Humidity
What signal did the otherwise dormant katydids receive this past week notifying them that it is time again to awaken and take up occupancy in DC? They are out in droves, he noticed, perched in the elms and dogwoods along Wilson Blvd, hunkered down in the oak trees of Farragut Square Park, and ensconced, he assumed, in the balance of DC's ample greenspace that he never sees. The infernal chorus, which lasts somewhere between 5-20 seconds with intervals of roughly equivalent length, no doubt shocks tourists as it did him during his first summer here two years ago. At that point, his body was still grasping for equilibrium with the punishing mid-Atlantic climate. He was trying to determine the sacred ratio all DC-ites who manage to live and work here year-round seem to know: how much exposure/in what type of clothes, multiplied by a coefficient for level of exertion = a relative level of comfort in this ambient extremity?
The katydid chorus only seemed to add to the unbearable weightiness of the mid-Atlantic summer. Every time he went outside, he felt as though he was laboring under an additional layer of atmosphere. Humid air was tangible but in a passive, unsolicited sense -- it touched him. A ubiquitous, spectral force, roving about the District and environs like an indiscriminate plague, it enveloped him and performed an impressive sleight-of-hand: somehow, it coaxed moisture out of him, forcing him to become his own intrinsic source of discomfort. Breathing the air was as difficult as moving through it - only half of what he inhaled felt lung-worthy, as though he was missing gills he should have received several evolutionary iterations ago. Add to this the sonorous rattle of the katydids, and the DC summer completed its metamorphosis into a languid hell on earth.
Eventually, after weeks of experimenting, he changed certain behaviors (he stopped wearing wool, started standing on metro escalators, and stopped run-walking around town) and determined that he could survive until fall, if barely.
The katydid chorus only seemed to add to the unbearable weightiness of the mid-Atlantic summer. Every time he went outside, he felt as though he was laboring under an additional layer of atmosphere. Humid air was tangible but in a passive, unsolicited sense -- it touched him. A ubiquitous, spectral force, roving about the District and environs like an indiscriminate plague, it enveloped him and performed an impressive sleight-of-hand: somehow, it coaxed moisture out of him, forcing him to become his own intrinsic source of discomfort. Breathing the air was as difficult as moving through it - only half of what he inhaled felt lung-worthy, as though he was missing gills he should have received several evolutionary iterations ago. Add to this the sonorous rattle of the katydids, and the DC summer completed its metamorphosis into a languid hell on earth.
Eventually, after weeks of experimenting, he changed certain behaviors (he stopped wearing wool, started standing on metro escalators, and stopped run-walking around town) and determined that he could survive until fall, if barely.
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