August oblivion

TS Eliot and Chicago weather to the contrary, April ain’t the cruelest month. My vote goes to August, or at least this one.

Take today - the weather is perfect, not that usual dog’s breath the middle of this month typically holds. Of course, I’m sitting inside typing which should give clue as to why I feel this way.

August is a tease, giving way to school and to fall, which means eventually it’s winter, and I hate the perpetual gray that is the Midwest from November through May.

This time of year you notice the days growing shorter, which means time fading away. And the damn yellow jackets want to your outdoor food, and the spiders bite you just above the ass (hey, they like my back fat. It’s a delicacy for insects.)

Then again, you might be as oblivious as a lot of the folks I know. Example: I shaved off my goatee this past week. It took two days before anyone at work said anything. One young woman, a master of the back pedal, said she was so used to seeing it on my mug (I had the beard for six months) she assumed it was there.

A couple weeks ago I thought it preposterous that wacky terrorists could smuggle in three laced Gatorade bottles into an airplane bathroom, leave them there, then ignite them with an iPod without anyone noticing Arabs behaving oddly. Or how anyone would hire someone as creepy as that Jon Benet suspect to teach and not suspect him of ulterior motives.

But because of my goatee experience I see how easy it is to not be noticed. Since I live alone, this scares me. If I had an accident it would be days before anyone would think to look for me. Good thing I don’t have a cat, or I’d be a 220 pound meal.

But I digress on a Sunday afternoon. Back to being disappointed with August.

I heard on the radio yesterday, on one of those flashback shows, about a Bruce Springsteen concert that I attended at Soldier Field, a monumental 4.5 hour show -- a show from 1984. If you were born at that gathering now you can legally drink.

Of course, I was only six at the time. It was my first concert. I got to stay up way past my bed time. I went with my cute baby-sitter and all her girlfriends. Springsteen pulled me on stage for Dancing in the Dark. I was a cute kid.

No, it’s not funny how time slips away, and that’s why August is cruel.

Oh sure, there’s football to look forward to, and the slim hope of the White Sox repeating as World Series champs, but sometimes it all seems like Groundhog Day, with the annual festivals, and the leaves falling and then its Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas.

I should stop my bitching. It’s just because I don’t have a lake home where I could sit on my dock and get drunkenly wistful on a perfectly fine day like today.