No matter where you go...

There you are.

James Lileks has had just about enough of Minnesota weather:

I left Fargo for a reason, after all.

But of course you’re running away from yourself when you do something like this, right? Well, no. Wherever you go, there you are. But at least in Arizona, you’re warmer, and CRIMINEY JUDAS I’m tired of being cold all the time. You oughtn't be cold in May. I walk outside to the gazebo – can’t sit down, the seats are wet – and I can see my breath. Which is nice, because it means I’m alive. But still.

All I know is that I’m coming to the end of a line, somehow. All I know I don’t want to die in a place where you can’t wear shorts in July. It’s 54 degrees here right now, and 95 in Scottsdale. The forecast here: cloudy and 10 degrees below normal into June. The forecast in Arizona: sunny and hot into the 29th century. If I spent my days in an office I might be less peeved, but even so I’d be ground down by the drizzling weekends, the panic that a cold July brings, the sense that winter is ready to slam the hand down again at the earliest possible opportunity.

As they say, read it all...

I was struck by this bleat, first because of the feelings that I expressed in my posting from a couple of days ago: In some ways my daily life is like a vacation. Secondly, I was struck because I left the desert southwest for the damp, gloomy Pacific Northwest.

Until I left home, I had never experienced seasons before, just the cool time (November to March) and the hot time (April to October). The cool time means that it gets cold at night, and make no mistake, night on the desert can get COLD. But it was normal for children to run outside with our Christmas toys on Christmas morning and play in the mid-70s sunshine.

The hot time needs little explanation, just a reminder of the Santa Ana winds. Refer to the works of Raymond Chandler.