I thought that with summer (think beach, cocktails by the pool, lazy readings, and if you're French, diabolo grenadine[1] or demi-pêche[2] at a café terrace) I would have more time to blog.

Wrong!

When I am not busy with my teaching assistant duties (preparing discussions, solving the homework, answering mostly stupid questions ten times in a row, grading), I focus my energy on this paper that might eventually be coming together after eight months of nothingness. I run a few extra experiment (with the added trick that I haven't run any of those in over a year and I get easily confused), and I fret over figures. Oh, figures! The gap between a good, interpretable, significant figure and a publishable figure with the axis and the contrast between the colors and the respective sizes of all the components just right is a world of sorrow I have a hard time crossing.

So less blogging. And less reading. And less relaxing.

But still the time to wonder, after a Sunday spent at the Fabulous Feline's new place: how many couples break up over air conditioners? How many women end up throwing dishes around because, really, having to wrap yourself in a blanket in summer is getting absolutely unbearable? How many men wake up in the middle of the night, astonished to see that the woman who usually never does it simply stole all the covers of him ‒ and sleeps with a blissful smile of revenge on her face? How many women simply get the hell out of here because it is at the very least warm over there? How many men have to face with increasing irritation the shrilling voices of their otherwise reasonable and affectionate sweetheart, repeating in an higher and higher pitched loop that bloody 75F is not a fucking acceptable temperature when one wears the goddamn short skirt and freaking light tank top one is damn well entitled to wear without a blasted extra sweater when it is sodding blazing hot outside?

Being cold because of a bloody air-conditioner might make me a little cranky, you see.

Oh, you noticed?

Notes

[1] lemonade or fizzy water with pomegranate syrup

[2] blond beer with a dash of peach syrup