimic the shape of mountains, everything running for cover from rain that’s not even heavy enough to earn the label rain—more like the effect produced by the Wham-O Fun Fountain I had as a child than anything wondrous or natural.

How I long for Midwestern thunderstorms, the way light and sound move through everything. I want a storm that shakes my windowpanes and rises through my feet. I want rain with rhythm and intensity. I want an unapologetic downpour, not its inferior substitute, drizzle.