June 21, 1997
4:35PM EST

Well, the heat is on. It's breathing in the air, and coughing it back up all warm, and icky and humid, smelling like morning breath and bad aftershave, rotting trash and and exhaust.

Walking through the almost deserted city streets, watching the haze shimmer across the tarmac as trucks trundle by, I feel my lungs constrict and protest at this treatment. Walking into an air-conditioned shop is like being hit in the face with ice-water, suddenly my breathing is easier, the air flows dustily through my lungs and the sweat does a sudden freeze in its trails down my back.

People I cross look dazed, almost ethereal, as if they're not quite there or are only dimly perceived through a thin veil of reality. Everything is too big as distortions in the light make the buildings lean and the trafic light glow balefully, oozily over the intersections.

Coming back up to the office is a mercy of cool air, a refuge from this strange pulsating world that is summer.

Happy Summer Solstice, all.