The Heat

The Heat is like its own character. No matter what you're doing, the Heat comes in and takes over. Like a ham actor in a play who upstages all the other action and actors, the Heat is distracting, taking your attention from anything else. Walking outside even just to pick up the paper or get to your (air conditioned) car is like walking straight into a hot wet wall. Being outside for any length of time is like letting the sun beat you on the head with a hammer. (You even have to wear a hat while you're in a swimming pool -- and speaking of swimming pools, how do you like dipping into warm bath tubs?)

Sure, it always gets hot in New Orleans in summer, and yes, it's always a drag. But this, this is something else. This extreme heat is brain-numbing, personality-distorting. You can't think, you can't function, you can't do anything but move slowly, sit around and sweat, complaining dully the whole time. It wouldn't surprise me at all if domestic violence and murder rates go up -- no one can keep their temper or sustain being nice in this Heat.

Of course, this has to be the time that our downstairs air conditioner will decide to quit on us. We've cranked up the upstairs unit and employed electric fans to stir the cooler air dropping down the stairwell so that downstairs is at least *somewhat* bearable. (Frozen gel packs pressed against the body help some too, as does copious amounts of ice water.) It goes without saying that every a/c repair place in the city is overbooked right now. We're hoping someone will get to our house today, but it's been 3 weeks of this (luckily for us, one week of that we were in Utah, where, even though it is a desert, for goodness' sake, it was cooler than here).

Weather reports say it will break soon. From their lips to God's ears. We can't take much more of this.