The Saga of Fahrenheit.

Actually, this title was supposed to be "The Saga of Temperatures," but then I typed Fahrenheit and had a Deutschpiphany which Wikipedia then soullessly debunked. This is a key reason I take arbitrary offense to the idea of personal computers in the form of cellular phones - 24/7 access to the internet somehow saps the wonderment out of epiphanies such as the one I just had about the word "Fahrenheit" which breaks down into "Fahren" which means to go and "heit" which is one of those handy suffixes that just means "-ness" and here I am, at the mall, realizing Fahrenheit is actually "goingness" and I was blissfully diving through the implications of "goingness" when I Wikipedia'd it and found out it was named after some lousy German guy with a kooky last name.

Lame.

But that serves me right for all the jokes I ever made about places being named after John _____. Like Wilmington, which was obviously founded by John Wilmington in 1877, when he crossed the ocean on a fleet of mermicorns (which are unicorns crossed with mermaids yes Meredyth if you are reading this I am still drawing those sad limbless amalgamations in the margins of my notebooks), that promptly went extinct once he disembarked at a seaside bodega selling gnarly boards and overpriced ice cream over at Wrightsville Beach. John Wilmington was smitten immediately by the pristine meteorological chaos of the place, which is why he gave it his name.

Fact: None of the above is true. Also fact: Some kindly North Carolina family is right this moment flipping through the Thomas Kinkade catalogue. Also also fact: I am a terrible employee. Also (cubed) fact: I don't really give a hoot.

Technically it's autumn, but today, as I drove the arduous mile-and-a-half to my place of work, here at the mall (did I mention I work in the mall), the temperature on Shoji's dashboard read 79. Does Central New York ever reach 79? No. Does this affect why I love it here so much? Absolutely.

I woke up with a mission: to ride my bike. I've veritably skyrocketed up the ranks of bike-riding prowess until I can now - wait for it - ride a whole hour without perishing. This is huge! Soon, maybe, I will actually be at a level of efficiency where I can go real human places on my bike, instead of winding around the neighborhood making all the traffic angry and basically behaving like I am an eight-year-old who just got her training wheels off. So I woke up, and it was a lovely day out, all blue skies and mild temperatures, and I calculate - if I drink this coffee within the next hour, I should have ample time to commandeer the neighborhood, make it home, change into my faux-gallery-owner clothes, and be at the soulsucking mall right on time.

Unless it starts dumping rain. Which it did. Which made me go: "NOOOOOOOOOOOO." A noise not dissimilar to what I do every time we find a brave cockroach, who, my mother insists, is the "outdoor kind" so he's probably just adventurous but I still kill them with vigor and relish. My mother, incidentally, was once described by my friend Ariel as thus: "She's a very sweet lady, but 'with it' are not words that come to mind when thinking of her." My mother will also be here on Wednesday. Expect eye-rolling disbelief to follow.

So Rob, from the other room, declares, "It's supposed to clear up!" Which is truth, not just optimism, and this is one of the reasons I realize my aversion to personal computers in the form of cellular phones is so arbitrary - he was reporting, live, from the satellite view of his handy-dandy Weather application, or "app" as all the hip kids are saying these days.

And lo and behold, it sure did, and I raced out of there and spent a glorious sixty minutes barreling over speed humps and running into curbs and flying down sudden unexpected hills and have I mentioned I am in love with that bike? I am. And vicariously the fellow who gave it to me who is (as we speak!) preparing a dinner that he will deliver and devour with me here at the mall. Did I mention I work in a mall?

Yes, this post is only about the weather. But the weather here is alternatingly stupendous - today, getting rained on, then getting dried off, then rained on and dried off again in the course of one bike ride - or sluggish, as when it just rains and rains and rains. But I will take rain, thank you. After all that snow, rain is magical.

Also, Rob and I have had burritos at Flaming Amy's twice in three days. I am not ashamed, for two little words:

Salsa. Bar.

Here are three more:

Peach. Ginger. Salsa.

And one last one, just to drive the point home:

Salsa.

This could be a goddamn haiku!

Stay tuned, friends and frenemies, for the following: my mother's visit, why visiting writers are kind of always awful and how I will someday eat that statement alongside my hefty slice of humble pie, why there is a God, the meaning of life, etc, etc. Promises.