Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend Me Your Rears

Because this climate is kicking mine.  Kicking my ace.  So hard.

It's just so dry here.  I feel like I'm being dessicated.  You know those little packets of silica gel that come in a box of new shoes?  They are stamped, "DESSICANT - DO NOT EAT."  I feel like I'm living inside of one of those packets.

Idaho was pretty dry compared to New Jersey (but everywhere other than the Amazon Rainforest is dry compared to New Jersey, really), but so far Utah has taken me to a whole new level of parched.  I feel like if I lay still for long enough, cacti will sprout from my pores.  A tumbleweed rolled past me just now as I am typing this.  I am in my living room.

Once upon a time, I had extremely oily skin.  We're not talking typical greasy-faced teenager.  No, we're talking Exxon Valdez.  Like, I would hug a baby animal and someone would rush in to wash it off with dish soap before it could be safely released.  Like, my face was its own emirate in the United Arab Emirates.  Like, Daniel Plainview tried to erect a derrick on my forehead.  Let me be the first to acknowledge that I was an aesthetically repugnant adolescent.  The only solace I found in looking like I was using Crisco for foundation was that I was probably going to be the very last person my age to develop wrinkles.

Over the past couple years, I have gradually grown closer and closer to being a normal person (which closely coincides with the recent dramatic rise in oil prices, for which I apologize).  Then the desert happened.

Overnight, I went from pleasantly hydrated to "dry-rotted suitcase on the floor of Death Valley at noon."  And it's not even just my face.  No matter how much lotion I apply, or how much water I drink, I feel like my outsides and my insides are quickly turning to dust.  I have never in my life been ashy prior to living here, but if I don't lotion up within 15 seconds of showering, I practically grow scales.  My sinuses are so dry that my boogers have boogers (you're welcome for that visual).

On top of all that, running any respectable distance in nearly impossible.  One mile in, you feel a little thirsty.  Two miles in, your lungs begin to shrivel and your esophagus burns a little with every breath.  Anything beyond that, and you can forget about ever feeling happy about anything ever again.  No matter how much water you drink during or after this run, you will feel like you're hungover.  Your poor tender brain will throb against your bare skull; the light will stab your eyes like a thousand flaming ice picks.  You may even throw up in your mouth a little.

You would think the one benefit of this aridity would be not sweating even in hot weather.  You would be wrong.  Somehow, humidity and I got along just fine.  It was like my body and the air reached a state of homeostasis.  I didn't need its moisture, it didn't need mine.  But here.  Here it's so different.  The air is all, "Hey, you using those water molecules?  Cause I kinda don't have any sooo, yea." 

Dry air is so awkward and passive aggressive like that.  The point is, though, the air seems to draw moisture out of my body in the form of sweat.  It's not even that I'm hot, it's just that the air is sucking every drop of water from my body and using the surface of my skin as an evaporation staging area.  It's gross.

So, thanks, Utah, for turning me into a sweaty catcher's mitt.