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The heat is gone but the dry remains
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Halloween is over. This means Arizona is officially in its "good" season. Farmers' markets are starting up again, snowbirds are returning, and hot air balloons are getting ready to rise.
Our famous dry heat is out of here for the next eight months. But that doesn't mean the dry part is going away anytime soon. On the contrary, the scant humidity we do get is highest during the summer monsoon season. Now it's just as dry as...well...a desert. 
The lack of moisture shows itself in an entertaining variety of ways. Besides the fact you need to drink mass quantities of water to keep from dehydrating (and can do so with scarcely a bathroom break required) there are other more subtle manifestations of the shock your body may be experiencing without your knowledge.
For instance, I never in my life needed to use conditioner in my hair until I moved to Arizona. But even more surprising was when my normally jet black hair began to turn an unusual shade of reddish brown. However, this only occurred in the places on my head where the sun hit it hardest, which just looked weird. Not exactly the kind of highlights you'd get from a salon.
Skin is a major organ and as such, is probably the hardest hit by the arid desert environment. I'd bet the amount I spend each year on water bottles that residents of this state are the nation's largest consumers of body lotion and lip balm. You can moisturize until your arm falls asleep but you will never completely lose that dry feeling. People here are constantly recommending creams which they say actually work. It almost becomes a contest to see who is the first to hear of the latest and greatest to keep your skin from looking like the earth's surface at twenty thousand feet. But short of dipping yourself into a vat of olive oil daily (Hey, not a bad idea. Maybe I should market that), you're still gonna feel chapped.
Contact lens wearers such as myself suffer a special form of torture. The dust and dryness does not lend itself to lens comfort. My family became concerned the evening shortly after moving here when we were walking through Old Town Scottsdale in a dust storm. I literally could not keep my eyes open because it hurt too much. My kids were simultaneously amused and traumatized when they had to lead me by the hand.
Between this and the ultra bright sun, sometime after that evening of blind man's bluff I had to give up my contacts completely until my eyes adjusted to the constant irritation. It took about two years. I was reminded on my recent trip to New Jersey that it's not like this everywhere. The entire time I was there my contacts didn't bother me once. And I know this would have been true even I had seen the sun more than the few hours it appeared during my trip.
On the plus side, towels are never damp and laundry dries faster outside of a machine than in one.
Beyond all of the above, however, there is nothing more shocking about our parched state than the shocks themselves. Although electric shocks are not exclusive to Arizona, the jolts you get here feel more like electrocutions. Once you get past the pain, they can almost be fun. Sometimes you literally hear a zapping noise, and they can even light up a dark room for a moment. The best shocks occur when changing bedsheets in winter. I like to think of them as a cheap form of electroshock therapy that may actually work.
After all, people here are pretty happy.
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