Personal Interlude: "The Hour That Polymerizes"

You think you know things that drag on and on and on? Try listening to stories about Dallas summers.

Okay, so we’re now in the first week of July. In North Texas, this means that summer not only is here, as it’s really been here since the middle of May, but now it’s established. Most realistic assessments suggest that the heat and sun finally start letting up by the end of September, meaning we have about 85 days of the same weather forecast: hot & sunny. Every day, as the comedian Bill Hicks used to complain about Los Angeles, hot & sunny. By mid-August, you’re sick of reading or hearing the weather forecast, because that’s only the halfway mark, and if we get an autumn like 2016, the heat keeps going all the way too the beginning of December. Those living in more arctic or antarctic latitudes may love the idea of a break in the relentless cold, snow, and ice, and we welcome you in Dallas to walk around on Christmas Eve without parkas or moonsuits. It’s just getting through about eight months of blasting glare and heat from the big yellow hurty thing in the sky that’s the hard part.

The problem isn’t just the heat. It’s the monotonousness of it all. As of this coming December, I will have resided in the Dallas area (with the exception of four months in Tallahassee, nine months in northeast Wisconsin, and 18 months trapped in Portland, Oregon) for a solid 45 years. I moved with my family from Chicago, where the last of the snow from the famed Blizzard of 1979 finally melted off at the end of August, just in time to slam into one of the hottest and driest summers in Texas history. Strangely, inexplicably, every time I leave, I find myself drawn back: Appleton and Tallahassee because of economic realities, and Portland because I knew I wouldn’t live to see 32 if I stayed any longer. (There are people who won’t shut up about how great Portland is, and how everyone they know should move there. These are the same people in horrible marriages who nag their unmarried co-workers into tying the knot so everyone else can be just as miserable as they are. These people are not to be trusted, because they’ll move back in with their parents after you’ve found yourself stuck in a longterm lease in an apartment in a building that should have been condemned a month before it was built.) Every year since, it’s been the same story, with a massive buildup on how “this is going to be a hot one,” it’s a hot one, and then five minutes of relative quiet before worrying about the next summer. And it’s so blasted monotonous.

Every year, without fail, the newsfeeds from local TV stations do the same reports on “mailbox bread,” where allegedly people’s mailboxes get so hot that one can bake bread in them. If not that, it’s reports on cooking scrambled eggs on the hood of a car in afternoon sun or on exposed pavement. No new recipes, nor confirmation or debunking as to whether or not it’s actually possible. And it’s so blasted monotonous.

Every year, it’s the same mantra: “It’s HOT.” Every conversation starts with “It’s HOT.” If you’re wise, you go grocery shopping in the very early morning, and not just because your freshly purchased ice cream turns to soup in about two minutes at noon. It’s because of the retirees who come to the store and hang out until dark every day solely to accost customers with cries of “It’s HOT” over and over until they get a response. On Saturdays, the front of a Kroger or Tom Thumb looks and sounds like a pterosaur rookery from all the reptilian squawking, and if you can get in a word edgewise, asking them “So you usually get snow flurries and sleet in July around here?” goes right in one ear and out the other. And it’s so blasted monotonous.

(To be fair, because Dallas gets dangerously dry in the summer, we’re spared that deadliest of weather comments. Shortly before moving to Dallas, I watched a guy at then Marriott’s Great America outside Chicago get beaten into the ground for repeating “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity,” and it should be a testament to the basic live-and-let-live of the Chicagoite character that everyone in the amusement park didn’t surround him and kick him to death. Of course, I also picture this guy tapping the EMTs on his ambulance and telling them that a few times, and they promptly open the door and tip his gurney into traffic at 55 mph. These things should happen more often.)

This being North Texas and not the Atacama Desert, we occasionally get rain in the summer. This is not particularly unusual, and in fact it’s happening as I write this. Sometimes we get short but intense thunderstorms, known locally as “gullywashers,” and occasionally we get hail as well as rain. However, since so many of my fellow Dallasites apparently augment the long-term memory of a mayfly with a diet of tasty lead paint chips, they look at the first splashes of raindrops on the windshield as an affront against God. Not only are they shocked that liquid water is falling from the sky for the first time in our planet’s history, but they’re even more shocked that they might have to stop watching videos while driving and pay attention. On the bright side, at least the rain is coming down in the summer while their kids are out of school: in another 60 days or so, that sprinkling starts a lemming wave of dolts driving over medians and through ditches and across multiple lanes of oncoming traffic because “I have to pick up my kids from school!” is Texas’s weather version of “I gotta get the bread and milk!” And even this is so blasted monotonous.

