Cooling Off Period

Growing up in Phoenix and the surrounding area, I was accustomed to the heat. It was hot or warm most of the year, although it certainly can get cold in winter there. Winter did not last nearly long enough, and so there were a lot of coping mechanisms for people there. For one thing, Phoenix has historically been one of the more enthusiastically movie-going markets in America, partly because of the air-conditioning provided. That's a nice perk.

I never did get out to the movies as much as I would have liked. I saw a fair number, I guess, especially in the days when the movies were one of a much smaller group of options. It used to be a terribly thrilling thing to consult the movie listings in the newspaper and ultimately reach a compromise on one of the movies with several other people. You didn't always get a movie you wanted to see very badly, but you go that precious air.

Something I made a point of doing was to have a glass of ice water by my bed every night. It had to be pretty well filled to the brim with ice and the remainder filled in with water. We had central air in the house, but it was just never efficient and powerful enough to cool the whole house to a comfortable level. My bedroom especially felt like a sweat lodge a lot of the time, and so I had to have the ice water to drink at any time that I might awaken in sweltering conditions.

As Los Angeles is approaching the warmer months presently, I'm making a point of keeping water on hand overnight, but it doesn't need to have ice in it. It cools off rather well here overnight, and the water is necessary mostly in the morning, at which time the ice would have melted and its cooling properties run their course. Regrettably, the water is stale from standing all night long, and chances are excellent that little bits of dust and things have fallen into it, but you just have to have that water first thing. It's very good for you.

Inane Weather Chatter

It has recently been a bit cold in Los Angeles, and so other cities more accustomed to consistently cold weather are vigorously ridiculing Angelenos for overreacting. It's a curious thing to do. Would a penguin be within his rights to ridicule a camel for feeling cold just because the penguin's threshold is so different? It's no concern of mine how people handle the weather where they are. In any event, it is a bit cold (getting down into the 30s overnight), and I don't mind owning up to being cold enough to need a heavy jacket.

I do enjoy the cold weather, affording me as it does the chance to wear some of those jackets and coats. I'm of the opinion that I look pretty good in them, which I hope can't be taken to mean that I have such a hideous form that it is best hidden under a pile of clothing. from my light jacket to my heavy peacoat, I just happen to fill out an outer garment fairly well. If there's an exception, it might be sweatshirts and the like. They are a bit baggy for my taste.

Spy The Sky

As I write this, it's a bit overcast outside. The blue sky is sneaking through in a few spots in the hour or so before the sun sets, but it's more or less a gloomy day, or what passes for one in Los Angeles. It seems like it's been forever since it rained. It very seldom does here, of course, not that you'd guess it from the way people choose to use their water around here. It's like back home in Arizona, but worse. You get a lot of people from the midwest and back east who think a green lawn is their birthright.

I'm often reminded of back home when I pass by someplace where somebody's laid down a lot of manure to fertilize the grass. They say that smells are the most powerful trigger of memories, which may be true. I instantly am reminded our our manure laden, irrigated lawn. It was fun to play in- the foot or two of water irrigating the yard, not the manure. You had to stay away from that of course, which was easy.

Quiet, Alone, Content

As I write this, I remain at the cabin where I have been the past few days. We have had in that time steadily deteriorating weather. We started out with a sunny 70 degrees, and assumed we could count on a week of the same, but such has not been the case. It has not gotten so bad as to descend into the depths of a storm, but it has gotten colder, and that's not all bad. It is, of course, easier to appreciate that stuff from indoors.

We've gotten fog now. It's a hell of a thing for me, having grown up in Phoenix, but perhaps it's commonplace and mundane for others. Advised of the fog's arrival, I eagerly rushed outside with others. I was alone in my group of friends in seeking to see more, however. I walked down the steps from the second floor balcony of the cabin, down the driveway and across the street to the dock where a pontoon boat, two kayaks and a canoe have all lain at our disposal.

Of Personal Interest

Los Angeles can be a difficult place at the best of times. I love it here, but one who has achieved maturity loves with full knowledge of the good and the bad in something. There's plenty of bad in Los Angeles, and I managed to experience a lot of the bad points in the midst of what was really a good day the other day. Because it's in my nature, I'm going to focus on the bad things. Why is it that so many of the good things in life are things you can't talk about?

Naturally it was raining. I expect it's raining here today, although as you know I often write in advance of weather making good on the weatherman's promises. When it's raining, I am like most Angelenos in that I prefer to hole up at home until it's over. I have always enjoyed the rain's peculiar beauty from the inside of a window. Growing up in a desert, I valued the rain's preservation of our fragile existence, but woe betide the rain that fell on me.

Slick

It's funny how often the streets are wet in Los Angeles, considering how seldom it rains. Like my hometown of Phoenix, the city has a lot of people who thing that lawns of green grass are their birthright just because that's how things were back where they came from. That's just a guess born from personal frustration, you understand. Water is scarce everywhere now, and most of all places like LA and Phoenix.

