What I Love About Extremely Hot Weather

I feel the tone in my earlier post was, perhaps, a little too negative. So I am going to try to find a more positive tone by enumerating, here, all the positive things I can about living in extreme heat. (Especially since more than one thermometer has now reported that it is 107 degrees out there):

1. It can really strengthen your connection with your body; you sweat in places you didn't previously know you could, which forces you to be very present in your skin. Aren't gurus of all sorts constantly extolling the virtues of this?
2. Feeling unfresh for five days in a row can really help you develop a tolerance for the hygiene-impaired people who are never fresh. Tolerance is a quality I greatly prize.
3. Extreme outdoor temperatures give weight to the long-held (and much cherished) rumor that people can spontaneously combust. What seemed ridiculous when it was merely 95 degrees outside, seems suspiciously possible when it soars to 107 degrees and you're on your scooter riding through walls of flame like a tiny match.
4. If you are afflicted with heat related ailments such as heat exhaustion, headaches, and nausea, or bloody noses, it provides you with plenty of opportunities to practice the art of stoicism. (Notice how I haven't mentioned the stinging heat rash that spread across my neck just after I started this list?)
5. Living in extreme heat can educate you about things you were previously incurious about, such as; what it feels like to be a grain of sand in the Gobi desert; how it feels to be an ant under a magnifying glass on the sidewalk; how a carelessly dropped ice-cream cone feels as it liquefies; what lobsters must experience as you drop them into a pot of boiling water while they're still alive.
6. It can feel devastating when the garden you've nurtured all year shrivels up in one big suicidal mass of brown crispy leaves and petals, but if you think about it, doesn't that provide you with a well deserved hiatus from all the work you constantly put into it? Slow down, relax, and watch other neighbors work their asses off to save their own gardens.
7. It's provides us with a real test of strength and endurance. Since heat like this can actually kill people, if you live through it you can really call yourself a survivor. Heat like this is not for sissies.

I'd like to come up with a couple more things I love about the heat but I'm tapped. This has been a real break-through for me. Now it's time to watch some episodes of "Arrested Development" and try to ignore the rash. Beer will aid me in this effort. I hope all of you have heat rashes too- whoops, little Freudian slip there- I meant beer.