The Month the Volcano Won

Eyjafjallajokull is grounding half of Europe’s flights and burying the continent under ash, which feels like an appropriate metaphor for something, though I’m not entirely sure what. The planet, apparently, doesn’t care about our schedules. Hard to argue with that.

What April has going for it: fresh-pressed orange juice every morning without compromise. Laura Jansen’s cover of Use Somebody, which does something to the song the original doesn’t. Waiting for the new iPhone with the resigned patience of someone who already knows how this ends. Monster Hunter Tri consuming evenings that needed consuming. Karaoke at Mauerpark on a warm night, sangria shared from a plastic bottle, chicken feet eaten without justification. Anime and manga, always, without apology. Uffie. The World Cup approaching fast enough to require selecting an underdog team now, before everyone else has opinions about it. Small miracles. Living beyond your means with cheerful deliberateness. Love, both as concept and as practice.

What April has against it: MGMT, who went from inescapable to embarrassing in under eighteen months. The ex. Hay fever. The color purple. Potsdam. Casting shows—not one more sentence from me on the subject, ever. Having no money for festivals. Running out of toilet paper. Having no time for masturbation, which is a more serious problem than most productivity literature acknowledges. Small talk. Trolls. Accidentally drinking from the soy milk bottle. Earthquakes. Death, which remains stubbornly on the list no matter how many times I’ve tried to unsubscribe.

The volcano does what it wants. That’s April from where I’m standing.