Gnats

08.21.07

The temperature has finally heated up in the city of Chicago, so much that it feels like you’re living in the tropics during monsoon season, and every day threatening to rain hard with endless humidity that makes you feel like a dog had just licked you all over with their sticky, slimy tongue. Each morning I attempt to go for a run to beat the humidity and the on slaughter of the late afternoon showers. Each morning I fail miserably and end up running in the evening’s much loved, humid weather. I end up with bugs stuck all over me which are swimming in all the sweat that can’t evaporate off of me. It’s worse when they start to crawl around your skin and move around your face. You end up picking them off of you while you run and then wonder how many have fallen into your hair. They must be walking about, laying eggs in there. Your scalp starts to itch perhaps by your own imagination of gnats possibly making love with each other using your hair as bedding material. You can’t seem to keep them off of your face and no matter how many you pick off, there will be another bunch that lands on you in a few minutes. There must be a huge platoon nesting in your hair by the end of the run. I swallow at least one each time I go running or accidently inhale one up the nostril. I can't call myself a vegetarian. I have to start all over again.