Not Cranky

Last night, through a liberal mix of alcohol and venting, I managed to work through my excess of vitriol and nastiness. After sleeping in a bit this morning, I woke to find my mood had lightened immeasurably and that I no longer derived a low-grade physical excitement from the mere thought of throwing canned goods at the heads of bosses, co-workers, and other drivers. Crisis averted. I don’t really know what all contributed to yesterday’s exceeding pissed-offedness, a combination of things, I suppose.

One factor, I’m sure, is that it has been unremittingly hot and miserable. It’s so unpleasant that going outside for anything but traversing the distance between one air-conditioned location and another is out of the question. Further exacerbating my sense of heat related isolation is the fact that I’ve been relatively broke. Normally when I’m poor I can walk the dog or something to get out of the house for an hour or so. Yeah. That’s so not happening. Right now the dogs are lucky I’m willing to open the door long enough to let them out; the thought of taking Bennet for walkies is patently absurd.

I know the hot weather will most likely come to an end sooner rather than later. August is the time of summer when it seems like the warm and green will stretch on forever, a never ending cycle of long, hot days and humid nights filled with the songs of crickets and cicadas and white noise of air-conditioners. The fact is, though, that summer will soon exhaust itself and give way to fall.

Indeed, most of the kids around here are already back in school. Somehow that just seems wrong to me, to have kids return so early and cut them off from the glories of going to the pool and sleeping in and staying up late. It seems strange to drag kids into the classroom before we’ve even had the whisper of a promise of the autumn. Even though I understand the reasoning behind it, the thought of being 16 and staring at homework instead of lying in my friend’s hammock and staring up at the sky kind of breaks my heart a little.