[I don't usually do this but I feel I must because I know Heather is an undeniable force, and because I know at least two or three readers of her website will email (as they've done in the past) to remind me of how grateful I should be that she linked to tremble.com, thereby granting me untold pageviews. I guess what I'm trying to say is, welcome, dooce.com readers. Please feel free to explore my more professional writing at toddlevin.com, or visit the tremble.com archives if you prefer to read hastily-written and rarely proofread pee pee jokes.]

Recently, on these very pages I mentioned that each year I consider my first sighting of a shirtless man on the subway the signal that summer has officially begun. With temperatures in New York creeping up into the quadruple-digits over the last several days I knew it was only a matter of time before I spotted my first robin barebreast, and last night I was richly rewarded. While waiting on the platform at the West 4th Station--right in the heart of Manhattan's West Village, a busy bohemian hub for people visiting the city in search of white blues bands, marijuana pipes shaped like naked ladies, and Coldstone Creamery ice cream--a train pulled in and not one, but two shirtless guys stumbled out. As a special bonus, they were both bleeding in several places.

I can't remember--when the first shirtless subway commuter you see is bleeding does that mean we'll have six more weeks of summer, or six fewer weeks? Or does it just mean that someone's going to catch hepatitis before they reach Penn Station? Either way, game on.