Summertime.

Summertime in Arizona makes me feel mildly insane. It's not just HOT in Arizona, it's fucking disasterous blazing madness. Even more insane is all the silly people who move to Arizona because of out 'beautiful weather'. I have news for these people: 120 degrees is not beautiful weather, it's what I set an oven on to heat up rolls for dinner.

120 degrees is so hot, that standing outside on pavement, you can feel the bottoms of your feet starting to toast and sweat just drizzles down the small of your back.

120 degrees is so hot there's almost no point in even getting ready in the morning, since the walk to your car alone is done at 95 degree temperatures (at 6 am), and by the time your car cools down to comfortable, you have sweat so much you look like you just lost a wrestling match to Chinadoll.

120 degrees is so hot, that at night it never really gets a chance to cool down, so going outside on a breezy evening is akin to stepping in front of a giant blowdryer set on 'hot'.

It never fails to amuse me how 'foreigners' to this desert land tell themselves it's 'not that bad' and 'it's dry heat, so it's fine'. My friend and I were having this conversation today about her parents, and how they are from the midwest, but recently moved to Arizona. This friend lived here for 8-ish years. She knows better than to believe the hype. And yet, her mom insists on telling her 'Oh, 115 is not so bad. We're rather enjoying it. And the WINTER here is beautiful!'

People. PEOPLE! A mild winter (which, really, by midwestern standards could scarce be considered a winter at all) is NOT a fair trade for summers that start in April and last through October...sometimes November. It's not fair trade off for deodorant melting in your car when it falls out of your gym bag (or, in my case, when you slept in too late and tossed it in your work bag, to be applied while driving the madness of the I-10). It's not fair trade for 105 degree midnights and 95 degrees at 6 am. It's not a trade off for needing to drink 8,465 ounces of water a day to stay hydrated, only to discover you should probably be drinking more since you just realized you've only peed once all day. It's just not, people. And it's insanity to pretend it's ok and 'not that bad'.

What puzzles me even MORE is that people move to this hot ass desert, and I cannot figure out the draw. We're 36th in indicators of child wellness. We're 51st in providing summer food to poor children. Our education system is topped in shitiness by only a handful of states (we're one of those states that's always saying 'Thank god for the South!'). We give less money per student to public education than nearly every other state in the union, and we've got the low-wage labor force to show for it. AND, on top of all this, SUMMER HERE LASTS 6 MONTHS AND IS AKIN TO LIVING IN A GODDAMNED KILN!

Midwesterns: heed my warning. Don't move here. Just don't. Cuz I give you 2 summers, 3 max, before you're bitching about the heat like a local. And, on top of it, you people are always the ones lamenting how 'people in Arizona don't know how to drive!' when we all know PEOPLE IN ARIZONA WHO DON'T KNOW HOW TO DRIVE ARE YOU!