I had like a million different ideas for something more interesting to write about that just whatever random shit I have kicking about in my web browser, but I neglected to write them down, and they were consequently blown out of my brain when my hay fever kicked in with a vengeance today and made me sneeze so hard that I, for real, saw stars.

So hello there Summer. I know you don’t officially start for another 16 hours or so, but apparently you decided to send a huge whack of allergens my way as tiny demonic heralds, just to remind me of how complicated my relationship to you has become over the years.

Basically, I like the summer, but it does not not like me back at all. It’s a highly abusive relationship, really.

I have a number of factors that make summer a trial for me. First off would be the aforementioned hay fever. It has varied in intensity over the years, and for the most part it has gotten weaker over the years that have passed since that one terrible year, when I was in grade 11, where my hay fever become so severe that I would start sneezing in the middle of a sneeze.

That shit shouldn’t even be possible.

But it happened. Instead of “a-choo!” I was sneezing “a-CHRK-ah-ah-ah-CHK-CHT-CHRK” and so on. And it didn’t even have the courtesy to wait until summer proper so that I would at least be out of school and able to doctor myself properly. Oh no. It attacked in late May, not long after my birthday on the 19th, and had me as its bitch from then till after the end of school for the year.

So I don’t know how many times I had these massive sneezing fits where it sounded like I was gonna die on the spot when my whole reddened face popped like a massive, angry zit. So not only was I in histamine horror hell, but I was acutely embarrassed by suddenly becoming the highly unflattering center of attention in my high school classes.

A number of times I had to leave class because class could honestly not continue with me sneezing my head in half so loudly that it caused other nearby classes to come to an abrupt halt.

Fun bonus fact, it’s very hard to negotiate the relatively short distance between your classroom and the boy’s bathroom when your eyes are half swollen shut and awash in tears (another part of the response) and you are seeing spots in front of your eyes from how hard you are sneezing.

Thank goodness, it’s never been nearly that bad again. If I had to go through that every year, it would have driven me right round.

Since then, it’s faded over the years. That, combined with getting into a position where I could get enough antihistamines to last me through the worst of it, has made it way less of a problem than it was that terrible month or so way back when.

The other major factor that makes summer so hard for me is the heat. Heat is bad for all fat people. You see, the heat generated by the human body goes up as a cube function as mass goes up. Every cell of your body generates a certain amount of heat simply as part of its metabolism. That is what it means to be a warm blooded animal. We are self-heating.

The problem is that we get rid of excess heat by radiating it into the world via our skin, and that is a function of how much surface area for skin our bodies have, and that only goes up via a square function as your mass increases.

In other words, you don’t get more skin at the same rate as you get more heat-producing volume.

So the fatter, the hotter. That’s why us fat people are sweaty. Our bodies are frantically trying to get rid of all that heat and just can’t keep up.

But I have another factor that makes heat bad for me : an inherited predilection towards heatstroke. My Dad has it, and so do I. So heat does not just make me feel too hot, it makes me physically ill. Headache, ringing in my ears, nausea, dizziness, sometimes confusion.

I can usually keep it in check by aggressive hydration, but it’s still always there.

So summer is a difficult time for me because of my health.

And yet, I still love it. Sunshine and blue skies always make me feel good, even when I am only seeing them out of my bedroom window while I type. I love the more relaxed attitudes during the summer, and the move to the beaches (I love beaches!), and of course, ever since childhood, summer has meant fun.

And even though I have been unable to participate in much of that in recent years (something I plan to try to try to change, by golly), I still love the summer.

I guess it’s true… when you love something, you love it forever, even when it’s not even smart to do so any more. I love the summer, even though it hasn’t loved me back in a long time.

Maybe I can change that.