Homesick

I am having a really hard time adjusting to our new surroundings here in the mid-west. Unlike my friend Dave who is enjoying a paradisical vacation in the heartland of America, my experiences up here in Wheaton are a little different, and I feel like ranting.

First of all, this heat is ridiculous. Sure, Wheaton has nothing on Phoenix. The mercury hasn't gone over about 96 here, but the HUMIDITY is a nightmare. I can't believe what an enormous difference it makes. It's like someone is smothering me with a heavy wet blanket. Every time I step outside it's like someone is sucking the life out of me. It gets to the point where I don't even want to go outside.

What were the settlers thinking when they were headed west? Maybe it wasn't intentional to stop in Chicago after all...the humidity just stopped them dead in their tracks and they couldn't muster up the energy to keep going. That's the secret history of how the mid-west was really settled.

You know things are bad when you are watching an episode of American Chopper from January, and there's a couple of feet of snow on the ground, and everyone is complaining about how cold it is, and yet you find yourself wishing you were there...

But I can’t even enjoy the fringe benefits of a mid-west summer because Chicago is in the middle of a drought right now! So, no thunderstorms, no rain, no green grass, no lightning bugs. Everything is dry and brown and yellow. The sky taunts and teases us with clouds, but no rain. The only places that are green are where obsessive home-owners have been watering their yards day and night.

It’s depressing.

Hot, humid, and yellow.

I miss my home. I miss my friends. I want to go home now.