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.