7 July 2003
hell is heat

I've become more and more aware with each passing year how much I hate summer. With a passion. July and August, my worst months. June would have been included this year, but I spent June in Scotland, where it never gets above 75 and humidity is only a bad dream. But now that I know how much I hate July and August, at least I'm at peace with it. I can say, okay, give yourself a break because you know you're going to fucking miserable everytime you step away from the air conditioner.

What is it about the heat? All I know is that when I step outside, I feel like my body is slowing down. My mind goes numb. Even now, in my little air conditioned house, I have a sinus headache, and it's a heat headache. It's the kind of headache that makes me not want to do anything for the rest of the day. Or the rest of the summer, for that matter.

Yesterday was my first day back at Borders in over two months. It was appropriately weird and some of my co-workers were cold (I guess I have to earn my way back into the club). I'm kind of unhappy at Borders, because yet another corporate restructure has taken away the one thing that I actually like about the job: shelving books. The one thing where I could zone out and let my mind relax. I could let my eyes wander to this book or that as I reordered them. Ackerman before Adams. Ferguson before Figaro. So on and so forth. I can't tell you how many gems I have picked out of the dusty, neglected shelves. Stuff you only find by looking at each and every book on the shelf. I'm going to miss that.

So instead, now I am Miss Customer Service. I've been told I'm good at it. All I know is that I've been faking it marvelously for the last two years.

I was shelving real estate books yesterday when it occurred to me that I was in Scotland a week ago, and now, here I am at Borders, shelving real estate books. What a fucking reality check that was.

So, Scotland was amazing. I wrote about it, too. And since I am all about killing two birds with one stone, I decided to post all the emails I wrote from Scotland on here. You can find them on this page. They pretty much tell the story. Like all major events in my life, I'm looking back on it and wondering if it really happened. Was I that girl? It all seems like a dream, a wonderful and strange and frustrating dream. Frustrating because I always feel like I can't appreciate it enough when it's actually happening. I can only look longingly in hindsight. Appreciating an experience (for an entire month, no less) is exhausting.

In the meantime, I will start posting photos, bit by bit.

Stonehenge

the beach at Arbroath, Scotland

The Isle of Skye

ps. I just finished Pamie's new book, Why Girls Are Weird. It's really good, even better than I thought it would be. You all should go read it, now! I will do my part and push it on unsuspecting people at work.

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