THE HOTTEST SUMMER EVER IS COMING TO AN END

Here I go, groping for something besides the heat to write about. Gotta admit, it is getting cooler. Dropped down to low triple-digits. That’s the sort of madness that gets you when you live in Phoenix. 

I’m waiting for news from the Writing Front. Something else that will burn away your brain if you let it. Best to get distracted. Hey, what’s that over there? A squirrel? A meteor? A desiccated tarantula? That long, lost monsoon? Are those clouds? Did I just hallucinate a raindrop hitting my arm?

And then, I get an email with an attachment. It’s the final manuscript of my story collection, Pancho Villa’s Flying Circus & Other Fictions (I’m starting to think of it as Pancho). This is starting to feel real. Looking it over is an impure pleasure.

Looks like I’ll be able to point to this book when people ask, “What have you been doing with your life?”

Actually, it’s just the tip of my iceberg, what people can see from their own personal Titanics.

It sure has been a long, strange trip.

Then I had a day when I was trying to get back to my mom about a tune she heard while on hold with her doctor, the computers at work were acting funny, I found a lizard that was both desiccated and flattened (I put the corpse in my wallet and carried it around all day), I got a royalty check, Facebook removed some of my content and I couldn’t tell what it was.

Did a certain ex-president just show signs of imminent unraveling? Or is it wishful thinking on my part?

Fortunately, Phoenix was at the outer fringes of Hurricane Hilary’s reach. It clouded over, cooled down to the double digits, and now and then some light sprinkles messed up the windshield of mi troque.

Are my new glasses ready yet? How close to x-ray vision will they get me?

Somehow, things aren’t feeling apocalyptic, but that may just be me.

The day after the hurricane, it dried out and the temp shot up. Back to the new normal.

New normals come more often these days. Like future shock or something.

Finally, my new glasses came. Almost as astounding as the cataract surgery. How many years was I walking around in that fog?

I sent my corrected Pancho to my publisher. Hard not to get excited.

Suddenly we have what will probably be the most bizarre election campaign ever, rearing its hideous head.

Why not? It’s tarantula mating season. There’s weird shit in the air.

And the killer heat is back, with a vengeance.