I am trying to imagine how folks in Arizona, heck, even Sacramento are alive in 115-120 degree heat. Here in our town it has been about 103, which is the hottest temperature I've ever lived in. Nineties used to feel blazing to me. Now, when I step outside into a a solid wall of heat and must drink water every ten minutes to keep from feeling as if my throat is made of steel wool, I understand what the hundreds feel like. You can probably tell by my kvetching that we have no air conditioner, except up here in my office, since it's upstairs. And inside, with wall to wall carpeting throughout our place, I'm thinking it must be closer to 105. 105 is the temperature that, if your child had a fever that high, you'd be praying.

My former home town of San Rafael hit 108. It broke a record. Not since volcanos were cooling has SR ever seen 108, nor have I in all of my nearly 32 years of living near there. And all this on the heels of Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth (which I must confess I have not yet seen), and Bush's denial of all things global warming, and I just can't help but laugh in a "well, the joke is on us" kind of way. These temps this year are already hotter than last year. So shit, people, it's here. It's real.

And for the first time really, I'm scared. I mean it. Add to that the horrific situation in the middle east and I have my first intensive dose of mortal panic. I feel afraid for us humans right now. I really do. Whether our political/religious ideals do us in, or the sun does it for us, I wonder how much longer we've got left.

Right now, I'm using reading the way some people do drugs, to escape, to deny realities, to push away from my fear of what's to come.