If you've ever spent a summer in Texas, you know.
Texas summers are relentless, unforgiving. Dip your body in a river covered bank-to-bank in tourists or schlep to Schlitterbahn with everyone else; it only does to much to mitigate the months of hell you'll endure. It's these hot summers that made me want, more than anything, to leave Texas and be literally anywhere but here as a kid. Mid-July, looking at a forecast with a week of sunny, triple-digit heat, always makes me long for a trip to the Arctic.
I know my blood, accustomed to the humidity and long stretches of baking temperatures, is too thin for me to ever hope to make it through a New York winter, or an inland European city like Paris. Even a chilly San Francisco summer, although a nice break from Texas summer, made me occasionally long for the sun.
As my sweat-drenched clothes continue to stick to my body towards the end of August, I'm filled with righteous indignation. Don't I deserve to dress for fashion instead of survival? Can't I have one day where wearing jeans doesn't feel like I'm actively trying to bake my legs? Haven't I suffered enough?
It's raining a lot more these days, and the temperatures have cooled off a bit - by which I mean the high has been in the high-80's, at the most around 90. Which may seem hot to anyone not from around here, but for late-August, that's pretty mild. Honestly, anything below 85 feels like a cool fall day. Even now as I type this, a bank of dark clouds is rolling in over me.
I hope that means fall is on the way.
