I Forgot What it Felt Like

Today in Texas, thousands panic, cars pull over to the side of the road, children run shrieking mad through the streets in their underwear as something that could be describes as "wetness" falls from the sky.
The cracked earth coughing dust through a hoarse throat hisses as the first drops hit, long-dead grass, brittle as glass and sharp as cinder, sucks in the moisture as I wonder if it's too far gone to come back.
It's been months, months of a hostile sun at full intensity with no rain, no rain, no rain.  By day, a pitiful cloud or two would appear every once in a while to create the illusion of shade for a moment, and it was even worse when night fell and it was still hot enough to sweat through your shirt.  In essence, Texas has been an electric stove coil for the summer, with a cruel god manning the controls.  Each day turned the burner on High heat, until the coil glowed an angry molten orange, and at night, with just a slight turn of the dial to the left--click--the burner was turned off just long enough to turn dark for a moment, but not long enough to be safe to the touch.  Then dawn came--click--and with a slight turn to the right, it was on High again.  Every day, I have been doing the summer blacktop-pavement dance on that coil, lifting my feet gingerly with each step and wishing somewhere there was some son-of-a-bitch responsible for this for me to give a piece of my mind to.  But there isn't, not a single one anyway, so I cursed the sun and Texas instead.
As I drink my coffee and regard this storm, a driving rain ricochets at a 45 degree angle off the street, a lightning bolt snaps down from somewhere high in the sky and booms like a felled tree, a stiff wind jars the chime next to me so hard it almost hits me in the head, and I remember what rain feels like.  I remember cool nights and green grass, things alive and lush, hooded sweatshirts that smell of bonfires and morning dew, and for a moment I'm homesick for Michigan.
The rain has stopped and everything is still brown, dead, and dusty, only now it is wet brown dead dust.  The wildfires still burn.  It's going to take a lot more than this, a monsoon, for things to be green again.  The moisture will all evaporate by evening, and I dread the approaching humidity--I can already feel the air sticking like a viscous goo.
But it's a start.  Maybe there will be more rain to come, less heat, greener times where days reminds me of  life.  The sun is out now, and I'm trying to look on the bright side.

Exhausted

I try to live life to the fullest, as trite as that sounds.  I try pursue activities that are conducive to a singular consciousness: reading, writing, fighting, playing piano.  But is it possible to do all of the shit I want to do, accomplish all that I'd like to, while constrained in the American work week?  The answer is no, it isn't.  I know this, for I've measured it from alarm to alarm:
7:40am: Alarm rings.  Getting ready for work consumes over an hour a day.  Keep in mind how it adds up: 5 hours a week, 20-ish hours a month, 240 hours--10 days--a year.  Mindless brushing teeth, showering, tying shoes, eating breakfast.  Maintenance activities.
9:00am-5:00pm: Work.  8 hours.  Although I appreciate what I do and maintain a positive attitude, if I had a choice between working and being able to do whatever I wanted, I wouldn't work, and the odds are neither would the majority of folks.
5:00pm: Ah, the school bell rings.  Freedom to pursue my intellectual interests for two hours; yes, that's right.
5:30-7:00pm:   Time for physical activity (sedentary lifestyle is not an option), namely MMA class, three times a week (the other two days are consumed by either weights or yoga).  Here is singular focus: I'm not thinking about anything else when I have to dodge a punch to the face, or when I'm trying to figure out how to pass someone's guard without getting triangle choked.  I'm not contemplating that I'm going to die some day, because I'm living in that very moment.  And if I'm not focused, if I'm thinking about some bullshit that frustrated me at work that day, there is immediate feedback in the form of formidable physical discomfort: true mind-body unison.  I'm tired at this point, but not tired enough, and I need to have good conditioning if I'm going to fight well, so...
7:00-8:00pm:  The River.  I wash off the sweat and sometimes blood, I swim upstream until my heart gets tired, and I float.  The evening sun sinks behind the cedar trees, I sit in the grass and breathe.  If I have a thought, I write it down.  If not, I'm content to unwind from the day and let my mind drift to wherever it may.
8:00-9:45pm:  Driving home, cooking dinner (I'm starving), doing dishes, showering, using the latrine, doing laundry.  Similar to when the alarm went off in the morning, these are all maintenance activities, adding up just the same.  The clock ticks away.
9:45-11:30pm- "Free" time, in quotations because time is never free.  Within the limited amount of "free" time I have each week, I'm fighting fatigue, depressive mood swings, laziness, boredom, existential crisis, and although I've eliminated TV from my weekday life entirely, the internet can be just as much of an attention-span quicksand.  It's too late for coffee, I just have to suck it up.  These two hours are spent either reading, writing, practicing piano, or getting distracted from doing those things.  On the one hand I'm physically and mentally exhausted, and it's very easy to find something to space out on for this time.  On the other hand, I feel that I fail to realize the day's potential if I'm not doing something self-enriching.  Things that have recently been bumped from these two hours: memorizing Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven, learning Spanish, practicing French...
11:30pm-12:00am-Between this time, I'm brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed.  Every minute that passes now is less time I have to sleep.  If I'm going to be in any kind of shape to tackle the next day, I need as close to eight hours as I can get.  From waking up in the middle of the night to piss, or tossing and turning, eight hours in bed is probably closer to less than seven hours of sleep.
7:40am- The alarm rings.....
I'm happy if I'm self-actualized, and if I'm constrained, I have to make do with the best I can.  To me, happiness is ethereal, something to be pursued and never quite grasped.  Contentedness is for the indolent.  So this week, I got a second job.  This seems counter-intuitive to the purpose of outlining the importance of using time on this earth to the fullest, but if the purpose of that job is to save money to get out of Dodge in January on a sailing trip through the Caribbean...well, I'm more than happy to be an ant for some time so that I may be a grasshopper for the rest of my life.
Pass the fiddle.