It's Too Darn Hot

I'm sitting in a Palestinian cafe, with an iced latte and my 70oz water bottle (yes, embarrassingly, I've become that guy... No, not because I regularly work out.). And it's too damn hot outside. I can't remember a summer without a heatwave. For that matter, I also can't remember the last Christmas with snow. Physical resilience to the heat is one thing, and the nostalgia of summers with green grass and fresh air is another.

I'm lucky to be living in Chicago, because although it hasn't turned out to be the "climate haven" that the Great Lakes have long promised (as it turns out, heat domes like dome-ing here), we do have a lake, which in of itself is truly great... Especially when paired with a lakefront path, lined with beaches and dotted with doodles. Arf.

The heat feels oppressive. Still, summer mornings spent slogging along the lakefront running path remind me of perhaps the greatest use of free will: jumping in the lake. The realization that one can simply go into Lake Michigan resulted peer pressure from a select group of cold-plunging friends (they know who they are...).

Not to sound dramatic, but cooling off in Lake Michigan on a hot, humid day offers me a runner's-high equivalent. It's not just physical euphoria, but spiritual transcendence. It's the kind of buoyant feeling that I'll be nostalgic of if/when I must move away from Chicago. It's the perfect use of free will.

Except for my mom when she soon visits, whom I will force to join against her her free will.