Everything's better here where it's wetter? I just don't see it.

I dislike humidity. Spent most of my life out west. Idaho, eastern Washington, Montana, North Dakota. Don't get much humidity in those places. Dry is the word of the day. Here though, in Massachusetts, it's damp. Even when it isn't raining, it's damp. The very air is wet. You can practically wring the water out of it. Sometimes, you can almost see the air moving, because there's so much moisture in it. Sometimes, you feel like you're under water, like you're living on the bottom of the sea. Everything in the house is damp - the clothes, the sheets, the upholstered furniture. The bath towels never completely dry out between showers. Wooden furniture is sticky where the humidity lifts the varnish off of it. Even I feel wet. I shower, and by the time I'm drying my feet, my head is sweating again. When it's hot, the humidity makes you feel even hotter; when it's cool, you feel clammy. The cloth covers of my books are starting to mold, as is my wooden tool tote that I've had for years. There's mold under the eaves of our roof, and - I swear - on the inside walls of the house. Or maybe it's just dust stuck in the moisture that is constantly on the walls. Whatever the case, it's yucky. And it's all playing havoc with my asthma - got me wheezing like an old steam engine. Next spring, we're investing in a whole-house dehumidifier to suck all of the damp out of the air - inside of our house at least.

Oh, but I do miss the dryness out west. I never had to worry about mold out there, and my asthma was non-existent. I could breathe. It was so dry out there that lumber that hadn't been sufficiently dried in the kiln would shrink and crack after you had built something with it. And instead of buying dehumidifiers to take the moisture out of the air, you had to get a humidifier to put moisture back into the air. And lotion was your best friend and constant companion - you were forever slathering it on to keep your skin from drying out and flaking off. Still, I prefer that to sweating in air conditioned rooms because the humidity level is too high. These days, I dream about the dry air of the west. Of those brisk, cool mornings, the hot, dry days with the sun riding through the azure sky, the chilly nights when the mercury drops to 55. You could work like a horse and your sweat evaporated almost as soon as it reached your skin. Those were the days. Perhaps that's why I've been dreaming of New Mexico lately - it is dry there.

But now, for economic reasons, I'm stuck out here on the east coast, breathing water, swimming through the damp air that seems to swirl around me when I move, praying for days when the humidity drops below 50%, and I can have a modicum of relief from the soggy life I'm leading.