It's raining in New Jersey. Night-time low temperatures in New Jersey don't go down as far as San Francisco's daytime highs. I've got Dire Straits' live LP playing on the turntable and it sounds great. Stereo systems sound better in houses than in apartments for some reason. I'm clipping my fingernails with the special Japanese clippers that have the sides that prevent clippings from flying all over the place. You can get them in San Francisco, but I don't know if they have them here. And I'm thinking about Nebraska.

Nebraska - where I got out of the truck at a rest area and felt Summer for the first time in eleven years, with the possible exception of two Summers I spent in Bangkok. The humidity was high, the light glowed as the sun set, there was a smell of something burning in the distance, the interstate buzzed, there was a river flowing by, and I kept swearing I felt mosquitos on my arms. It was glorious, it was Summer, and I swooned. I bought a can of Mountain Dew from a vending machine and felt it going down my throat.

For eleven years, the weather was. . . nice. A placid little microcosm where if you could tolerate a few minor idiosyncracies, it was perfect. No humidity, no extreme heat or extreme cold, rain isolated to a few months in Winter. It got old, man. Save it for Eden. Summers should be sweltering, Winters bitter, things should change, complement, dichotomize.

Never once in San Francisco did I buy a can of soda from a vending machine and feel it refreshing and cool down my throat.