Life with no Air Conditioning

Yesterday it was too hot to think straight. I couldn't get any writing done, so I finally drove to a library. Hot as my apartment is, I still resist leaving it. The prospect of walking anywhere is miserable, especially with my computer. I don't even have a real backpack, just a promotional drawstring one that says Butterbraid on it, a product I do not endorse on principle, and its strings bite into both shoulders, just not quite as badly as a tote bag that rests all its weight on one side. By the time I reach any destination by walking, I'm sure to be disgusting. Taking my car is no better. It's essentially a metal box with windows that let in sunlight but do not let heat escape. It's been baking all day, so opening it feels like opening a large oven. Sitting inside it creates an instant second skin of sweat that is there to stay until showered off. I try to avoid this moment at all costs. I tell myself that I am better off staying put in my un-air-conditioned apartment all day, when the reality is that car travel would be a short time of discomfort followed by potentially hours of comfort, and I'll need a shower no matter what. I'd successfully resisted writing at a library for a week, but since I had to go out anyway, there would be no avoiding the car moment. Soon enough I was uncomfortably cold at the library, sharing a wooden table with a woman who had been waiting hours for her car to be repaired, and I was grateful for it.

When I got home again, I walked down the three flights of stairs with my bagged frozen compost, too hot to be disgusted that I pressed it against my back and sides to feel its cold. Then, once it was safely in the forest, it was back up the stairs again carrying empty, uselessly warm containers. Next, I walked the few mostly shade-devoid blocks to dump my recycling. My sunglasses slid awkwardly down my nose whenever I wasn't pushing them up, which was most of the time. Worst of all, while I was innocently carrying the recycling in both hands, not imagining I'd need to defend myself, a fly kept landing on my legs and doing something itchy. Even after I'd stopped walking to investigate and slapped him away twice, he bit me hard enough to draw blood. I was so mad. Why do flies like that exist? What makes them think they have the right to bite me? I ran away a little bit, cans clattering, so he wouldn't follow me, and took a detour back home. I was finally done after one more little jaunt down the street in the other direction, to the nearby mailbox. To say I was hot at the end of all this would be quite the understatement. It was hot-car moment times a thousand. I splashed my face repeatedly with the coldest water I could get from my bathroom faucet (coldness rating: kind of cold). No drying off--in the summer, every towel feels as though a (sadistic) personal assistant dryer-heated it, just the way I wish they'd all feel in the winter. Just as I caught sight of myself in the hallway mirror, a faded black tear of mascara dripped down my face, leaving a long trail that looked like a badass vein.

Summer is animalistic. I'm more aware of my body--feel more bodily disgust as my skin crawls at a soccer game or picnic, feel more bodily relief (however brief) when I take a cool shower. I feel like prey, desperately seeking relief from the environment that's slowly become hostile around me over the course of weeks. My faceless, omnipresent predator. In winter, one can add clothes and blankets, as many as needed, against the elements, and both are very human to possess and use. In summer, there's a firm limit to what a person can remove. I can't peel away my skin, or rather, if I did it would not make me feel cooler.

In the most extreme temperatures of the season, I forget how unpleasant it felt at the other end of the year. It's hard to imagine snow was everywhere and my room was so cold I had trouble falling asleep because the heater was broken. Main takeaway from my half-summer without air conditioning: I can't wait to move again!