T.S.T. On A Hot Tin Roof

It's hot.

How boring to write a post about the weather, I know. But damn. It's fucking hot.

I swear that just a few weeks ago, I actually looked forward to taking my dog out for long walks or jogs. Now, I can barely stand taking him around the block unless it's after midnight or before sunrise. Though his breed originates in the Saudi Arabian desert, I assure you that my AC-spoiled pup seems little happier after a few minutes in the noonday heat than I feel.

My new place is only about a mile from my old one, but the neighborhood is a little different. It's more residential and the homes are multi-million-dollar extravagances with hoi polloi such as myself living in the rented garage and attic apartments that accompany most of the primary dwellings. When I walk Holley, we always encounter other dogs and their walkers. Reliably, we are all panting & visibly over-heated--dogs and people alike. All the people have plastic grocery bags looped over their wrists--since this is definitely the kind of neighborhood where one must clean up after one's dog. 'Tis a unique privilege to traipse around in 100+ degrees with a warm bag of shit on your arm.

It's the sort of heat that feels downright intolerable, even for someone such as myself who is much more likely to be too cold than too hot. In this heat, I simply can't drink enough to stay hydrated, no matter how much liquid I chug. I simply can't wear little enough clothing. I can't move little enough. There's just no way to be outside of the blessed cushion of air conditioning without feeling like you are damned near close to death.

If it weren't for my dog, I might not go outside at all, save to dash from a building to my car and back, until, say, October. Texas summer heat produces in me a sort of cabin fever. It's not unlike being in the Northeast during the winter--I can look out the window and see sunshine, clear skies, and a natural world I want to venture out into. Yet, when I actually get outside, the temperature drives me back indoors.

I wish that I owned a treadmill or an elliptical machine or some other piece of exercise equipment. I miss long walks with the dog, and I miss jogging. There's not a lot of physical activity that I can engage in indoors, and I miss it. It's not just the effect that this has on my weight--hell, I might not be pleasing my nutritionist so much these days if I were running and walking more. I miss the feeling of moving around more. I miss the effect on my brain chemistry. But I feel like I'm having a heart attack when I try to jog in this heat & humidity.

I had lunch with a friend today. Because we are both intransigent cigarette-smokers, we sat on the restaurant's patio. Even with the table's umbrella for shade and a whisper of a breeze, we sweated. (And smoked. A lot of both.) Before we embraced for our parting hug, I said, "Forgive me for being so . . . well-moistened." Of course, he was just as damp with sweat as me, but it still felt almost obscene how drenched I was. It felt weird to hug someone in that condition; it felt almost too intimate somehow. (This observation is vaguely ironic in light of the fact that this friend and I, years ago, enjoyed a short-lived period of romantic intimacy. We are not intimate in that way now, though, so it was plenty enough weird at this point.)

Maybe this is why so many Tennessee Williams characters are always getting into trouble with sexual dalliances and raging violence whatnot. There's just something about inescapable heat that is very visceral, very carnal. Who knows how different Blanche DuBois or Laura might've been had they been blessed with access to air conditioning?