[7/4/04]It’s rained so much, there’s a weird brand of thought emerging. It starts out as a convoluted kind of logic. Then it evolves into a sort of charm or spell.

Thursday afternoon, I heard this in the newsroom, during a break in the day’s rainfall: “Should I go get my umbrella from the car? I’m afraid it’s going to rain. If I go get it, it won’t rain; if I don’t go get it, it will rain.”

Magical thinking, I thought, remembering a concept from some self-help book that I can’t name.

She didn’t go get the umbrella. It rained. Magical thinking? Or is it just magic?

I wonder if Noah was thinking, “I really can’t see it raining for 40 days and 40 nights, but you want an ark, I’ll build an ark.”

Tuesday morning after most Entergy customers had power restored and trees had been removed from roads around the county, the news and features staffs sat in our weekly meeting.

Referring to the latest weather forecast that was predicting more wind and rain that night, the news editor directed one of the reporters to have a list of contact names for a story on whatever fallout another round of bad weather might bring.

“Nothing’s going to happen,” the reporter said.

“I know, I know. I said plan.’ Do you hear me? It won’t happen if we plan…” was the news editor’s reply. Nothing happened. I figure he must have made the list.

I can remember a summer I think it was 1988 when it didn’t rain for something like three months. I was in summer school at Mississippi State University taking American literature and geology.

I had an 8 a.m. class in Carpenter Hall with E.O. Hawkins. The dryspell broke while I was still in my nightgown. I was sharing a two-bedroom apartment with three other girls. It was still raining when I got to my 8 a.m. lit class. We were reading “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”

I caught myself staring out the window, watching the rain come down on the Drill Field, not listening to the lecture. I realized that everyone in the classroom including Professor Hawkins was doing the same thing. Being a child of the earth made me grateful for the much-needed rain then; I’m praying for sun now.

It’s time for a little balance. I’ve stopped enjoying listening to rain on the roof at night. I’ve stopped enjoying gazing into the puddles as I walk my dog. I’ve stopped enjoying noticing storm clouds.

Frogs are everywhere, and, the other night I had to chase a possum out of my garage.

If I knew what the reverse of a rain dance was, I’d do it at high noon in the middle of the 3200 block of Drummond Street.

There’s that magical thinking again. But, oh, for a clear, dry day, I’d be willing to try almost anything. I’d even plan. So, as I contemplated column topics, I sat thinking, “If I write a column about the endless rain, by Sunday morning not only will it be a clear day, it will likely be the start of a drought of Biblical proportions.”

As I write this, it’s still raining out, but I’m hopeful because my umbrella has a hole in it. Call it logic or magic or a charm or a spell, but I’m not buying a new one.