it's already too hot to breathe today
I stopped to talk with two of the little girls who live down the block, and the one wearing the glasses and the pale blue headscarf (I think she's the eldest, and I know there's a better word than "headscarf" for the type of clothing I mean, but it eludes me) called over to a third, who was busy running through the sprinkler on their lawn, to come over and "look at this woman! Look at her! She's really, really pretty!" Two seconds later, she said almost the exact same thing about a Rottweiler who was being walked on the other side of the street. It was excellent. I think everyone involved was really, really pretty, including the little girls, who had quite different faces-- one squarish, one round, one pointy like an imp's-- apart from their eyes, which were all very wide and very big and very dark. This is one thing that makes me assume they're all sisters, though I don't know for sure. I am even willing to extend this prettiness to the Steve Buscemi-looking guy on the other end of the Rottweiler's leash. (After all, I know there are people in the world who think Steve Buscemi is hot as anything.)
It's 101 degrees Fahrenheit, and the temperature is supposed to get up to 106 on Friday. That would be relatively normal for summer in the South, but it's unusual for Pennsylvania. Humidity-wise-- well, you know how sometimes the air gets so moist that you feel as though you're in danger of drowning when you step outside? Yeah. The nights are notably cooler and drier, actually quite pleasant. It's extremely like the usual weather in Swannanoa, now that I think about it. Last night I split an ice cream bar with my mother and got brain freeze for the first time since I was in middle school.
And it's probably a topic I've ranted about before, but this article about Miranda July reminded me of how skewed I think the U.S concept of what constitutes maturity/adulthood vs. immaturity/childishness tends to be. Listen: maturity has nothing to do with liking only stories meant for adults, liking only activities meant for adults, suppressing your imagination and creative impulses, keeping your emotions subdued or private, embracing conformity, getting married, having children, having sex, moving forward with a respectable career. I'm not saying that all, or even any, of those things are (necessarily) undesirable, bad, or wrong. I'm just saying I don't think they make people grown up, really. I suspect that growing up has a lot more to do with acquiring wisdom, bravery, humility, and compassion such that a person can more or less consistently make carefully considered choices that are good and right for them, and good for-- or at least not harmful to-- the life around them as well. Obviously, that definition is more vague and more difficult to meet; I don't think I know anyone who is really grown up like that, and only a handful of people who even come close to it, and I'm certainly not one of them myself. I definitely do have a problem with arrested development in a lot of ways-- but those ways are not (as some have suggested) my love life, my dress sense, my interests, my way of speaking, or my tendency to get disproportionately, visibly enthusiastic or depressed over things that seem trivial to most people. If you put me in a suit, make me change my major to Business or Engineering, and tell me I can't blow bubbles or use "totally" as a modifier anymore, it won't do a thing to make me, say, more considerate of other people and less likely to accidentally hurt them by behaving impulsively. (I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a consumer capitalist culture would have a definition of adult maturity based almost completely on a.) economic productivity, and b.) the products one buys and the media one views and the way one brands oneself, though, right?)
It's a great article, all that aside! I agree with so much of it, and I learned a lot about Ms. July that I hadn't known before. It's just that seeing that bizarro definition of "mature" and "adult" go unchallenged as a definition always annoys me; the debate seems ever to run that a person or artwork isn't immature because the definition (imaginative, emotional, playful, etc.) only fits on a superficial level, never that the definition (of immaturity) itself might be incorrect and irrelevant.