This is the stretch of summer that really gets me. Every morning I wake up our comfortable air conditioned apartment, stumble out of the shower to my desk and check the weather. The long string of predicted highs is enough to make me crawl back into bed until October, but somehow I make it out of my building anyway.

The worst is waiting for the train. Waiting for the bus isn’t so bad because I’m outside and near the water, so there’s at least wind. But far underground the temperature is even higher and the atmosphere so stifling it seems impossible to breathe. It was this kind of weather that drove me to shave my head, once, and remembering the breeze on my scalp makes me want to do it again.

I know that July is supposed to be the worst of it, and the fact that we’re already halfway through July should be encouraging. But August isn’t a very encouraging prospect, either.