The endless weather.

We are supposed to have a "cold front" come in today.

The predicted high for the day is still 105.

No, I don't get it either. If it's a joke, it's certainly not a very funny one.

I think a big part of my distress with this kind of weather is the unchangingness of it. That every day is a carbon copy of the previous one. They could just tape the meteorologist saying "High in the low 100s, heat index near 110, no rain. Don't go outside unless you have to" and send him or her on vacation until mid-September at least.

On the one hand, large unsettling changes upset me. But on the other hand, the feeling that I've somehow fallen into a time warp where every day is a repeat of the previous one bothers me, too. And the weather is one thing I look to for evidence that I'm not actually living "Groundhog Day."

I like rain. I enjoy looking at clouds (Well, we get a few of those...they come and taunt us for a while, and then dissipate). I like some variation in the temperature.

I admit, this is the time of year where I do feel like every day is more or less a repeat of the previous ones. As I walk out to my car in the morning, I ask myself: "Do you still really want to be doing this when you're 60 or 65? Carrying your little bag with your little string cheese sticks and jar of fruit and granola bar, going over to work at a time when most reasonable people are still asleep, working all day, then coming home?"

On good days, the answer is "yes" but on not-so-good days, when there's either an acrimonious or time-wasting meeting, or where I fail to connect with the students, or I have to deal with demanding people, or something, I find myself wondering. Especially when I don't have much time to pursue my "alternate life" that exists outside of work. (I got home after 5 yesterday afternoon. Washed my hair, practiced piano for 20 minutes, ate dinner, and then read several more chapters of the new-prep textbook).

And it's not even, on the bad days, that I so much want to be out of academia...but that I want things to be different somehow. That I don't want to be trucking in after 5 pm on Wednesdays with a full slate of things still to do in the evening...Or that I realize I have to do my grocery shopping at (ugh) 4 pm on a weekday because I can't quite stretch the milk out to last until Saturday morning. Or that I just feel like I'm shouldering so much by myself. And feeling like I'm STILL making it up as I go along.

So, I don't know. I guess a person has to find little things to amuse them.

Last night, on The Weather Channel, they were talking about their new "social networking" stuff and how "everyone Tweets the weather."

And I remarked: "Yeah, but no one ever does anything about it."