why summer is not my soulmate.

So, this is the moment in the year when people start gushing about the fun, early phases of their relationships with Summer. They can't shut up about Summer, how dreamy he is and how long they've waited for him, and then they go and display sloppy, nauseating PDAs all over the place.

I don't blame them, really. I can see the appeal. See it, but definitely can't feel it. Summer and I have this strained relationship where he is the little brother who follows me around and smothers me the minute I sit still, and I just put up with him and wait for him to get bored with me, because I'm too nice to yell at him to lay off with all these other Summer-lovers around, ready to judge me up and down for not liking summer.

This is the norm for me, but this week at work is amplifying it because the two-story, 100-square-feet reception area I work in is the only section of our building that has inexplicably decided to go on strike. The summer air in every other office area is whipped into submission, but in mine it's allowed to run amuck. Or, not so much run amuck as plop down and unpack its 18 suitcases all over the damn place with no regard for anybody else's personal space.

I'm told the landlord has been called to evict the insensitive punk, but in the meantime I sit in the 81 degrees and perspire. A lot. And what's worse is, I get sleepy. I'm sure I sound a little bit drunk when I answer the phone. And you can only cut back the layers of clothing so much before it starts to get problematic.

Maybe it's the time of year, but today the sitting and perspiring and the buzzing of my wee fan brought back some vivid memories of elementary school. I spent 1st through 4th grade in an ancient, dank, prison/labyrinth of a school, complete with desk-and-chair combos with seats worn shiny by thousands of squirrely kids' butts. Boys had to wear slacks and girls had to wear skirts at this school, and the feeling of sweaty legs sticking to those wooden seats will forever live in the corner of my brain that also houses The Trumpet of the Swan, times tables, cursive, and phonics. Going to school was always just a hair more impossible when you had to sweat the whole day long, knowing summer break was just within reach.

Now, when I'm sitting and sweating, instead of wanting to eat a popsicle and climb a tree and ride my bike around, I just want to take a nap.

Okay, I'll still take the popsicle.