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" Last night, I went to one of those fairly dull birthday parties, at one of those outdoor bars packed to the gills with yuppies, when I ran into a fairly dull yuppie whom I&amp;#039;d have just as soon not ever seen again after we graduated college. But we had this fantastic back-and-forth \u2014 an argument, really, but it was a fun argument \u2014 concerning, of all things, the weather. Used to be Mother Nature was like your new apartment or Jon and Kate, topics reserved for the dregs of chitchat after that fourth glass of wine after dessert at the lady&amp;#039;s friend&amp;#039;s house. And maybe Katrina \u2014 four years ago tomorrow and still smarting \u2014 or, you know, the rising sea level of the entire planet should have brought Her into the concordance of intelligent conversation a bit sooner. But somewhere over the course of this wretched summer \u2014 when if there wasn&amp;#039;t record rainfall from New York to Utah, there was a mudslide or a lightning strike or, now, the hurricane of the week \u2014 the forecast as Topic A took weather from bullshit banter to legitimately entertaining subject matter: I picked up the Farmer&amp;#039;s Almanac at a used-book store one day, and struck up a conversation with the woman next to me. I started analyzing the back page of the Times sports section in the morning, and found all this mesmerizing meteorological data to unload on my dad at the Mets game that night. I started following the Gospel of Rob Marciano over cereal, and prayed that CNN would keep its storm-chasing this cerebral and less Cooperly prurient. I started driving into Hurricane Bill to eat some crabs on the Chesapeake last weekend, and realized I wasn&amp;#039;t doing it for the crabs but for the hurricane, and said to my buddy, &amp;quot;Lord, this thing is just owning me.&amp;quot; Now it&amp;#039;s Friday afternoon, and I&amp;#039;m looking out the window at the leading edge of a tropical depression that&amp;#039;s going to dump rain on New York for the next 48 hours, and I&amp;#039;m kinda happy about that. Because weather is fascinating. Because bad weather is more fascinating. Because rain is the perfect weather for sitting around inside... discussing the weather. RELATED LINKS:  THE ENDORSEMENT: Gray Days DRINKING: A Beverage for Every Forecast  TOM JUNOD: Katrina&amp;#039;s Other Fallout "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a6319/weather-conversations-082809/>