the number one reason I hate summer

I'll give you a hint: it was 90 degrees here today, and we don't have air conditioning.

Oh yes, it is the heat. I mentioned a few posts back that I really hate summer's inevitable itchiness (and I really, really do!), but no matter how bad the itchiness gets, the heat is always worse. After all, heat is the evil from which all other summertime evils spring. If it didn't get hot, there would be no itchiness from sweating or bug bites, because there would be no sweating or bugs!

I DO NOT tolerate heat well. Never have - as a kid I resolutely spent my summers either indoors, in the blissful cool of the A/C, or in a pool, in the blissful cool of the chlorinated water. It's a genetic thing - neither my mom nor my dad do/did well in the heat, either. The summer between my junior and senior years of high school, when we went college visiting in Minneapolis and spent the day walking around outdoors, Mom actually got physically sick from the heat. (I have had similar experiences, but never actually been sick from the heat - yet.) I never got to see my dad in summer, but my grandmother always tells me that he used to turn the air conditioning down to 68 degrees, and Mom would have to walk around the house wearing sweaters. That sounds positively divine to me, especially since I am now living in a poorly-insulated second-floor apartment which, though it never seems to retain a bit of heat during the winter, retains so much heat during the summer that it qualifies as a temporary annex of hell. Some days we leave the house in search of an air-conditioned spot (usually Borders in Carousel Mall, because it's open later than almost anything else in this town), and when we get home at 11:30pm, it's still like, 85 to 90 degrees in here - long after it has cooled down outside!

It. SUCKS.

My usual strategy for dealing with heat like this when I'm stuck somewhere without A/C is to 1) get my hair cut really short, and 2) shower like, three times a day - a strategy I honed during that semester I spent in Singapore, living in a tropical country in an un-air-conditioned dorm. But I can't quite put that plan into effect if I'm hoping to keep my dreads for as long as I was planning to (at least one year). They're falling apart too fast as it is, with me only washing them every other day, and I have less than zero motivation to try to fix them or do any proper maintenance on them when it's this hot. I hate to say this, but I don't think the dreads are going to make it through this summer. Too hot, and way, way too itchy. As I suspected, I really can't tolerate not washing my hair every day when it is this hot out. The dandruff is unreal (ick, I know). I almost hacked 'em off today. I get the feeling that, since I will wash 'em tomorrow, Wednesday will end up being the day they drive me over the edge. I will not be at all surprised if I am bald by week's end. Because once I hack the dreads off, I am totally shaving my head into a cueball. (I will, naturally, post pictures when this all goes down.)

So the plan for tomorrow is to leave the house early in the morning, find somewhere to be all day which is air conditioned (and if it has wireless internet, bonus!), and not come home until after midnight. It'll still be at least 80 degrees in here, but if we just go straight to bed, it won't be that bad. Oh, who am I kidding, it'll still be wretched. Man, I hate summer.