It's too damn warm out.

Last night, after a rock show in a small venue full of stinky young people, a friend brought a bubble machine into the space and pointed it out the window. We scrambled down the stairs and into the alley to chase the frozen bubbles.

The cold made them more durable, not solid but gummy. We could catch them without popping them, and they would cave in but not disintegrate. After a while, they started collecting on the pavement, sticking to each other and rolling down the street in clumps of bubble-tumbleweeds.

We screamed with laughter and staggered around the alley like sugared-up toddlers. And wished it were even colder so we could see what the bubbles would do.

Seems like that's the value of magic, even the silly type of magic that makes soap bubbles into something strange and wondrous: that we are willing and even glad to give up what's comfortable (relative warmth at 20 degrees F) in exchange for possibility.

Haiku for Barely Frozen Bubbles

I stayed out too late
Breathing body odor and
Chasing bumbleweeds