And then there’s the repeated mantra of how nobody will go outside for local events because it’s too hot. And the mantra about how the only good thing about August is that the local Michael’s stores put out their Halloween merchandise. And the complaining about the power grid, and complaining about recommendations on thermostat settings, and complaining about having to water house foundations because we were hubristic enough to build concrete slab foundations in an area with minimal rainfall atop clay as much as ten meters thick. And the constant surprise that squirrels sploot instead of pant in severe heat. And the constant surprise that when the humidity drops, wasps and bees rush to swimming pools for water and our big palmetto bugs rush indoors, also looking for water, and that buying a Venus flytrap from the local Home Depot won’t magically wipe out both. And the incessant reminders for people that shouldn’t be trusted with Pet Rocks that bad things happen to dogs and cats left outdoors without a sufficient supply of shade and water. The only thing everyone doesn’t repeat is the very serious issue with summer seasonal affective disorder, but that gets in the way of the monotony.

Is there a good side? Why, yes there is. Dry nights mean outstanding stargazing, particularly moongazing, as those with telescopes are glad to demonstrate to one and all. We’re out of the range of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. For those fond of wildlife watching, setting out a big bowl of water brings in all sorts of critters, ranging from lizards to opossums to foxes and even to roadrunners and bobcats. (I saw my first roadrunners in 11 years while on a morning bike ride last week, both determined to outrace me.) It’s a perfect time to close the blackout curtains, grab a book, and get caught up on reading. It’s a great time to learn the art of ice cream making. Oh, and it’s a great time to go grocery shopping at 5 am, when the shelves are stocked and the squawking pterosaurs are at home dreaming of dinosaur blood. Best of all, enjoy the heat, because in five months, your coworkers and neighbors are going to be complaining about the cold.

Shameless Plugs

One of the advantages of living in Dallas is knowing about so many of the little places: the spots that make this place worthy of staying. Expect this as the first installment of a long, long list:

• Beyond the Bar: longtime readers already know that I cannot drink or smoke, although I’m glad to be the Designated Driver for those who do. While Dallas thankfully isn’t to the level of Appleton or Green Bay in alcohol consumption, there’s still a dearth of places to go and things to do in the evening that don’t involve multiple margaritas, and those trying to quit or cut back on drinking discover what they’re really craving is the socialization. That’s where Dallas’s best alcohol-free bottle shop comes in, and not just for its brand-new lounge. I personally recommend the Drømme: for the first time in my life, I understand the appeal of cocktails, and sitting in the back yard at dusk to let the cat get his evening perambulations is even nicer with a glass of Drømme Calm on ice.

• Maple Leaf Diner: A Canadian diner in Texas? You betcha. Not only does the Maple Leaf have the best Belgian waffles this side of Toronto, and I don’t say this lightly, but you really want to try the best Texas food fusion out there, the chicken-fried steak poutine.

• Curiosities: As of this summer, I’ve known owner Jason Cohen for a solid third of a century, and his eye for the stranger things in life makes every trip to Curiosities (formerly Curious Garden, right up the road from the Dallas Arboretum) a surprise. He and his family recently took over the space next door to the original Curious Garden and expanded, including a new outdoor space in back, and they’re getting ready to take over the garage on the other side specifically for automotive-themed antiques and curios. if you’re tired of beige and Pier One surplus in your decor, hie thee hence.

Want to get caught up on the St. Remedius story so far? Check out the main archive. Want more hints as to the history of St. Remedius Medical College? Check out Backstories and Fragments. Want to forget all of that and look at cat pictures from a beast who dreams of his own OnlyFans for his birthday? Check out Mandatory Parker. Questions, concerns, and disgust over generative AI? Check out Contact, Privacy Policy, and AI Policy. And feel free to visit the St. Remedius Medical College Redbubble shop for all of your Mandatory Parker needs.

Dallas Personal interlude summer