hace calor

i've never been one to really complain about the heat, because surviving each new england winter for me is an incredible feat in and of itself. it entails many long nights, groaning under mountainous blankets, chain-drinking hot tea, being a general recluse and awfully bad company, and abandoning my sense of fashion by contemplating the purchase of a sun-lamp visor. some may think seasonal affective disorder is a crock of hooey; however, i seriously beg to differ. i myself have and will continue to reach all-time lows during the heinous season. i am not referring to the remarkable abundance of whining and complaints, but rather, the chronic fatigue, volatile and entirely arbitrary outbursts of tears and/or emotional instability, and complete and utter helplessness...sylvia plath style.

but blessed be that spring time comes and i riseriserise; i am re-born and start to- you know, feel things again. to feel things is a good thing.

and so, 96 degrees you say? bring it on, bring it hard.

during our summer excursions down to the glorious beaches of duck, north carolina, my friends would jest about my ability to withstand a profuse amount of sun exposure. in fact, i was ridiculed for hitting the sand so soon after an early morning breakfast, and remaining there until sundown. while the pink-skinned others slept late, bathed, read their light summer literature and picked their asses, i moseyed on over solo. i seek maximum heat; i want to drink it up, store it. like a chipmunk reserving acorns for the long winter to come, i blindly aspire that the more vitamin D which i successfully absorb, the farther into the approaching season i will remain sane. this marathon basking is what i coined, during the summer of 2007, as "mission melanoma."

i have never been accustomed to or dependent on chilled interiors; growing up we did not enjoy the luxury of central air. during the truly unbearable summers i.e. the record-breaking heat wave summers during which my mother might catch a news story about a dehydrated pet dog dropping dead or the elderly suffering sun stroke, my father would install one window unit in one of the bedrooms. this just meant sweating in other parts of the house, and running to the bedroom to stare blissfully into the face of our lone savior. it also meant that i spent the majority of my days in the basement, pressing my bare feet to the cold floor tiles. needless to say, my malfunctioning fan which currently blows warm air my way is still what i would refer to as "refreshing."

what i'm having the most trouble with is not coping with the heat, but enduring the extreme air-conditioning at my workplace. it cranks throughout the day, and i maintain goosebumps for nearly eight hours. this, only to thrust myself out onto the sweltering boston common, is so debilitating- so shocking to the system. i find myself wanting to collapse right there beside the homeless man in boots who blesses me each morning. and so it goes, the oppressive tomb that is park street station and all of the noxious body smells and my knees buckling as the mexican musician sings me canciones tristes.

and the little ranchera inside me wails.