Fantastic Tales! Also, Not Fantastic Tales.

So! As of today, I have been employed for something like a week, and I got my first pay, so I feel comfortable in saying that I am now For Real employed. It's different from most of my previous forms of employment, in that I am making money from it.

But yeah, for those of you who don't know I am now working as a roofer, which means that I am climbing around on rooftops (good), getting in something closer to physical shape (painful, but good), not sitting around doing nothing (definitely good), and getting on closer closer terms with the sun (it hurts and burns, and is painful).

I have, in my family, a rather long history of being violently opposed to the sun. There are many reasons for this (mainly because I am a heat pansy), but to better explain them to the world I have decided to write the Sun a letter. It follows:

Dear The Sun,

How are you? I am fine. I hope you are fine too. From what I hear, you are still wrenching apart hydrogen atoms and turning them into helium, along with other things which are also important, but that I have forgotten. I am proud of you! There are many stars, but as far as I know, you are the best one at allowing the ecosystem of the planet Earth to continue, and that is an important thing to do, in my opinion. I say this because I do not want to do die in a horrible inferno, or in a cold, empty vacuum as all life on earth freezes to death, and you prevent both of those. Good job.

But I am writing this letter to tell you something, and it is this: as much as I appreciate your existence, and the services you provide, you don't need to to be gung-ho. You have nothing to prove; you are the sun. You don't need to show how good you are at fusion! You have been doing it for billions of years, and you don't need to prove a thing.

I've known you for most of my life, Sun, and we've been through some crazy times together. Like, for example, scientists decided Pluto wasn't a planet. And we both know that they are jerks for that, but we're still cool with Pluto. Pluto's got no beef with us. And the internet became a huge deal! That was good times. Or that was one time when the War in Afghanistan started. Well, technically so far all of these things are still on-going. Or there was that time in the nineties when boy bands became popular, until people became (rightfully) ashamed of themselves, and replaced the boy bands with Hannah Montana and Justin Bieber. So not all of the stuff we've seen has necessarily been positive, but I think that in spite of that, we've gotten to know each other pretty well. I've seen you almost every day for almost 19 years now, and you have helped me get food, vitamin D, blisters, and all kinds of crazy stuff. It's been wild.

And in all that time, you have successfully been the sun. Without fail! It's impressive stuff, no doubt about it. But, like I said, you don't need to showy about it. Just do your thing! It's a good thing, and I'd be sad if you disappeared. But I'm cool with you not always being... quite so sunny.

See, there can sometimes be too much of a good thing. Like kindness! When you are freezing to death and someone makes a fire for you, that's just great. And when they let you come into their cabin to warm up, that's even greater! But when they proceed to lock you to the bed stand so you can always appreciate their charity, well-that's... that's just too much kindness. And also creepy and terrifying. And when they light the cabin on fire so you can always feel the warmth of their kindness forever, that's MUCH to much kindness.

And sunlight is the same way. When I'm cold and you warm me up, that's great. But when I'm warm and you warm me up, that isn't. And when I'm hot and you turn the roofs I'm standing on into living hellscapes dedicated to Charbalingen, the eldritch god of the eternal flames, that's just the opposite of great. It's like you are metaphorically locking me into a burning room, and also very similar to that physically.

In conclusion, you are great but please stop trying to light me on fire.

P.S. I realize that the current heat wave is mainly due to heat fronts and a lack of clouds, but it is hard to appreciate that when I'm walking around on a roof and being slowly char broiled.