It was a hard night.
I felt like I was back in Chicago. There, Spring was a myth told by people from other non-Chicago places. These places were also a myth. There was no where else; there was only Chicago. A land with three seasons: Winter, Summer, Winter. The summer arrived without warning. It was cold cold cold cold, then, BOOM, hot hot hot hot. Last night felt like that. My whole body was on fire. I guess I could have turned on the air conditioning at any point. But I had committed myself to holding out. Now, I’m not sure why. I kept thinking, I know a cool breeze will rush through these windows any second. If I turn on the air it might get TOO cold. Then I will be a failure and my wife will no longer love me.
So I sat there in the heated stink of my melting flesh.
Then I ate ice cream.
I asked myself what I used to do in Chicago to keep cool. The answer was freezer pops. We used to keep a freezer full of those pops. They brought your temp down instantly. There were no freezer pops last night, but thankfully there was ice cream. I had a big bowl of vanilla. My favorite flavor.
Ok, you can just kiss my ass right now with the commentary about vanilla being my favorite flavor. There’s nothing wrong with that. It doesn’t mean I’m boring. It doesn’t mean I’m white bread. It just means that I appreciate the simpler things in life. Things like vanilla.
The vanilla ice cream did the trick. My temp dropped and I cried. I broke down and cried from joy. Also, I was holding the bowl between my thighs and they got a little freezer burnt, I think. I lied down on the couch waiting for the rush of cool air from the open windows, but it never came. I remembered that heat rises. For fear that I would soon start to rise, I lied down in the floor. It was much cooler there and that was how I finally fell asleep.
Tonight, I turn on the goddamn air conditioner.
In England there is a myth about coping with hot weather that is so pervasive that millions of people still follow it despite it being obviously stupid and wrong.
In England they say that if you drink a cup of really hot tea it will cool you down – now that’s just an English excuse to keep drinking tea when even the weather is telling you not to.
The reality of this absurd myth is that hot tea heats you up so much that you tip over the edge of heat tolerance and start sweating like a rapist in a line-up. If a cool breeze comes along then you’re in luck and, hey-presto, you’re cool too, but if it doesn’t then you’re fucked, you’re just hot and sweaty.
We are, it should be observed though, pathologically as obsessed with tea as we are with the weather.
When I lived in Chicago, where the summers are Africa hot, I used to adhere to that same belief as well. Except it was coffee rather than tea. Not only did it bring my temp briefly down by getting me to sweat, it also made my clothes nice and damp. Which also helped keep me cool. AND in time it allowed my body to acclimate to the hot weather. Or, as you people with the fancy tea sets say, it’s a lot of rubbish.
Btw, we haven’t got the new Doctor Who over here yet. Does he suck?
Apparently not – from what I gather they’ve gone from quirky to sexy (as sexy as the BBC can get, which is – on an underwear scale – about on a par with grandma’s bloomers. Anyway – what is it with you guys and the new Doctor Who? Does it have some kind of camp appeal for you or something? For me it’s like watching a Carry On film without the laughs.
I really don’t understand why Who is doing so well over here. I grew up watching it on public television, so I end up watching the new ones whether I want to or not. It’s like being a Catholic I suppose. Once a Dr Who fan always a Dr Who fan. I keep hoping they’ll get interesting again, like the first season with Eccleston. Or that maybe they’ll clone a new doctor from Tom Baker’s afro.