The self-pity of summer

What you see there is a picture of my computer screen. As Dashboard helpfully tells you, it was a gorgeous evening: 78 degrees and sunny, no humidity and--at only ten 'til eight--the night was still young; no doubt the perfect evening to round up some friends for an outdoor happy hour at Luna Park or Bull McCabes--which is exactly what everyone was doing--except me--who, for the last two weeks has been/continues to be chained to my desk because I'm so miserly that I'm incapable of saying no when someone waves a freelance check in my face, which accounts for why I was the sole person on IM that balmy evening last Thursday, July 12, at 7:50 p.m., a.k.a., the most depressing moment of my life in the last two weeks.*

(*Quite possibly the longest run-on sentence ever written.)