A Deeply Upsetting Personal Heat Index -The Toast

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chiliAll heat waves are emotionally devastating as well as physically uncomfortable, especially in Northern California, where there is no central air conditioning (“No central air conditioning? Surely some public establish –” NO CENTRAL AIR CONDITIONING). I can handle the winter, or what we have in the way of it here. I can turn on the heat, or drag my cat onto my lap, or double up on socks. But a heat wave! Friends and lovers, heat waves are spiritually ruinous. There is nothing more debilitating to my sense of personal consistency than discovering it only takes a few days in a row over 95° for me to experience a complete and total loss of ego integrity.

“How hot is it, Mallory?” Here is a partial list of things I have done over the last three days to distract myself from the heat:

  • Put a loaf of frozen bread on my lap
  • Picked a fight with someone blameless over text and then cried in the shadow of my cabinet
  • Drank four club sodas in a row and then placed the still-cool cans in my bra
  • Put two loaves of frozen bread on my thighsuuugh
  • Explained to a friend over gchat that I couldn’t take a lukewarm bath per her suggestion because my cat had jumped in the tub right after I finished showering and it was covered in cat prints
  • Stopped doing my dishes entirely
  • Sprayed a bunch of spiderwebs on my porch with Windex instead of actually cleaning them up, then crying about dead spiders
  • I didn’t actually see any spiders but I assume the Windex killed them, or at least did something bad to my porch environment
  • Slept with all my doors and windows wide open but not before reading the Wikipedia page for all three of the killers termed “The Night Stalker,” for safety
  • Help me, I’m frail and soft and I just want it to be 72 degrees out all the time
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