In Which Unemployment Feels Like These Hot Summer Days

These summer days move slowly.  Heavy with humidity, the morning dew hangs in the air all day.  Cool, morning showers un-purpose themselves by mid-morning.  As does every moment of my morning routine: choosing an outfit, hot coffee, rolling over in bed to check my email...I have all day.  By afternoon I am struggling against the allure of the couch laid out under the fan.  Afternoon heat-induced naps run counter to my well known air-conditioned office afternoons of summers past.  Those summer afternoons with crisp, cold air that nudges the afternoon quickly along.  Productive, linear, and direct, in sync to the air-conditioner's hum.  Now even those memories hang hot and heavy in the air around me.  I check the weather for a forecast I know I will not find: a break from these hot summer days.