Pain is a tribute.

The pair of shorts I picked up today, for free and sight unseen, somehow fit. Not perfectly, but nicely enough I'm going to keep wearing them in no small part because I haven't worn shorts in ages and the feeling of having bare legs exposed to the air is just delicious.

It helps this is the three weeks in spring where nobody needs heat or air conditioning. Summer hasn't quite set in, and the cherry blossoms - managing despite the stuttering start to the warm months - are slowly giving way to the magnolias, and all around, there's the lightest, most delicate greens just getting ready to pull the light in. And when they do, they'll shine from within. It's really quite lovely. There's a lot of things I've been missing these last few months about the Central Valley, but if I went back tomorrow, the intensity of the summertime greenery here, farther north and with far more rainfall, would be something I'd miss about this city's life.