I haven't been able to post or write much lately because this weather is stupidifying me.
Remember the Carl Reiner/Steve Martin film The Man With Two Brains? Martin plays Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr, a neurosurgeon who discovers he can hear the thoughts of Anne Uumellmahaye, a disembodied brain in a jar, much to the irritation of his unfeeling and money-hungry new bride Dolores. At one point, Dolores puts the brain of her disembodied rival in an oven and tries to bake it. Dr. Hfuhruhurr grabs the brain out of the oven and tries to cool it off in the sink.
Anne Uumellmahaye: I… I think I'm alright.
Dr. Hfuhruhurr: Count to ten!
Anne Uumellmahaye: 1… 2… 3… 4… 5… 6… 7… 8… 10.
(Dr. Hfuhruhurr turns to Dolores in a rage.)
Dr. Hfuhruhurr: You cooked her nines!
That's pretty much how I'm feeling. I'm a very bad soldier when it comes to warm weather, as the world discovered when I collapsed from heat prostration during a family trip to Monticello when I was nine years old. (To this day, mentioning Thomas Jefferson makes me break out in a sweat.) A few years back I made a spectacularly ill-advised trip to Florida in December and it was almost more than I could handle. (This is, I must admit, not the only reason that whenever a hurricane strikes Florida I root for the hurricane to level the whole place, and long for the day when some tropical disaster eradicates it from the map. It's just one of the reasons.) A former employer of mine once offered to pay my way to attend DragonCon held in Atlanta in the summer. I asked him why he wanted to kill me.
The above should demonstrate that I have a great deal of trouble focusing and being coherent this time of year, and this year in particular. I mean, look, "stupidifying" isn't even a word! That's how bad it is!
I thank god (or his existent equivalent) every day that my apartment has rent-included electricity, because I run the air conditioning in that over-baked Georgia locale constantly.
ReplyDeleteI know someone who's gone to DragonCon a couple of years running. Haven't made it myself though. While ordinarily I wouldn't really mind, not being that "into" comic books, I did attend a small GeekFest being run on the Georgia Tech campus a few months ago, and was charmed by the contents of a small board game demo room there. If you ever get the chance to sample a succulent fruit called "Ticket To Ride" with three friends, I suggest you not hesitate in taking them up on it.
(There, I'm done channeling Tycho from Penny Arcade now.)
Back on the subject, the temperature around here has climbed to over 100 every day for weeks now. Yet, I live in a city in which most people would passionately deny that Al Gore could possibly be right about something. I'd say something witty here about people creating exactly the punishment they themselves deserve, except they're dragging me spiraling all the way down the Infernal Toilet Bowl with them.