Man I Hate Hot Weather

The only person I know who ever equated Wisconsin with hot weather was my late father-in-law. Now, I think he used his "it's hot in Wisconsin all summer" rhetoric strategically to convince us to drive the seven hundred miles east to his house, where, according to him, "the ocean's cooling breezes make the difference." I retaliated by pointing out that, when I was married a couple hundred feet away from his summer house in late June, the thermometer easily hit ninety. Plus, we were still hundreds of fucking miles from the ocean. I may not be an expert on wind patterns, but I wasn't smelling surf around Jamestown, New York. This long-standing argument resulted in both of us inspecting the newspapers, through visits, looking for any evidence to support our particular meteorlogical positions or attack our opponent's. I should point out that, at the time, neither of us had air conditioning.

We're four or five years past those arguments, but if my father-in-law were alive today, and visiting Wisconsin (which, incidentially, he never did in the summer, save for the birth of my first child), he would be holding all the cards. The weathermen are threatening temperatures near 100 with a "feels like" designation of 108. What the fuck? How do people live like this all the time? Anyway, as I sit in my dinky living room, the only room in the house with an air conditioner, watching the Bernstain Bears with my children, I'd like to make a few points about weather in general and hot weather in particular.

1. I much prefer cold weather than hot weather. However, I would like to make clear that I may read that sentence in six months and pronounce myself a moron. I should probably say I usually prefer cold weather to hot weather, unless the winter has reached the point where dirty snow and grey skies have completely broken my spirit and caused me to hide beneath my covers for entire weekends. Anyway, here's my point: You can always put on more clothes, if you're cold. You can get warm, after exposure to freezing weather, faster than you can get cool after experience extreme heat. Also, you can strip down, if you want, and that won't necessarily make you cooler.

2. I can't believe the stupid things people do when it's hot out. Now if it's sixty below zero or whatever, school is cancelled, few people leave the house, etc. However, you rarely hear of officials cancelling major events due to hot weather. I don't know, maybe this is true in Texas or Florida, or other hot places, but I never hear about it on the news. Today, some of my friends are at Lollapalooza in Chicago. The temps there are supposed to hit 105. I don't think the park has much shade, either. I guess you can't cancel a concert in the same way you might cancel school for a day, but still, I'm glad I didn't drop the cash for those tickets, as I'd be dreading every second, even if I do like The Killers and Death Cab for Cutie.

3. It's hard to believe any tv weatherpeople anymore, with the exception of those on the weather channel. I believe, on days like today, dumbass viewers surf from channel to channel looking for the most disaster-friendly report. In other words, they look for the channel that blows the event out of proportion the most and makes the most wild and unreasonable predictions about impending conditions. If channel four says it's ninety-eight, you can be sure channel twelve will predict ninety-nine, and shitheads will quote the higher number. Right now the weather channel is using ninety-four for current conditions, but it's early.

4. People get bitchy when the temperatures rise. Spike Lee understood this the best in "Do The Right Thing". I feel it as well. Do not touch me when it's hot out. In fact, keep your hands to yourself, even in November, but you're taking your life into your own hands if you touch me in August.

5. Car air conditoning is often better than house air conditioning.

6. Old houses are great until you have to air condition around all the weirdass corners.

7. Some books cannot be read in extreme heat. Try reading Dickens on a day like today, and you'll know what I mean. Today's a Cormac McCarthy day. I'm not saying you can't read intense material when it's hot, but all that tea and firespace books...leave those for later.

Ok, the weather's getting to me, with this computer on my lap, especially. More later.

In The Middle of the Night

Ok, I'm back. I need my therapy. Enough said.

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I have mixed feelings about insomnia. This morning, for example, at 3:21, I'm up, on the computer, when I usually am asleep. After maybe five hours on the couch of decent sleep (I dreamt about flying to southern Illinois to visit my mother's hometown) I woke, before three, and knew I was done with slumber for a while. I recognize the feeling immediately. Now, before I delve too deeply into the subject, allow me to outline my perceptions of my own personal insomnia and insomnia in general:

1) I sleep better in the summer than in the winter. I'm not sure why. I suppose this could be connected to the previous thread on sleeping in strange places, i.e. how I love to sleep on my front porch, but I don't think that's the whole story, as I believe I sleep better in the summer without regard to location. I do love the open windows and night breezes of summer, so that might be a factor. I suppose one could assert that I'm more carefree in the summer, but this summer, anyway, that's not true, as I'm quite busy at work. So, I guess, I have no good explanation for the summer/winter phenomena.

2) I am not a "pure" insomniac, in that I can't get to sleep in the first place. Instead, I fall asleep without difficulty at nine or ten then wake somewhere between two and four. Once I wake, I can easily discern if the night is one in which I will 1) fall asleep within moments, 2) stay awake for an hour or two, or 3) stay awake for the duration. Right now I'm in the "up for an hour or two" state, if my sense of self is accurate.

3) My insomnia is contextually unpredictable. I don't think I'm more of an insomniac while under stress (see #1), busy, etc. In fact, I think I might explore whether or not I'm more of an insomniac when I don't need sleep to fuel my activities. Perhaps I'm failing to spot a pattern.

4) I am sometimes productive while I'm up at night, during an insomniatic (did I just invent a word?) episode, but chances are I'm not. I guess I can read, if the mood strikes, but I usually channel surf (leading to an eventual post on "Girls Gone Wild" that's been running through my mind lately) or cruise the net. I tend not to eat. When I was younger, if insomnia emerged, I was more productive. If I couldn't sleep through my first years of teaching, a decade or more ago, I would shower, dress, and arrive at work by dawn. I have fond memories of those quiet hours in my classroom.

5) I don't buy into the whole "tortured insomniac artist" profile. I guess it's good for Beck or whomever, but it's not my style. I'd rather sleep.

6) I am distinguishing sinus-induced insomnia, which I would call illness, from insomnia during which I'm physically fine but happen to be awake in the middle of the night. The former is an evil bitch from hell from which I pray to all the Gods in the panthenon for release.

Allow me to summarize. I wake in the middle of the night and can't immediately fall asleep about once a week in the winter and a little less often in the summer. I'm not sure why, as no pattern (e.g. stress, art) is immediately apparent. I usually wish I could stay asleep, as I'm not very productive in the middle of the night. Tonight's an exception.

Ok, I'm glad to be back. I'll stay to stay on the Wednesday/Sunday schedule and see what happens. Back to sleep, I hope.