Springtime!

Even the plants are thinking about sex right now.  All those sprawled-out blossoms put some kind of reproductive vibe into the air, I think, in some universal-consciousness kind of way.  I keep thinking about the sexual nature of flowers while I walk down the street, and it kind of creeps me out, mostly because it conjures up so many icky, traditional metaphors – women as flowers that gussy themselves up with colors and scents to attract the man-bees; the beauty of a woman as budding, blossoming, wilting, going to seed; men as mobile bees that go from stationary flower to stationary flower spreading pollen; good lord is that what I'm doing when I put on perfume and eyeliner, trying to get my ass pollinated?  Ew, am I, at age 23, a "Woman in Full Bloom"?  Ew ew ew.

But seriously, I really do believe that part of the reason everyone gets so horny in the springtime is that the rest of nature, even the plant life, is in its mating season, and all the blossoming throws some kind of sexual energy into the air.  Plus of course there's the reemergence of limbs, and bodies that are just visible enough to picture naked.  And your arm hairs are getting brushed by the breeze again in an almost-too-chilly way, and that air on your skin makes you aware of your body as something that exists in space and that interacts with the world (when I'm all bundled-up I feel like I'm traveling in some kind of puffy car because my skin never gets to feel the outside world and it's like being in my own little transit-universe).

This is my favorite time of year.  All those splay-legged blossoms seem a little ostentatious, but they smell great and it's fun being one of them.