SPROING!

...or, a New Englander complains about the weather (and other meaningless pursuits).

Finally, Summer has arrived. It's been a long time coming, but we at last have some decent weather. And not a moment too soon. I feared I would lose my mind...or at least, what there is left of it to lose.

Any psychiatrist worth his degree can tell you how weather affects our mental health, and this summer has been, so far, one of the worst on record. Certainly the worst one I can remember. It's been nearly two months straight of rain and misery, with the barometer not going much higher than 60 degrees. A tough thing to deal with in JUNE. Especially after the long cold Winter we've had. I mean, I was READY for Summer, man! I was ready for it to be over, and to be able to venture out into the warm sun (and get my pasty Irish skin burned, but that's a whole nother post), and ...and DO THINGS outside. But alas, it was a crappy Spring, cold and damp, and May and June were equally bad. I'm talking Mary Shelley bad. I'm talking Lord Byron bad. I'm talking, "nothing to do but down some absinthe and laudanum and tell each other scary stories" bad. And I was almost there.

Because this Winter was, for me at least, about more than just the weather. This was, quite literally, a Winter of Discontent. This was me struggling to find gainful employment, and struggling to get myself out of the rut of depression and malaise I found myself in. The weather was not cooperating, and that just made the whole thing worse. Spring is, by tradition, the time of rebirth. The time of starting anew. And there just wasn't a lot of rebirth happening. It's hard to get yourself started when the seasons don't seem to have their hearts in it.

But now that July has rolled around....well, Summer seems to finally have come around. To the point where I got my first sunburn of the season this weekend (hooray), and my allergies have returned with a vengeance. At least, I HOPE it's allergies. After visiting the Tall Ships this weekend, I have a fear in the back of my mind that I've contracted some kind of horrible sailor's disease. If my flesh starts to fall off, I intend to write a strongly-worded letter to Sail Boston.

So...Summer is here. Yay. Time to get myself in gear. And stock up on sunblock and antihistamine.