"Hot Town, Summer in the City"

It's July in DC, which, almost any year, equates with oppressive heat. I've chosen to walk the 16 blocks to and from my current gig at the Capital Fringe Festival box office, and while the sun packed all of its rays away behind thick layers of gray clouds for the first two days, and said clouds decided to dump eighty tons of water on us at once on Tuesday evening thereby leaving the temperature in the 70s for the following morning, I opened my front door today on a heat that forced me to adjust my breathing. At the onset, it felt like the air wasn't even moving, and walking on sidewalks meant being blasted every so often with exhaust fumes impossibly hotter than the air I was wading through. Walking anywhere in the summer takes about fifteen minutes of acclimation before one can even begin to feel the slight breeze playing hide and seek in the tree leaves. I saw a bum in brown sweats and white socks sprawled out on his blanket, a chunk of wiry black hair sticking straight up from his head making him look like a giant, sweating Buckwheat.

The city leaves its mark on me in the summer. It either draws sweat out of me slowly like a sponge or quickly brings tiny rivulets sliding down my temples and the back of my neck. It paints the bottoms of my feet black, punishing me for daring to wear flip flops on its hard sidewalks. I wash these momentos off in the shower, watching a kaleidescope of cityscapes and streets swirl down the drain at my feet. As I stand there, I realize the sun, like a soft, masked bandit, has stolen my energy; the theft unapparent until dusk falls, and I realize something's missing. I enjoy this kind of tired. My bones sink into the mattress, and I sleep deep, hard, and oblivious. It's been a day of knowing. And tomorrow it begins again.