On rainy days I watch overcast movies like The Goonies. It’s the ultimate rainy day movie; the way grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup are the rainy day meal. That’s just the way it is. I love how dark it gets in the middle of the day, the blankets and the cracking outside. I love when thunder scares Linus. He drapes himself across my body and stares out the window, on guard, his ears erect as if he has seen a pigeon. When it’s miserable out, thunderstorms and flood warnings, I sometimes get a call from my father, “It’s disgusting out. You must be in your glory.” Everyone who really knows me, knows I’m happiest on rainy days. They mean Otis Redding on repeat, devouring cookbooks for menu ideas, and an entire afternoon of seex and sloth. They’re an excuse to be lazy and indulgent. I double my socks.
Rainy days at fat camp meant way less exercise, since the entire camp couldn’t fit in the gymnasium and weight rooms. Rainy camp days were for letter writing, playing jacks, making mix tapes, and watching movies with the boys of our division. It smelled like cedar and grass, and I’d watch Meatballs beside a boy as we held hands and he made me randy by stroking the palms of my hands hard. I get excited just thinking about it. Palms are erogenous.
Growing up, rainy weekend days meant time with my father. He wouldn’t play golf in a downpour, which left him home with the paper and a carton of eggs. The smells of the kitchen on a Sunday afternoon woke me: sweet onions saturated in golden bacon fat, fizzling, crackling, popping. Eggy batter of milk, liquidy whites, and shimmering yolks were beaten to a frothy milk shake, hitting onions, covering them. Running water in the kitchen sink couldn’t find the drain, splashed puddles in eggy bowls, and saturated Mother’s coffee filters. Metal forks scraped porcelain plates; plates cleared off into the garbage on top of left over parmigiana everything. The aluminum tins with white cardboard covers supported waste. It was my childhood, in a moment, in that kitchen, watching my father cook for us, in his leather boat shoes and fraternity t-shirt, asking how we wanted our bacon. I wanted mine the way he had his. I wanted to be just like him. I still do. Except now, I don’t care for bacon. I go the sausage patty route, with maple syrup please.
