The summer is finally getting to me. Generally, I'm not the type to complain about the heat; I'm usually the one reminding people how we wished for 30 degree weather back in January, when there was a few feet of snow and it was close to 30 below out there. How we had all dreamt of wearing tank tops and skirts or shorts all winter long while we were lugging around sweaters and coats and wearing winter boots. I for one, love summer; for all the relaxing and the fact that I usually to have more energy when it's sunny and warm out...but this summer has begun to chip away at that love...I'm beginning to wish for constant air conditioning (something we have but I try to turn off whenever possible). I'm beginning to have less energy than I do on the darkest days of winter...and it's not fair.

Sleep has become something I think about almost constantly; I can't concentrate on much of anything these days because my brain is occupied with just the simple desire to curl up under a light duvet and sleep...for maybe twenty-four hours straight...to feel a breeze lift the hair from my temples in the night is a fantasy that feels as though it might never come true. I haven't been sleeping well because of the weather, I think. Even with the A/C on full I'm just not comfortable enough to get a proper night's sleep. I go to work and doze through patient conferences; I sit in meetings at the hospital and with a coffee in one hand and my head in the other, just think about not falling asleep while we sit and talk about drug trials and medication management. I feel feverish and nauseated and tired all rolled into one -- and it has lasted too long to be the flu. It's terrible, this fatigue...it's bone deep now and I would scream, but I honestly haven't the energy.

Last night...or rather early this morning, I lay in bed, having slept for about three hours, and had this waking-dream. I was dreaming that it was raining. Pouring rain. It was streaming down the casement windows in my bedroom and pounding on the deck of the balcony. It wasn't one of those dainty, light, pattering rains, but rather a relentless, noisy rainstorm with inch-diameter drops that when they hit the glass in the windows I thought they might break them. I lay there, smiling, feeling the breeze that accompanies all rainstorms lift the hair from my temples and bring goose bumps up on my arms. My skin was no longer hot and flushed with the heat, it was feeling cool and smooth from the breeze coming in from outside. I felt so relaxed, lying there for a few minutes and actually believed it was happening.

I got up and ran outside and lay on the grass in the court yard behind our apartment building and let the sky open up and just rain down on me. I lay there, in the wet grass, with the moon shining on my wet skin, the water making a mockery of my pajamas, my auburn hair tangled all around... The rain hit my face and ran into my eyes, making false tears of joy? of love? of sadness? I'll never know. It washed over my body with reckless abandonment and cleaned away the sticky, hot, tired feeling, leaving me with just enough energy, when it was over to crawl back up stairs and back into bed, wet, cool, rejuvenated. I lay there, thinking about everything. How sad I've been lately. How tired I've felt. This helped...it helped a great deal.

Of course...it was only a dream. There was no rain. I suppose I'll have to settle for a this gorgeous, cool, light Thai Salad with Sesame Tofu...

"Now you've listened to my story, here's the point I have made:
Chicks were born to give you fever, be it Fahrenheit or Centigrade
They give you fever - when you kiss them, fever if you live and learn
Fever! - 'till you sizzle, what a lovely way to burn..."