News flash: even the natives think Arizona in the summer sucks. I’ve been here all my life, and every summer I’m reminded that … right, it doesn’t get easier, you just sort of learn to muscle through it.

From the beginning of May to the end of December, I pretty much look like shit. There’s no real point in doing your hair unless you’re going to be inside the majority of the time and can avoid going outside for any reason. Makeup, when not sliding off of my pinched little face due to the heat’s melting properties, slides out of place as my skin cools itself by oil secretion. So from early May when the temperatures starts breaking the 100s to late October when it finally gets down below 80 (fahrenheit, not celsius), I run around with my hair as far off my neck as it will go (read: old lady bun) and in as little makeup as I can get away with. Clothes rumple and start to look nappy by noon. I’m sure I look what is edging on a bum by four o’clock in the afternoon. It makes the motivation to gussy up a bit somewhat small.

I still wear makeup and put on clothes that are more than a millimeter thick in the summer a few times a week, but there’s definitely a feeling of, “oh #(^* this, what’s the point?” I look forward to the cooler temperatures, because my winter stuff is a little more formal, less ragamuffin-y and I can rest assured my makeup won’t migrate to other areas of my face when I step outside. Straightening one’s hair does not require stepping out of the bathroom every few minutes to get some air (some case with blow drying). So rest assured, fair people of Phoenix. You will only have to deal with my stinky, damp little self for a few more months. Hang in there. ;]

In semi-related news… every fan in my house works well except for the one in my bedroom, which rocks, groans and grinds regardless of what level it’s spinning at. My nightly routine now involves earplugs, which fall out periodically during the night, and I wake up to replace. After a few nights of fragmented sleep of this fashion, you begin to get a little cynical about the worlds’ problems. Poverty?! FAMINE? Buncha wimps! (I am just kidding… but it’s really annoying)

In my perfect world, there would be only cats (to eat the crickets), dogs (but only in puppy form) and baby deer and things, and the temperature would never exceed 80 degrees with 10% humidity. There would be no “fat days”. Gym trips would never need happen because everybody would look like greek statues naturally, and you wouldn’t have to worry about whether your beer is making you fat, your deodarant is going to give you alzheimer’s someday, your plastic tupperware is giving you cancer or whether your children are going to grow up to be little psychopathic murderers because you didn’t buy them a pony. And makeup would NEVER EVER slide off in the heat.

I’ll keep dreaming?

-j