Historically, summer has certain characteristics that carry over from year to year. American kids don’t go to school, for one. Tourists tour. And it’s supposed to be hot outside. This year, I’ve seen the campers, the out-of-state license plates. But I haven’t felt the heat.

In Wyoming, where it snows six to eight months a year, it’s imperative for my well being that I get good and hot for a few months. The first four years I was living here, it routinely hit 100. One hundred degrees of lovely dry heat. It worked like a charm!  It got so hot for so long that I was excited for it to get cold again.

Here’s the rub: Without a decent dose of mind-melting heat, how am I supposed to be grateful for freezing temperatures to return?  This year I am seriously lacking the will to get through the winter.

I know it’s been similar all over the country. My friends back home tell me about breezy days that should be sweltering. It’s not all bad, not having summer. But it’s not all good, waiting for the leaves to fall off the trees again when I only got to wear shorts twice, either. Maybe August will bring those third-degree sunburns I’m craving….

This afternoon, while on my daily, draining five-mile run, I happened upon an iconic  fantasy: a young woman washing her car in a white tank top. The teenage boy in me got excited. I flashed to the movie Wild Things.

Then she turned around.

This woman looked nothing like Denise Richards! Not only was there a dearth of suds, there was no female friend to help her lather up in just the right places. Worse: she simply didn’t have the goods. Until today, I couldn’t imagine a universe in which ANY female wouldn’t be worth a second glance in a wet, white tank top.

Friends, that universe is Sheridan, WY.

Naturally, this is far from my first experience with a movie/real life disconnect. For starters, my senior prom was no final scene in Sixteen Candles. Nobody has ever played a boom box outside my window like Lloyd Dobler. And I’m still waiting for some hot Dracula to bite me on the neck and turn me into a sexy whore of a vampiress. Truly, I am. But today’s car wash was disappointing on a whole other level. The fantasy seemed so lifelike.

Now I’m going to be forced to re-examine even my seemingly “realistic” fantasies. Such as: making the audience fall in love with me one karaoke evening. Or being able to afford a maid. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know vampires don’t exist. But hot chicks with hoses and sponges? Is that really too much to ask?

…don’t answer that!

Apparently, some drivers in Sheridan, WY can’t distinguish between “dry road” and “wet cement.”

So that’s what those BRIGHT ORANGE SAFETY CONES are for!

Just imagine the expression of the road crew members who have to jackhammer her out….

Is there a dumbass award for soccer moms? (Or is the white mini van enough of a gimme?)

Thanks to Mark Taylor for the photos.

Well, now I’ve seen everything:

“Winner gets meat, hide and head.” Wow. Just–wow.

Well, it looks like Wilbur has had his revenge! If you buy into the fear machine, “the other white meat” is poised to eradicate humanity from the globe.

Personally, I find it strange that the State Department has been trying to keep Americans above the border, issuing travel restrictions, instilling fears about the drug trade and now–suddenly– there’s a major health threat coming from Mexico.

Hmm.

Conspiracies can be quite fun when theyevolve to the level of pandemic! At least this one isn’t killing people at the rate of the CIA’s AIDS. Swine flu is fairly minor, all things considered. But to make up for its lack of actual toxicity, we have plenty of soundbites warning of the disease’s dire return this fall–ie, the time most Americans would want to go back down to Mexico–once the summer heatwave burns off.

As you can see, rural Wyoming isn’t terribly concerned about the source of the sickness. The man and I visited the Johnson County fairgrounds yesterday and discovered their exhibit hall–hilariously behind the times.

I don’t sleep well. More specifically, I wake up a lot in the middle of the night. Yesterday, I casually mentioned my sleep “issues” to a friend. The context was caffeine. In my mind, the conversation went something like this:

Me: I quit caffeine for awhile. (Shudders.) I don’t sleep well. I need it to wake up.

Friend: I needed it, too. Once.

Me: Well, good for you! I really need it.

Friend: No, you don’t. Quit now, you caffeine junkie! Do you know how much money you could save without those two cups of needless coffee each morning??

