Hot summer streets and the pavements are burning

14 07 2019

I am a dope.

I hate hot weather, hate being sticky, own an air conditioner, muscled that air conditioner into a window a week or so ago, and. . . I don’t use it.

I hate being hot and sticky and have a way to be neither and I don’t take it.

Right now I’m sitting in my chair with a fan propped in a window and angled toward me. Still, I’ve got my shirt half rolled up and if I move a body part even a smidge out of the blowing air it will start to sweat.

It’s not that bad out, actually: temps should fall below 70 overnight and it’s not humid, so sleep (with, again, the fan angled toward me in bed) should be fine. It’s just that it takes awhile longer for the cool of the outside to push aside the day’s accumulated heat.

And tomorrow, tomorrow shouldn’t be bad, either. Tuesday will suck, and Wednesday, even more so; my line for turning on the a/c is over 90 and humid during the day, over 75 and humid at night, and it looks like that line might be breached.

And yet odds are even that I’ll rely on my fan to wave around hot air rather than shut the windows and let the a/c clear out all concerns about the weather.

So, yeah, I’m a dope.

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What are words for?

19 07 2016

Sorry, little but little bits:

*I don’t care about Pokémon Go, and don’t care that others care about Pokémon Go.

*Melania Trump’s plagiarism was a) not that big a deal in and of itself, but because it was b) an easily avoidable error, it c) plays into an already-existing narrative that the Trump campaign is a mess. While this might not matter to his supporters, he can’t win the election unless he picks up new supporters, who might side-eye such chaos; thus, d) Melania Trumps plagiarism matters.

*That said, political scientists (yes, the same folks who argued that Trump wouldn’t win the nom, but, moving on. . .) aren’t sure how much campaigns matters.

*I like gin sours more than gin sours like me.

*PSCUNY has finally managed to wrest a contract from the state. Some are opposed, but, man, I don’t know that we can do better than this. It actually more of the past than the future—it deals with 2010-17—so whatever the weaknesses, well, the union’ll be back at the table for the next round soon enough. I’m voting yes.

*Unlike last year, I did stuff my air conditioner into the window and am using it—tho’ not enough to please my cats.

*I have no idea who Hillary Clinton will pick as VP. I’d like to see a pol (not a general), but I’m sure s/he’ll be fine.

*This will haunt me to the end of my days:

 


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Categories : Politics, Quick hits

Ice ice baby

19 07 2015

Last summer I made it alllllll the way through without stuffing the air conditioner into a window.

This year, I made it to July 19.

Actually, I put the a/c up yesterday, knowing I needed to clean it prior to use and thinking I might need it overnight, but nope, not until this morning did I plug ‘er in and turn ‘er on.

Again, not generally a fan of air conditioning, but when it’s over 90 degrees and humid, I am mighty grateful for it.

