Only the truly fabulous can look good when it's 104ºF in the shade

I generally try to keep a moderately cheery demeanor. Even on days when I’m forced to get up before, say, 10:30 a.m. or when the taxes haven’t been completely totted up and yet the single malt seems to have run out already. But when the thermometer sneers at me menacingly and I open the door to a whack of devil’s-breath heat, that’s it, I’m fried. The only saving grace is when I can retreat to the AC with unladylike speed and lounge around vegetating until my respiratory system and my hide recover and my bifocals turn back from the instant Spy-vs-Spy black they dive into as soon as the relentless rays stab at ’em. I’m grateful for the latter, mind you, as opposed to ocular cauterization, but there is a much greater lag on the return to clear-lens visibility, so why not just lie down until the emergency passes anyway? Perhaps it’s a natural consequence of sliding toward geezerhood, like so many other talents and skills I’ve been developing.

I’m trying to develop a metaphorical exoskeleton, to fend off the stuff that, like high external temperatures, is relatively escapable and inconsequential. So far I haven’t found the technique for making myself completely impervious to external woes, let alone those generated within, from personal crochets and peccadilloes–or are the latter, now that I live in Texas, armadillos?–to hot flashes. But I still fancy the idea that it should be possible to get past, through, and over the junk with which the rest of the galaxy opts to bombard me. A girl can dream . . . .