OK, that’s not how it went down at all. In fact, I think she just nodded sympathetically. I supplied the subtext-as-dialogue in my own mind. Because I feel guilty about consuming just about anything, lately.

There’s something about parsing down my diet–and my lifestyle in general–that greatly appeals to me. If someone tells me they can fit their entire apartment into the backseat of a VW bug, I’m jealous. I don’t think “Wow, no furniture? And you’re forty years old?” I go straight to “How cool, you can move in the middle of the night!” And then I go and buy myself another pair of jeans I will probably not fit into by next next week.

I don’t know if it’s the global economy, several stalled attempts to pay off credit cards, my desire to fit into tiny sizes, or, a combination of all three. But I like the shrinking process. Shrink my debt, my needs. If I could hook myself up to an IV and skip eating entirely, by gum, I’d do it. Maybe I could get a virtual yard–then I could save time (watching my husband) mow. Or a wig that never needs combing. Or a colostomy bag….

By the way, the recommendation I really did receive for poor sleep was to take a shower with alternating hot/cold bursts. It’s supposed to be rather effective, actually. I believe it. Sounds like torture. Freezing cold water? The body processes any sleep it gets as a fabulous alternative!

I’ve  lived in Wyoming long enough to notice some patterns. One of the most recognizable is in the way the state likes to present itself. Yes, the state as a whole has a persona. Most do, I suppose; we just don’t think about the smaller ones all that much. But picture New York, California or Florida: Did you see guidos, beach blondes and blue hair in your mind’s eye? Maybe it’s just me….

The west feeds off of its cowboy image. There’s ruggedness, independence and history in that archetype. Picture the Marlboro Man, minus the lung cancer. Lately, though, the western hero has been redefinied on the airwaves. If you will allow me to use Sheridan as a microcosm of the whole, here goes. Within five minutes of tuning into any of our local radio stations, you are guaranteed to hear one of the following pop artists, none of which fits the old west image:

1. Pink. The punk/pop princess is the new independent spirit of the west. Or something. Her song “Sober” is on just about every hour. Does this mean WYO has a desire not to drink? I doubt it. But they certainly have no problem with a liberated woman on the radio. Score one for the Equality state.

2. “Paralyzer.” Finger Eleven’s purported club song, if clubs were made up of, say, all white people. Maybe Sheridan really wants to stay up late and p-a-r-t-y? Unlikely, as we don’t have a place to dance within 200 miles. OK, I’m not counting Scores, the bar at the Holiday Inn. I will never be able to accept locals going to a hotel in their own town on a Saturday night. Never. I went there once, three years ago, and still feel ill from the sight of fat white people trying to grind on the dance floor. But maybe that’s because clubs weren’t intended to be strictly Caucasian. Nice try, but minus one for WYO.

3. The Plain White T’s. Admittedly, I’m naive about radio’s source of revenue. But my theory is that in Sheridan, every dollar is presently coming from the Plain White T’s label, manager and possibly the band members themselves. They’re on CONSTANTLY. And they only have two singles! Now, the music itself is sweet, charming, catchy and cute. So there we have it, the new musical archetype of the new west: harmless.

Personally, I would prefer to go back to something that sounds the way Jack Palance looked. Grizzled, full of wisdom, tobacco and beef. Now what that sounds like, I have no idea. But I’ll know it when I hear it.

And knowing Sheridan, I’ll hear it over and over and over….

We’re going on damn near two weeks of winteresque temps and grey skies, here. Now, that may seem like nothing to write home about for the denizens of, say, the entire state of Oregon, but in ordinarily sunny Sheridan, WY, tempers are running high. I can tell, because the nice old ladies with their crucifixes prominently hung around their necks pause for an extra beat before smiling.

Personally, I hate the color grey. It’s not black, it’s not white. It’s not rain or snow–but it’s not NOT rain or snow, either. Overhead, the color grey holds a promise of something awful. Or else it merely threatens all day long, only to release you, perfectly dry, by evening. Which is even worse.

Grey skies are bullies like that.

