New Art + Not Living In Tropical Climates

This is my latest artwork, called "Snowbird (In Reverse)".
A coupla things inspired it, the first being that it is 192°F outside and that kind of heat causes me an overabundance of distress so snow pictures calm me down as I hide from the sun and heat inside my wonderfully darkened, air-conditioned house.

The other thing that inspired this piece is that a friend of mine just moved to Florida yesterday...which got me thinking that, although I am happy for my friend whose longtime goal was to move to Florida, I am so thoroughly happy that I do not have to live in Florida.

When people move to Florida, a lot of people will say things like "you're so lucky" and "I'm so jealous".
I know that Florida is the end-all for a great many people.
I used to be one of them.  In fact, for a long time I was a snowbird (someone who winters in Florida) as my parents and I would pack up and head to Miami Beach every January.  I love(d) Miami Beach and when I was younger I was pretty convinced that I would one day have one of those things Florida people called con-do-mini-ums (they hadn't caught on in NJ back in the 70s) when I was old enough.

Then as I got older I realized a few things:

Summer Hell & A Big Life Transition

The past weekend was brutal.
It was consistently at least 172° for the past three days.
That might be a slight exaggeration - but I don't think I'm off by much.
When the weather is that hot there is nothing else to do but sit in the house doing a whole lot of nothing which is exactly what we did.
Well, we also watched the clock a lot - counting down the hours until the weather people said the heat would start to wane - so at least we did do something.
And I checked the air conditioners regularly to make sure they were running fine.




Because of my persnickety lungs, I can't go anywhere near outside when the humidity/dew point gets above a certain point so I hunker down in summertime the way other people do in wintertime.  I also have to take a ton of precautions in summer to protect my lungs so the entire season is mentally exhausting with the amount of hypervigilance I experience worrying about my health.
My neuroticism level - which is usually pretty high to begin with - goes off the charts in the swelter of summer. 

I will never understand the glorification of summer.  It's hot, sticky, and unhealthy.

Needless to say, I spend more time indoors in summertime than in any of the other three seasons.
It's like sometime around May I pull out the two or three outfits that I will wear all summer long which consists of articles of clothing that are at least two sizes too big for me.  As a rule, I cannot feel any kind of constraint or uncomfortability with clothing at any time but that is exponentially worse in summer.  I will melt down and have an actual fit just because my clothing is uncomfortable.


me in summer


Also, I have heavy, thick, very long hair so I also have to make sure that I have an ample amount of hair ties on hand since my hair will be in a high ponytail for the next several months. Heavy, thick hair is like having a wool blanket on top of your head at all times which is of course not fun in summer (but very handy in winter).
So in other words I spend the entire summer season looking homeless.

Then I wait.
And wait. And wait...and wait...and wait...and wait...and wait...
Just sitting around working from home day in and day out not going anywhere waiting for summer to finally be over.

Currently, fall is 61 days away and I am looking forward to getting back to my normal (stylish) self.

In other way more interesting news, after 8 years JP left his job at the dealership