Tone

August has been the month of emotional trainwrecks, shifting suns, vegetarianism, organic frustration, and forgotten attic treasures. And on top of that, I am in dire need of a haircut and my camera has been quietly whimpering in its fluffy skullhead bag for me to take it out and let the sun shine on it. I could happily scratch an obscenity in the new paint of an Escalade, just so I won’t feel as though I am the only one having a bad month.

I get like this every year before autumn digs its heels in. August has always been the month during which every day feels like the whole world is checking its watch impatiently, sick to death of the heat of summer and aching for shorter days and frosty mornings. The leftover picnic supplies, flipflops, and oscillating fans of summertime look nothing but sadly bedraggled, tired and disdainfully unwanted in the clearance racks of every single store I go in, shoved aside in favor of bright, shiny new school supplies and colorful backpacks. The honeybees know they are short timers, and get angry and sting-happy. The traffic surrounding me on my daily forty-five minute drive home from slaying the dragon carries with it an extra edgy sense of impending danger in the glint of sun reflecting off of hot, dirty window glass. I am tired of wasting gas to run air conditioning only to end up chilling the front of my business casual while my back is still sticky with a day’s worth of sweat. People around me are exhausted from trying to cram a year’s worth of desperate fun into three short months. I am sick to death of hearing the word vacay.

The whole damn thing just reminds me of that last quarter-inch of milk in the fridge that no one wants because it it is the day before it expires yet no one wants to throw out quite yet either. So it sits there, waiting for someone to make a decision.

The end of summer feels like the death of hope. Every freaking year. And the worst part? I detest summer.

Oh, lovely dissonance! You are back again as you have been every agonizing year since I reached self-awareness somewhere in the stone age of the ’60’s. Except back then, I was usually just derided for being overly emotional and shoved out the door to have some desperate childhood summertime fun of my own, surrounded as I was by those who couldn’t feel the shifting of the sun from its summer axis to its winter axis. Or, if they could they didn’t seem to react to it the same way I did. Hurry the hell up, autumnal Equinox. I would like to be able to find my bearings again and be able to think without the overlay of fiberglass insulation surrounding my brain.

This time of year also finds everyone around me rife for lifestyle changes made desperately while one eye glances casually over at christmas. The holidays. They are a-coming. Like an insane, derailed freight train they are.

I quit eating meat two weeks ago. It still feels unreal, as though I merely read about it somewhere instead of having made the conscious decision myself. Vegetarianism has made several appearances throughout my life, usually when I am nearing some breaking point or other. Somehow, my mind sees it as a form of completely acceptable self-punishing behavior more socially welcomed than cutting. I will refrain from drawing a direct comparison to modern organized religion.

Synesthesia sucks sometimes. Anger feels like red sandpaper under my fingertips. Happiness, like the frothy, refreshing wake of a passing ship. But this weird void? It feels exactly like a flat piece of smoked glass, cold and featureless and obscured.

I can’t decide if it is terribly late, or hideously early.