It's too damn hot

Illinois turned into Arizona this summer.

It hasn’t rained but a half inch since June. Leaves are falling off trees, which are going into panic mode. Lawns are brown, but for those of the needlessly vain type who waste water to impress no one but themselves. The river is more like a long puddle: ducks stand in it instead of swim.

It’s enough to make you believe the hype about global warming. That, and the Nightline the other evening where biologists gave tours of the cloud forest in Costa Rica where animals that were plentiful 15-20 years ago have just plain vanished.

Sometimes it feels like we’re just one 100-degree day away here from some sort of made-for-TV- style I-told-you-so disaster starring Dennis Quaid and Brian Dennehy.

The power will go out for days. Food and old folks will spoil. Gas will be $6 a gallon. People in Hummers will still be assholes to the bitter end.

But it’s hard to bitch when its 120 in Iraq and you hear reports that walking outdoors there your clothes get so hot it feels like you put them under the iron then threw them on.

And you do wonder how big cities coped with hot weather 100 years ago. Imagine the collective stench of New York or Chicago.

Still, this weather makes me uneasy.

I find it hard to sleep. Air conditioning and fans bug me -- the white noise, mostly, and that I’m cheap and am dreading the electric bill, and that it really does seem like a waste of energy.

No way in hell I’m walking around without a shirt. I am too fat for that, and feel like a candle made of beef tallow.

And it’s not even August. Come September, I'll be whining about Christmas decorations being up.

I should live in a bubble. Or my own personal mall.