I need sun

I may not have mentioned this, but I grew up in the Mid-Atlantic East Coast. Now I live in an area that has more than 300 sunny days per year. Those other 65 days are problematic.

One of the reasons I never moved back East was this weather issue. I'm stunned when people tell me that fall is their favorite time of the year. Fall? Are you kidding me? This is the time of year when daylight comes to an abrupt halt, nights are cold--and eventually the days are, too--it gets windy, and worst of all, it rains. Outside my window right now it looks like something from an Ingmar Bergman film. The sky is grayish white, it's kind of dark for late afternoon, it's cold and damp and raining that pissing, misty, no-windshield-wiper-setting is-right kind of rain. Back East, this pretty much describes the entire second half of October and all of November. I used to threaten to rip the November and March pages off the calendar so those months could be eliminated completely.

Fall as a favorite season. Is this some kind of Martha Stewart-esque idealization of misery in hell? Everything is already dead or dying, people. It rains. It's dark when you wake up in the morning and dark when you leave work. It is the kick-off of carb-loading season.

I need sun. I need warmth. I need long days. I think I need to move to the Caribbean. Only eight months until the summer solstice. Not that I'm keeping track.