Heat wave.

Once again, it's as hot out as the brass handles on the gates of hell. A murky soup of carbon dioxide and humidity is sitting over the city like an overgrown hen on an undergrown egg. It's ugly and suffocating and there's not even the whisper of a breeze to blow things around. Foreboding cumulus clouds are as motionless as giant islands. Even the Puerto Rican doormen--many of whom eschew air-conditioning as a reminder of their island's climate--were edging ever closer to the Carrier.

Raymond Chandler wrote about a different kind of heat this way in "Red Wind."

“There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.”

Maybe it feels that way now.

Maybe my wife, or my art director, is feeling the edge of a carving knife (an expensive full-tang German one) and looking--longingly--at my neck.

Well, let them look.

It's hot out.

It's late.

And I have work to do.