17 May 2008

spring-a-ling-ling

It's warm enough in my apartment to lull me into inertia. I can't quite get out the door, even into the sunshine and beauty, even though I reserved about 15 books on the library website and I can go pick them up just a pleasant little free train ride away.

The weather, the most boring of topics, has skipped from cold to summer in three days. We looked out the window on Wednesday and said, "Today is our only spring," and it was true. By Friday it was summer and 90 degrees. I walked 20 or so blocks in the sun after work to meet some friends, and when I got there they were sitting inside, hiding from the weather in the air conditioning. "We should sit outside!" I said, and they shivered and said, "No, no, it's too hot."

"I would be perfectly happy if the weather was always exactly like this." I said, and they answered, "Then you moved to the wrong place. This is exceptionally hot even for August here."

We sat outside for a late dinner, under an umbrella that we didn't need for rain or sun, and even I, the first person to get cold in any crowd, kept my jacket off, even at midnight. It was that balmy (balmy is a funny word, no? Like barmy, only less British. Both sound funny.)

I slept with the window open, two nights in a row now, and this may or may not correlate directly with the fact that the sore throat I have had since I returned here at the end of March has returned.

I am beginning to suspect, um, how can I say this... seasonal allergies. I have a hard time admitting such a suspicion, because I have so little patience for the concept of seasonal allergies. I mean, yes, I know that many people are very miserable because of them, but that does not answer the fundamental question: WHY? WHY should some people's bodies start fighting off perfectly innocuous things like POLLEN. Pollen which fertilizes other trees and other flowers? WHY? And why should I have started having a throat-closing sensation during spring while I was in college when I had never had it before in 8 years of Michigan springs? Why should it hve been alleviated by two springs in Rwanda (no spring) and three in New York (no trees), and now actually be at a point where I would consider buying medication if only I had money with which to buy it? Hasn't my body fought off enough things in its time? Did I feed it malaria and parasites and every possible type of street food in every country I've ever been in for nothing? Is it so bored that it has to resort to fighting off things that have no spite against me? I have no patience for such bodily betrayal.

Then again, I don't have all that much patience for how my throat feels like I might not be able to get air through it much longer, either.

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