Heat Wave.

((here))

Feels like 112. That's what my computer has been telling me before I walk out the door in the morning, but Alabama heat is more than just a temperature; it is a presence:

• "... like walking through gauze or inhaling damaged silk." — Pat Conroy 
• "... like an obscene phone call from nature. The air - moist, sultry, secretive, and far from fresh - felt as if it were being exhaled into one's face. Sometimes it even sounded like heavy breathing." — Tom Robbins (Jitterbug Perfume) 
• "Summer in the deep South is not only a season, a climate, it's a dimension. Floating in it, one must be either proud or submerged." — Eugene Walter (The Untidy Pilgrim) 
• "Somehow, it was hotter then. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon after their three o'clock naps. And by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frosting from sweating and sweet talcum. The day was twenty-four hours long, but it seemed longer." — Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird) 
• "Mississippi (or the south) is like my mother. I am allowed to complain about her all I want, but God help the person who raises an ill word about her around me, unless she is their mother too." — Kathryn Stockett (The Help) 

 Sweet, southern summer. My hair sits on top of my head allll afternoon long, like tangled bramble, and I end the day eyes-closed in an ice-cold shower til I'm covered in goose-bumps. That'll keep me just cool enough to fall asleep under the humming fan. How are you beating the heat?