As the temperature rises, memories of comfort fade from mind. The pedals whirl and spin and my legs under my pants' cinched cuffs begin to sweat. I drag my bicycle and myself up a low hill flanked by rows of tall and swaying corn, the wheels humming across the baking asphalt, moving swiftly and quietly across the Pennsylvania countryside. It is half 3 in the afternoon and I am returning from getting my new photo driver's license at the DMV in Gettysburg. Having taken main roads on the way there, riding in the breakdown lane next to semi-trucks and speeding drivers, I am returning on country byways. Safely back home, I can feel the dehydration settle into my bones. The next day I use a muscle-powered push mower to trim the lawn, once again working in the afternoon, once again sweating through a number of t-shirts, afterward aggressively hydrating using electrolyte tablets and copious amounts of hot tea. The day after that, I trim my septuagenarian neighbors' hedge and cut down some of their bushes, chipping the cut pieces with a gasoline-powered chipper, once again sweating entirely through my clothes. Today, friend, today I've really felt it, the major muscle groups aching through my 2 hours of personal yoga practice and subsequent hour of teaching, the fibers and tendons gearing up for more manual labor this afternoon, another hedgerow to trim and gather and chip. Yes, oh yes, things are heating up.
mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥
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