Dust N Bones

Phoenix sucks when it comes to clean air.

Why? We live in a Valley (hence the name Valley of the Sun). So, we have all of these emissions from cars and buses that get trapped in the city. In the morning you can clearly see a brown haze over the city. It's disgusting.

Ten years ago when I first lived to Phoenix, we would have these killer storms. They would come in and wash away the pollutants and remove the thick coating of dust on the cars, sidewalks, etc.

But Phoenix has gotten so big that it creates this immense bubble. Why? Phoenix is nothing but concrete, very few trees--even for a desert city--so all of the concrete and trapped air creates intense heat. In the summer monsoon months, storms that come in from the south have a difficult time breaking through this bubble. Another byproduct of urban sprawl.

So, for people like me who are allergic to everything, it's very difficult to breathe. My two steroid inhalers and pills are no match for the city. I've got to move within another year or two or else I will become one bloody nose after another (a byproduct of the inhalers).

So why am I bitching? We've just set a record for no measurable rain. Here's the Republic's little writeup. So on top of not being able to breathe, I'm terribly dry. My skin is peeling everywhere. I wake up and my hands are a chalky white, my legs are scaly as are my face and head. It's disgusting. So I carry a little bottle of lotion and continually apply and I drink lots o water but it's just not enough. If it doesn't get any better I'm going to Costco, buying a vat of lotion and filling up my tub with it. I'll lay there for an hour or so. I bet my body is so dry that it'll suck up the entire tub's worth of lotion--no messy cleanup!