I'm almost desperate for rain. I'm like a lawn or a wilting pepper plant. Every day in the DC sky I watch anemic clouds a-cruising by. It's like looking up at the stubbled stomachs of malnourished cows bumbling morosely overhead. There's a vague sense of potential in the air, the kind of ozone hum you feel shortly before a summer storm, but the sky stays dry as old skin. You can feel the deepening thirst of everything on the earth around you.

It's not so much a physical drought -- curling leaves and brown grass -- as it is a sense that nothing has been washed clean in far too long. Not heat, but a haze of colorless dust slowly obscuring the world. Above, the ugly clouds bear their meager rain off to luckier places.

In such bitter days, few joys compare to playing with a running hose. I have to keep the tomato plants that I put in the front yard well-watered, nourishing them through the mild shock of transplanting. I put my thumb over the end of the hose and make various spray patterns in the airspace over them. Sometimes I shoot a single spout straight up and then try to dodge the drops on the way down. The body can believe for a short moment that this is the rain it wants. The garden, dumb to all but its base needs, is completely fooled by my fake rain. Such is the danger in being ruled by your physical desires. This is probably how God feels, standing over us with his celestial hose, dousing us with what we require.

Come Fly With Me

A month or so ago, I was interviewed by a reporter at the weekly entertainsitution Washington CityPaper in reference to an entry I wrote about the postmodern altruism scam currently being practiced in DC. I talked to the reporter for so long that Susan began to wonder if I was going to start dating her. Being interviewed for a real publication was positively terrifying. The emotion I experienced was probably similar to the way everyone else I know feels when I mention them here.

Alas, my luscious quotes didn't fit the timbre of the story, so I was omitted. But the writer said she'd checked out my Tales and invited me to pitch a freelance article to them sometime. So I just sent them an idea, about couples who swing in the DC area. Not swing dancing, which (thanks to the Gap commercial with its pre-Matrix 360 cam effects) is so annoyingly in right now, but mate-swapping. My theory is that swinging is enjoying a new renaissance, as youngsters who saw their promiscuous years squashed by the fear of AIDS go in for a kinder, gentler sexual adventurism that doesn't preclude having a spouse, career, kids and house. The folks at CityPaper sounded intrigued, but advised that I have to dig up the local angle.

This is a subject that, frankly, I know almost nothing about. But I find swinging to be somewhat subversive -- a finger poked squarely in the eye of the notion that monogamy is the basis of stable relationships. I have a definite prurient interest in exploring the mentality, although not much desire to actually go undercover, as it were.

Just after sending off teaser to the paper, I was sitting on the front steps having a beer with Marxist economist neighbor Sara and sharing my idea. Incidentally, in my lovely town it's illegal to sit in your own front yard and consume demon drink -- an elderly lady in the neighborhood was recently fined for sitting out drinking an afternoon glass of Chardonnay. We enjoyed our mild act of civil disobedience directly across from the local police station, which surprisingly did not send out the shock troops to apprehend us.

Sara was positively entranced by the idea, and I took the liberty of suggesting that she and her husband put an ad in the paper and become my moles in the swinging movement. Sara seems eager to be tempted into the devil's work. Her husband may not appreciate my input on this matter, but she shows a clear penchant for any number of temptations that I find quite reassuring in new friends. And, since I currently lack any potential interviewees for my article, I saw the potential for a mutually-beneficial symbiotic relationship. I doubt anything will come of it, but encouraging others into acts of distraction is always an amusing pastime.

If you swing in the DC area, send me an email. Confidentiality, you may be surprised to note, is assured. Help start the next sexual revolution. You have nothing to lose but your chastity.