I drove home with the windows rolled down today.  I even complained that the sun was way too bright.  When I got home, I turned off the heat and threw open the windows.  Well, a window, at least.

Dangerous.  There is definite danger here, in all this sun and warmth.  There is a quickening, along with a need to bask.  A contradiction, yes, but both desires fight for an outlet in this suddenly changing and warming world.

There’s more light now, and of a different kind.  Winter light is watery and weak, a pale shade of yellow that barely illuminates a world leached of color.  It is all grays and browns and pale, pale yellow.  Here in March, the light seems to stretch in its intensity.  Sunsets stain the sky with peach and purple and rose-gold; a Maxfield Parrish canvas that glows from within.  There is an impatience this time of year, a hurry-up-gotta-go-gotta-move kind of feeling, a heady mix of rising temperatures, rich, loamy smells and a return of glorious color.

The orange signs are back.  They litter every roadway from here to there, and back again.  They trumpet the return of Chicago’s other season: not winter, but construction.  They promise delay in the guise of improvement.  No matter; with the return of warm weather, the roads are clogged to capacity anyway, a rush of humanity intent on breaking out of their self-imposed hibernation, intent on basking in speed and exhaust and sunlight, grateful to be anywhere that is outside, that is away, that is not layered under mounds of outerwear and cocooned in underwear.

People fill the roads, the parks, the paths and the sidewalks.  Their thoughts turn to visions of growing things and churning rich black soil, to open flames of gas grills and open windows in cars. They move faster, they smile more.  They talk about spring.  Incessantly.  On and on and on.  They chatter in their excitement, a steady, buzzy drone of the wonders of things to come.

The problem, and it’s one of astronomical proportions, is that it is April.  April, in the midwest.  It is not spring.  Not here.  And no matter what the calendar says, no matter that the equinox happened on March 20, no matter that I drove with the windows rolled down today, it is not spring, and it won’t be for months.

You heard me: months.

This thaw, this blip on the space-time continuum is nothing more than Mother Nature’s tease.  It happens every year: a thaw, brief and intense and intoxicating as wine, that allows crocuses to bloom and barbeques to smolder, that lulls us into a sense that the back of winter has been broken at last— this thaw comes in on a breeze. leaving us hopeful and stumbling out of our dormancy.  Then, quick as breath, as warmth and light— it’s gone, leaving us once more in the grips of a lingering, bone-chilling winter.

We gasp in disbelief, year after year.  Wait, we cry, it was spring; I swear it was.  I walked without a coat!  I felt the warmth of the sun!  Where the hell did this snow come from? We midwesterners forget the lingering death of winter.  We forget that temperatures will rise and fall on a dime until long after the groundhog checks out its chubby silhouette.  The trees may bud, a thin patina of green may creep stealthily onto dormant shrubs and trees, but leaves don’t burst forth until mid-May.  Tulips and daffodils be damned: spring is still a far distant shore.

And yet: I drove home with the windows rolled down and felt the warmth of the sun on my face.  I know that winter merely plays hide and seek with its cousin spring.  I know that the cold will slither in on bitter winds off the Lake, and snow will again skitter madly down torn-up roads and pile against orange and white construction barrels.

But I’ll take this warmth, this breath of spring.  I’ll store it up, and wait, with growing impatience, like Persephone, until I am released from winter’s captivity to bask briefly in the glory of warmth and light and spring.

Read more from Stacey on her personal site.

Roommates: You are, in theory, two or more grown-ass men and/or women, with some level of higher education and a begrudging need to sacrifice dignity in order to make rent each month. As a roommate, you are neither saint nor demon spawn, just merely one of millions of unmarried young people navigating that weird realm of living with another human being who is something other than lover or relative.

As one who has, off and on, lived with other people for the last ten years of my life, who now can admit the times when she was wronged and when she played the role of the BAD roommate, listen to me, whippersnappers. I have some advice for you, and I learned all this out in the trenches of apartments, duplexes, and crackhouses. I’ve lived with alcoholics, musicians, drug addicts, Jesus freaks, slobs, OCD sufferers, assholes, and damn fine people. In the end, they are all the same when you’re both forced by economic concerns to see them on a daily basis.

[Note: If you are a former roommate reading this list, please keep in mind that I've lived with eighteen people in my adult life. Some of these suggestions are based on specific examples, while others are aggregates of similar experiences. And before any accusations of holier-than-thoudom are thrown at me, a couple of these tips are based on not-so-nice things I've done to past roommates, and I made a point to learn from them and never do them again.]

• Keep in mind that you are an adult, and the people you live with are also adults. Treat them that way, even if their actions prove otherwise. This includes the awkward inevitability of People Other Than You Sexing In Your Home. If I can hear you masturbate in the shower every single morning without making a big deal of it, don’t suddenly develop a stutter when I’m in the room because I was getting romantic with my significant other, door closed and fans running to hide our joyful noises. We all have sexual needs; remember that, and the awkwardness will dissipate.
• If your name is not on the utilities, your money by default becomes your roommate’s money. Not reimbursing them for bills in a timely manner is not only hilariously inconsiderate, especially if the entire household is poor and no one empathizes with your plight, it also karmically gives them the right to sell your rare books on eBay. Consider yourself warned.
• This one is important: Get renters’ insurance. Don’t make me elaborate.
• Invest in background checks, because you don’t want to find out a couple of months into living with someone that they have a police record. Don’t make me elaborate, part two.
• Your roommates may at some point choose to have animal companions. If you move into an already established living situation, maintain your own boundaries with your roommates’ pets, because critters can’t establish boundaries in a nonviolent way. It’s somewhat creepy if you post more photos of your roommate’s cat on Facebook than your roommate does. It’s also uncool to talk about them as though they’re your pet, especially since you ain’t the person cleaning their crap and buying their food.
• On a related note, if you don’t already have an animal and decide you want to adopt a furry child, consult your roommates before hitting the shelter. I once had a roommate bring home a puppy without permission–a cute little shit, also an untrained monster. File under Ruined Carpets.
• Don’t eat your roommate’s food without asking. I don’t care if they allow open season on their pantry; get into the habit of asking to use things. Replace what you take. Be generous with your own stash, but only if you’re comfortable with potential abuse. Don’t leave your rotting produce in the fridge for a month. Food is of the highest importance to most people for a variety of reasons, and it’s an area that should be handled with more care than you’d immediately realize.
• The most important thing: Learn how to communicate with others. Passive aggression is a scourge on Roommateland. If you cannot communicate your needs and concerns in a direct, honest, non-manipulative manner, you do not deserve the fiscal benefits of living with others. If you still insist upon living with others because your bottom line is your bottom line, you will watch tens of promising friendships torn apart by mounting resentment. Unless you wise up and become self-aware, you’ll be left holding the What Happened? bag for the rest of your life, repeating the same bad communication habits and wondering why your past roommates all sucked. The common factor here? YOU.

I could give a thousand other tips: Respect your roommate’s property as though even their Kleenex boxes are family heirlooms, tattoo their idiosyncrasies and anal-retentive focuses on the back of your hand and they will do the same for you, etc. But these are the big ones I’ve encountered over the years. The best mindset I’ve found for roommate relations is to think of them as a surrogate family: Be a jerk, and they’ll have nothing to lose by being equally nasty back; treat them like human beings and you will both reap huge rewards.

Photo by Prozac74 on Flickr.

Read more from Deanna on her personal site.