Getting Hot in Here...

Hello Friends.

It's very nearly too hot to blog this Thursday. In fact, the Big City might go in the record books today as being the hottest place in Canada. As I write this, it is 37 degrees with a humidex (sort of reverse-windchill thing) which makes it feel like 49 degrees. I'm pretty conflicted about complaining about this heat, though, as these are the days I dream about when it's minus 49.

Now I am writing the next day (Friday). It really was too hot to blog. It's not the heat that gets me so much as the sweat! As I sat and typed, sweat poured off me onto the monitor, the keyboard, and the sweat-collecting bowl I always carry around with me so I can send vials of it to my admirers. As I mentioned, I don't like complaining about the heat because I'd much rather complain about the cold when it's cold. Let me go on internet record as saying I'd prefer to suffer through the heat of summer than put two pairs of socks on in the winter like a fucking moron.

But I know temperatures like these can seem unendurable and with the increasingly popularity of this blog (I just found out the most popular girl's name of 2010 was Pizza Gut!), I feel compelled to offer this public service.

Dream: Find a myriad of ways to beat the heat.

Goal: Achievable. It was this hot last summer and the summer before that and in both cases, I missed it when it was gone, so it couldn't have been insufferable, like many are suggesting.

Plan: Share learned and invented methods to stay cool, like:

Air conditioning. If you have air conditioning and you're complaining about the heat, I cordially invite you to stop reading now, as these tips ain't for you, and also kick yourself in the nards.

Drink plenty of fluids. I would, but “fluids” is such a gross term. I mean, yes, I keep cold water running through me with occasional shots of vodka for variety, but fluids? Not on my watch.

Cold showers. If Jon and I are ever murdered in our apartments, don't count on any of our neighbours reporting it. This is because, despite voluntarily indulging in cold showers, we both scream bloody murder from start to finish, and nobody in the surrounding apartments seems bothered by this. It also suggests we wouldn't hold up well under torture if, when it's 37 degrees out and we step into a cold shower we scream, “OH GOD! WHAT'S HAPPENING!! AAAGH! NOOOO!”

Embrace your inner whore. Any prudishness I once had about my body or behaviour is long gone thanks to this heat wave. When this temperature first started climbing up there, I'd make sure something was obscuring the window and sit demurely on the futon in my underpants, with a towel around my waist. Now the windows are all open and I'm naked-ass naked and sprawled all over. As I take a soaked washcloth over my sweaty nether-regions, I feel like a porn star in between scenes. Plus I'm sipping from this tall glasses of water filled to the brim with ice in an image so simultaneously filthy and elegant that I feel like a Tennessee Williams heroine.

Finally, consider the alternative. By this, I don't mean consider a cold snap lasting this long, or consider living in a home smaller and less ventilated than your own. I mean think about not having a home at all. Heatwaves like this must be the worst for homeless people. It only just occurred to me the other day that homeless people wear layers of clothes all year round not because they're crazy, but because they've got nowhere else to put their other clothes! It's not as if they can just drop their weird trench coat off in a closet somewhere; as soon as they take it off, they risk a craftier homeless person stealing it and using it as a tarp. Plus, they must theorize, “Well I'm baking here in the summer, but come winter I'll be glad to have this weird trench coat.” And nobody must give them change because everyone, across the board, is sweaty and irritable in this heat and not about to give up the change they were saving for fluids. So the next time you're running a cold shower or unsticking your ass from a kitchen chair, take a moment to be grateful that you can. Take the heat for what it's worth.