All I do is learn

Boy, this Indiegogo campaign of mine has been an education. All I do is learn. And then DO. And it all seems to involve writing and linking and joining and opening myself up for thousands of poorly-written pitches from people wanting to boost my campaign for me by doing everything I've already done, and charge me anywhere from $30 to $100 for it.

It is all consuming. And it's been amazing, because learning is good. But . . . We all need a break from me! I need a break most of all!

So what I am thinking about today is Summer. Summer and how I desperately need to make peace with it. I don't do well with heat and humidity, I don't like most bugs, and I'm not a fan of tornadoes and hail. Funnily enough, I'm also not a huge fan of snow and bitter cold and dangerously frigid wind. But this is where I live, with two brutal extremes sandwiched between two wonderful transitions, one of which appears to be completely over now. So much for the gloriously temperate, excitingly verdant, flower-bedecked Spring. Now it's on to the deadly hot, unrelentingly humid, drought-tortured/flood-prone days of Ugh.

According to our brilliant Julian calendar, the first day of Summer is this coming Saturday. But according to my eyes and my ears and my skin and my internal clock, Summer has been ramping up since about May Day. I prefer the old "Mid-Summer Solstice" designation. It really is the height, the apex of the season, where there is no going back, no more unseasonable cold. It's just hot now. And once in a great while it rains. A lot. And then it doesn't for ages.

The acclimation period used to be a little gentler, and it made all this seasonal back-and-forthery more bearable. But there is no acclimating to temperatures that actually kill people on a regular basis, especially when a week before the actual onset of actual summer, we were tempted to turn the furnace on at night. It's like, "beautiful-perfect-beautiful-perfect-beautiful-perfect-beautiful-perfect-DOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!" And then just when you think to yourself, "Iowa sucks, this is stupid, I'm outa here, I'm so hot, I'm just done, I can't take any more," Autumn happens, and once again you're simply swept away by the sheer beauty of the place. And you think, "How could I ever leave this paradise? Look at that blue sky, those red and orange and gold leaves, smell that brilliant, crisp air!" And then just when you think maybe Old Man Winter is gonna bugger off this time, "DOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!" And it's bone-crushingly, tear-freezingly, snopocalyptically cold before you can do anything about it.

For months.

And then Spring happens . . .