The Dog Days

As I told you last week, I’m going to start taking it kind of easy on Fridays.  Obviously, the columns that publish on Friday aren’t actually written on Friday, but days before; this one, for example, was written on Wednesday afternoon.  But that still works well, because when I travel it’s generally during the week, and the shorter Friday columns are the kind of things it will be easy to put together in hotel rooms, airports or even airplanes.  It’s also really appropriate that I made this change at this time of year; the Dog Days (roughly June 24^th-August 23^rd) are the hottest, laziest part of the summer, and period in which my seasonal anxiety tends to be worst.  Yes, it’s caused by the longer days, so one would expect it would be worst in June and July; however, that’s not accounting for my stubbornness.  I tend to fight mood shifts for as long as I can (which is why I’ve been known to break down weeks, months or even years after a crisis is past); August is when I generally break down and succumb to the mood until the approaching autumn revives me.  So if you look back in the archives, you’ll notice that it’s not unusual for me to feature at least a few short, easy, “phoned in” columns around this time of year; really, the only thing that’s changing is that I’m giving myself permission to do it every week now.