I've been spending all my time outdoors lately. After my long winter's sit as a statue on lower campus, I just can't get enough of the fresh air, weather, sunshine and nature. It helps smooth out my basalt complexion.

So I sat down in the sculpture garden near the art dept. I was getting one of their flash lichen, which takes a couple of days. Days of sitting very, very still.

"Tweeeeet! Tweetweetweetweetweet!"

It was one of the little juncos that liked to perch on me in winter.

"Slow down Teresa," I said. Maybe she was talking fast, or maybe my brain was just in slow stone mode.

"Tweetweetweetweetweetweetweet. Tweet tweetweetweetweet tweetweet tweetweetweet."

"They've been there for how long?"

"Tweetweetweetweetweet."

One of the other sculptures wrapped my fresh flash lichen in a bandage on my arm. It helps make sure it sets. Then I trudged back over to the dorms to meet this stranger.

It was the resident of the scary old tower. I couldn't really tell them much about the letter, so I offered to take them to meet the petunia that gave it to me. But the little planter had moved! No doubt couch surfing again.

Then I realized there was one thing I knew, something the little petunia had made quite clear.

"It came from the greenhouse," I told them.

The sprouts of spring made me restless after my long winter's nap. The plum blossoms, the crocuses, the March Violets. It's also the time when Mars comes out, which is mostly made of lava. Old cold lava. Which is what I'm made out of too, so it makes me more active.

Which is why I was on a stroll near the dorms, leaving heavy footprints in the mud, when I found a plaintive petunia asking for a folded leaf to be delivered to one @V the poet in the scary old tower on lower campus. Must be quite a hermit as I'd never heard of them.

The scary old tower has been there for a long time though. And it's a mess, with mail piled up against the front door and down the walk to the gardens. Letters pouring out the tiny tower windows. Letters blowing in the cold air like snow.

I slipped the folded leaf under the door and trudged on.

I was really enjoying my winter sit-through on lower campus. The gardens are very quiet this time of year so I can be still, dreaming stone dreams. Through the rain, through the snow. Little birds perching on me now and then.

But there was such a racket at the greenhouse.

My basalt ball joints creaked and scraped, but after a few tries I was able to stand and eventually stomp my way to the greenhouse. What is going on in there? The moaning and the smashing. It's all roped off with pink psycurity tape so I didn't figure I should open it, but is it safe? Sounds like it's full of wild animals.

Guess I'll look for somewhere else to sit through the rest of the winter. Somewhere quieter.

I like to sit in the gardens on lower campus and pretend I'm a statue.

Yeah tell my knees they’re a joke, @Jira, Clairvoyant. After I solidified into basalt I had to have balljoints put in, but oh do they scrape! Doc says they’ll get smoothed out… in a few hundred years.

I’m ex-lava. Came to Psyhigh on a heat scholarship but things cooled off and now I’m stone.