Man From A Hot Town

I was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. It's a place whose probable primary cultural tradition is coping with the heat. I don't say that as a knock on the city. I just can't think of a part of life there that doesn't at least make reference to the heat, beating the heat, or the pleasant weather of winter. Like anyone, I have been charged for life with the duty of representing the place I came from. I didn't ask for that responsibility, and these days, I don't much want it. Easier than defending the politics of my hometown is considering how I act as an ambassador in other areas. The one that has been on my mind lately is the heat to which I have just referred.

It's expected, I believe, that I'm supposed to be inoculated against the heat as a result of have been forged in summers whose daily highs exceeded 100 degrees as a rule, and loudly brag about my invulnerability. In truth, while we learned there how to make the best of it (the most affluent of us by just getting out), it never stops affecting you. You adopt a stoic attitude and claim it does. To the extent that I did have any kind of accumulating protection, I think that now it's no more. What I've found to be the case is that I, and perhaps others, adjust rather quickly to the place I spend most of my time. I recalibrate, and accept the prevailing weather as the norm. When I was living in Chicago, I was amazed at how warm twenty degrees began to feel once I had gotten used to the idea. So it is here

Changing of the seasons

It's at this time of the year that I start wishing that I had central air conditioning like I'm used to. It gets rather warm in this apartment, particularly during the day. It cools down after nightfall, after a fashion. I have a little system. In the morning, I close my window and draw closed the blinds. Then I turn on my tall fan. I keep things like that most of the day. When it starts to get darker in the evening, I open the blinds and the window, turning off the fan. In this way, I survive.

I look forward to a nicer place in the future.