1 post tagged “heat”

It's stinky hot - the hot that makes you look for a corner of shade at every crosswalk while waiting for the light to change. The hot that makes you stand back an extra pace or two so you're not inhaling the soup of baked pavement, body odor and rotting garbage in toxic concentrations. The hot that says don't carry a purse or anything else unless absolutely necessary. There is no energy for hustling across to make the light, walking faster to get anywhere sooner, no window shopping, browsing or other wise wandering aimlessly. This is the season of absolute necessity - we are not having fun, or passing the time of day. We are - alternately - dying, gasping, dripping, leaking, freaking out, parched, fried, sizzled, grilled to perfection - we are more than done. We do not think straight nor do we make any sense. We can't be expected to perform the simplest of tasks with any certainty, finesse or competence; we are exasperated, flustered , dehydrated ( and in denial about our dehydration) exhausted, tied and , oh yeah, just plain hot. We are swearing to accentuate how  we are so much hotter than you are. And we will talk this way most of the coming days and weeks and months, because it is what we do - we  moan. And we love to moan on and on about the goddamned weather. We like to personalize it ( because my experience of it is so much more intense than yours could ever possibly be). What's even weirder is that we actively listen to the mutual moaning, invite it, we want all the perspiring details, we want to hear all about your pain and suffering... tell me, do we really have so little going on in our lives that heat needs to take up so much space? Do we even have a clue about what real suffering is? Are we not blind to the privileges of fresh running hot and cold water, air conditioning, pools, public spaces etc, that we have completely lost sight of the bigger picture? Let's make this the summer of love - embrace the smouldering aromatic piles of market fresh refuse, diesel exhaust from the buses, tar goo, and anything that takes on a new hue or hum in the summer months, and not succumb to the moaning masses. Get a squirt gun, run through someone's sprinkler, have a shower, drink some tap water, and play with the heat til you're silly and giggling - that's summer.