Do you know that first warm week in March when you can finally leave the house without a jacket? I think there is probably a week or two which precedes it wherein you go out wearing a jacket and come home carrying one.

Well, anyway, you know how you feel when you leave a restaurant during that week? You always get up and sort of look on the seat and then check the floor for your coat.

"Did I wear a jacket?" you ask yourself. "Oh no, that's right I didn't bring on today, it's not jacket weather anymore."

You forget about it, pay your check and walk out. But then as soon as your body touches the outside you think, "whoops, I forgot my jacket."

You want to turn around and go get your jacket, but then you remember how dumb you felt before when you explained to yourself the reason that there was no jacket on the seat.

The same scenario plays out when you give up anything.

Fuck, my wallet! Oh that's right, I'm a wad man now.

Shit, I lost my phone. Oh, I ran out of battery in South Carolina anyway.

Crap, dry land! What? Forty nights too?

So that's where I am now. Everyday I wake up and forget that it's not jacket weather anymore. Alright this metaphor sucks: I miss Amanda. For a year and a half she was a continental fixture and we were never outside of the US tax system together. But now, I couldn't even read the signs at the airport I would have to fly to to see her.

And that makes me wish it were jacket weather again.