And after two weeks of drizzle/hail/snow/dry ground I’m barely functional. Put up or shut up, sky! Dump another ten feet of snow, if you have to. But then let’s get on with calendar-appropriate weather. My poor daffodils are poking their heads up, checking out the cloud cover, and hovering half-in and half-out of the soil. They’re terrified. I can tell.

Personally, I think the rush to cure swine flu should take a backseat to a little something I like to call sun seeding. Because combatting grey-sky-induced depression (and its resultant overeating, which leads to diabetes and contributes to skyrocketing health care costs) with good old-fashioned Vitamin D shining from the sky is just as valuable a use of our scientists’ time. Sorry, Wilbur. Curing the spread of your disease simply isn’t as high on my list as wearing my new, red sandals.

Come to think of it, that may explain why no one ever got back to me about my application to the World Health Organization….

Looks like the American princess has fallen from her pedestal to grace the advertisement of a farm supply store:

There are just too many brilliant metaphors here. Do I prefer the juxtaposition of Barbie to Boot Scrubber? Or the not-so-subtle suggestion offered up by her proximity to duct tape? (Along with leather gloves, of course, to hide your fingerprints.) In a single shopping trip, you can purchase West Nile virus vaccine, barb wire, and Barbie.

Congratulations, terrifying vision of femininity, on maintaining your 39-21-33 inch measurements for a half-century.

Too bad you can’t even walk with those dimensions, let alone ride the horse in the ad with you.

Yesterday I caught sight of something that stopped me cold:  I saw three African Americans hanging around the local park, behind the soccer fields. My heart leapt with joy. People of color are moving to Wyoming! In groups! Ordinarily, the only time I see non-whites here is in the summer, when hotels hire Caribbean natives to clean the rooms. 

Unfortunately, the “three African Americans” I saw was in reality a brass sculpture. Of white people.

I’m not even going to begin to blame anything but my failing eyesight for the mistake. In fact, this isn’t the first time I fell prey to a similar snafu–I’m still trying to bury the memory of apologizing to a muscle-bound blue collar sculpture when I stepped on the damn thing’s toe. But I have to say, Sheridan WY is far and away the most sculpture-friendly town I’ve ever lived in.  That is, if you sculpt in brass.  And stick to lifelike representations of, say, a gang of happy folk laughing in the park. A kid catching rain on his tongue. Or a rhinoceros.

I wouldn’t consider myself exactly a patron of the arts, since I only earnmark money in that category to entry fees for writing contests, but I certainly support the arts. In spirit. (Picture a fist-pumping “go, art, go!”) And though I may be the only person in the world to have broken off a relationship in the sculpture garden at the Rodin Museum in Paris, I thoroughly enjoyed everything I saw–even if I’d seen most of it before at the Metropolitan in NYC.

To sum up: yes, of course I like sculpture. But no, I can’t really appreciate it when it’s on EVERY FRIGGING STREETCORNER and it all looks like, well, someone poured a mould of the San Diego zoo. Seriously. It’s impossible to walk past it. People here don’t understand the “dip into the street when the street is too crowded to get past other people” move. So the streetcorners get backed up in the summer, as slow-moving, overfed folk try to finagle past all the brass animals.

It’s overkill. Too many sculptures are–yes, I said it–a bad thing. And I’m not being “sculpturist” either. If the town painted every wall with Monet’s water lillies I would feel the same way. Unless Monet himself came back from the grave and covered up every available space on Main Street from the Beaver Creek Saloon to the Vac-n-Sew with a certain painting of a certain bridge to a certain town named Giverny, I would have to say I come down firmly on the side of “less is more.”

Here’s a concept: let’s build a museum. Then we can house all of our brass in one place. And when it burns down, we could start a foundry! That way, I wouldn’t have to apologize to sculptures, anymore. Or experience my blood pressure rise at the thought that Sheridan might, gasp, be a home to a more integrated population.

I can live with the embarrassment of having bad eyesight. But the disappointment of seeing that I really do live in a white-only world is too much for my poor heart to bear.