Of course, I’d been even mightier grateful if the temps would fall so I wouldn’t need the damned thing.

~~~

Once again, a big THANKYOU to P. & T., who bought the thing for me lo’ those many—okay, 6—years ago.


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Black sheets of rain

4 07 2014

Okay, so I’m a bit odd.

It was hot and sticky the past coupla’ days—just about hottily-sticky enough for me to have hoisted my a/c into the window and cranked her on.

Just about, but not quite.

I know, I hate summer, hate the heat, the stickiness, the sun, and, by August, everything, so you’d think that I’d have that a/c humming whenever the temp got heatward of 85.

Except, of course, I don’t like a/c. I’m glad for it, sure—nothing like standing on a stinky-hot subway platform to make one glad for the air-cool of the car—but my appreciation is merely dutiful, and, frankly, even a little resentful:

If it weren’t so fucking hot I wouldn’t need the damned thing.

Anyway, since I wasn’t thinking about how miserable I was every second of the day and I was able to sleep well enough with the window fan, I figured I could go without.

That’s a reasonable reason for laying off.

The real reason? Thunderstorms were to blow through, dropping the temp into the seventies.

When I lived in Minneapolis (and Montréal and Somerville), I didn’t have air conditioning, and would thus suffer (not at all stoically) thru the summer muck. The only relief came with the storms.

Wind! Thunder! Lightening! Cats and dogs and ponies!

It was glorious.

I didn’t much like summer back in the day, but it’s only been the past few years that I’ve really come to hate it.

So while it may make no sense to a normal person for me to delay installing the one device which might allay my misery, I did it for the right reason.

I did it for the glory.


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Do whatcha gonna do

14 07 2013

Late afternoon and all I could think of was how sticky I was. An ice cube where my cleavage should be wasn’t going to cut it.

Time again for the a/c.

The cats reacted predictably, giving me reproving looks along the lines of what took you so long, cheapskate? They’ll get theirs, tomorrow, when I turn off the air and open the windows and abandon them for my office.

Anyway, I finished watching Eureka last night and have moved on to Fringe. Eureka will likely make it into that round of shows which I re-watch because I like the characters and I like the dialogue and I’m having that kind of day or week in which I like knowing how things turn out.

This actually gets in the way, the liking knowing how things turn out: I re-watch old Bones and Numb3ers and Buffy and Waking The Dead and shy away from movies I’d probably like and shows which, once I’ve seen them, I’ll want to see them again.

I did, on dmf’s suggestion, watch Wallander, and I’ve seen a chunk of the first series of Luther, but too often I’m unwilling to stretch myself beyond the familiar. I’ve heard good things about The Bridge and Orange is the New Black, but will I bother with something that might catch me unawares?

That’s really it, isn’t it: I don’t like to be caught out, and that dislike has metastasized beyond defensive behavior and into defensive viewing. Which, to be frank, is silly.

Oh, I don’t have a problem deepening all kinds of bitsy issues, but, honestly, some days I do just need to get over myself. I fret about stagnating and changing my defaults and on and on and then I fret over watching a fucking television show.

Which, to be frank, is silly.

So I’ve watched the first episode of Fringe, and it’s sci-fi-y and police-procedural-y and it stars Joshua Jackson and Blair Brown and Kirk Acevedo who I like and Anna Torv who I don’t know but who has great eyes and—wait while I put my hand where my cleavage should be—Lance Reddick, who is always the most interesting man on the screen.

(He lives in Brooklyn. My chances of running into him are nil and my chances of making any kind of impression on him are less than nil but oh my. My oh my.)

Fringe and Lance Reddick and sarcastic cats in the conditioned air: it ain’t much, but in the bowels of July, it’s all right.


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Categories : Musing, Review

Ice ice baby

5 07 2013

Made it through June, but the beginning of July and it all ends.

The a/c-free livin’, that is.

I don’t have any strict rules for when I put the box in the window, but when I can’t sit in my apartment without thinking how hot I am and I can’t sleep at night without heat interruptions,  it’s time.

Pre-a/c I used to just sweat and swear it out, waiting for the thunderstorm or front shift to blow through and restore me to sanity [oh hush, you]. I hated the steam bath, but ohhhh, the blow-through was divine.

Anyway, the other night the mugg couldn’t be budged by the fan and yesterday as the temp and dew point crawled skyward I said ‘Self, it’s time.’

The cats appreciate the cool, but as I’m the one paying the electric bill, I’m a bit grumpy about the whole thing.

Still, better grumpy than homicidal.


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99.9 fahrenheit degrees

25 06 2013

Okay, it’s not quite that hot—just lower nineties.

Still, I have not yet put my air conditioner in the window, relying instead on a fan.

Why? One, I don’t like air conditioning.

Oh, I appreciate it when it’s sweltering enough to melt my face, but it is a brittle appreciation, one driven more by annoyance at the necessity of the a/c than a delight in the artificial cool it brings.

Two, I prefer fan-in-window cooling at night to that of the a/c. The fan, strategically aimed (well, okay, propped slant-wise in the window) at my bed, delivers an even cooling on a low hum throughout the night. The a/c, on the other hand, cycles on and off as the room warms then cools then warms then cools.

Not a nice even cool.

Three, I don’t like air conditioning.

What, have I mentioned that? Okay, um. . . yeah, so I don’t like a/c at night.

I’ve mentioned that, too? Well, the fan-in-window has worked the past couple of nights and has afforded me (or would have afforded me, had Jasper not been an asshole) delightful nights of sleep.

Four, I’m cheap. A fan costs less to run than a/c.

Five, it hasn’t, really, been that bad. I don’t like 90-degree weather, and while it’s been hot and humid, the weather has not devolved into the beastly, by which I mean: I can sit in my apartment with the fan and not constantly be thinking about how miserable I am.

Six, I’m teaching this month, so manage to be out of my apartment during the worst part of the day.

Seven, this heat wave is supposed to break tomorrow night. I can wait it out.

I’d really like to get through the summer without shoving the a/c unit into one of my few windows, but if the heat gets to the point where it immiserates rather than merely annoys me, then shove it I will.

The a/c into the window, I mean.

~~~

Warning: So begins the series of wailing-and-gnashing-of-teeth posts about summer. At some point there’ll be a post in which I announce I’ve cut off all my hair (probably titled ‘And then she cut off all my hair’)  and one, in August, in which I announce “I hate everything”. No, I’m not planning these things: I just know they’re gonna happen.


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Oh, the weather outside is frightful

1 07 2012

I don’t like air conditioning.

Silly, I know, given my antipathy to summer, and it must be admitted that this dislike does not get in the way of my using my own a.c. (purchased for me by T. and P. some summers ago) or my gratitude for it on the train or at work.

Yes, I’m a hypocrite—sue me.

My friend J., who grew up in Arizona and went to school in Minnesota, didn’t like central heat, something which I, the as-yet-had-never-lived-anywhere-outside-of-the-midwest, found unfathomable. Don’t like indoor heat? Why it’s the greatest: You come in from a snowy day and peel off your jacket and mittens and hat and scarf, kick off your boots, and you feel the warmth seep into you.

That made sense: You bundled up for outside, and when the bundle was no longer enough, you escaped back into cozy warmth.  How could that not be good?

But J., I think, looked at winter much as I look at summer: That was a season when you were supposed to be able to roam free, and not be trapped indoors. Arizona in July was like Minnesota in January—brutal—so when the opposite (winter for her, summer for me) doesn’t bring relief, you go after the proxy, that which makes the brutal bearable.

Hm, that wasn’t clear. J. doesn’t hate summer and I don’t hate winter. Neither of us likes our respective brutalities, but we’ve each found a way to deal with them; what we have not found a way to deal with are the seasons which are supposed to be “better”. (Yes, I still think winter is easier to deal with than summer, what with the possibilities of bundling-up versus the limits to stripping down, but that’s another argument.)  Summer for me and winter for her is supposed to be a time of weather-liberation, and when it is not, well, we hate the things that keep us penned up, trapped indoors by the sun or the snow. Thus: I hate a/c, she hates central heat.

J. is long back in Arizona, so I hope she’s got her winter mojo back; regardless, she’s likely as calm facing summer as I am facing winter.

I just wish Brooklyn summers were as mild as those Arizona winters.


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