Wet streets present their own issues. People adjust poorly to slick roads, or at least it seems so. I was taught in drivers' education to be very cautious when driving in the rain. One must lengthen the distance between cars and slow down. That knowledge is academic to me, as I don't drive, but most people could benefit from hearing it. They don't seem to have had such good lessons as I. It's almost enough to make you sorry for the rain happening in addition to all the cultivating of lawns.

Bad And Getting Bad

There's been rain in Los Angeles over the last few days. It hasn't been too severe by even local standards, and presumably looked milder still to those from naturally rainier locales. It rains seldom here, but commonly rains hard for a week straight when it does. This wasn't one of those, although maybe it could strengthen into one. That's not the point, anyway. The point is more about our reaction to it.

What you usually start hearing about before long is how everybody is freaking out on the roads. I guess that's true. I'm not heavily invested in driving activities, as I don't myself drive. Still, I have the advantage of being strictly an observer and not a combatant in the wars that are driving and parking anywhere, let alone here. Do people really come unglued driving in the rain? I guess that's fair to say, to a point.

Temp

Today I take refuge in that pitiful subject, the weather. Don't think that I find any pleasure in it. In any case, I have formed an opinion of the weather we've had lately here in Los Angeles, but am reluctant to share it. I'm afraid that I may be very wrong, although under ordinary circumstances it would be crazy to entertain the very idea. These are not ordinary circumstances though, the modern climate being what it is.

You see, it seems to me that we may finally have taken a permanent turn for cooler weather- that we have put the heat of summer behind us. That would seem like a reasonable opinion in the waning days of October, except that we've had a number of false alarms. Several times have we endured fresh heat waves after an interval of cruelly cool weather. These bouts of pleasantness have each lasted enough to give us new hope.

Used To It

A week or so ago, I thought that I was perhaps feeling some tremors. I have gotten used to the experience of living someplace where there are earthquakes. I try to guess whether what I'm feeling must be an earthquake, or whether it's any of the very mundane things that feel something like a small earthquake. It's embarrassing to overreact, and so I try to ascertain the true facts before trumpeting it all over. I find this worthwhile.

If I think it's an earthquake, I check online. The United States Geological Survey has a good setup on their website. If they confirm there was a website, I sit back and say "Hm" with some thought. That's about as far as it goes for me. As I said, I have gotten acclimated to the experience, but I think that is not true for most people. I don't know a lot of people who have been in California all their lives, but I have to hope that they handle the earthquakes with some decorum.

Nobody Does Anything About It

We've been coping with a heat wave here in Los Angeles lately. In truth, that equates to very typical weather back home in Arizona at this time of year, and so you can see how I've acclimated. I don't care for the heat too well, but them I don't remember loving it when I was back home. That's always a big front that people will put up. Nobody wants to endure such weather, but the human spirit is incredible when it comes to turning horrible ordeals into points of pride.

I remember when some new high temperature was set in Phoenix. Probably it has since been surpassed, but then it was really something. They made t-shirts, and I bitterly regretted that we were in Florida when it happened. Imagine wanting to be in heat exceeding 110 degrees rather than the beach. I can't really account for that myself. It was a psychological coping mechanism that protected me even when I didn't need it.

Seasoning

Today is what, as a boy, I always regarded as the first day of summer. That must sound odd. You have to understand that I grew up in Arizona, where the changing of the seasons is mostly an academic concern, and at best is something that you bring up during long-distance calls with far-flung loved ones. There in Arizona, it was terribly hot most of the year, becoming pleasant in the winter months. Consequently, I developed a warped sense of things.

I had the notion that spring started with baseball's spring training. We had the Cactus League right in town, and I assumed that it was warming up all over at that time. I knew it wasn't hot everywhere else, but I figured it must not be cold there. Only upon living up north did I discover that snow was still on the ground there at that time. I ought to have guessed that they don't hold spring training down south because they like to travel.

Chance Of Chance

The other day, I went and sleep through my alarm. I think that's what happened, although my recollection is odd. It seems to me that I woke up before my alarm and went to the bathroom before going back to sleep with the intention of getting back up when the alarm did go off. I think I may have reflexively hit the alarm button and then misread the time on the clock. The point is that I got a late start and left home in a slight hurry.

I always forget things, even in the best of times, and that is exacerbated when I'm running late. On this day I forget a name badge (which was of no consequence) and I forgot to check the weather. You might think that a resident of southern California could disregard the possibility of radical weather changes, but it's less like that than you'd think. Lately, it's been vacillating between a late emergence of real Winter weather and the arrival of proper Spring.

When It's Cold

The weather in Los Angeles is about as pleasant as advertised, seldom getting too hot or too cold. When it is cold however, it can be pretty bad (if one is not comparing it to someplace like Chicago). Worse still is when it is both cold and wet. Most of this winter has been pretty mild. In fact, it has worried me plenty how nice it has been for much of the past months. There shouldn't be opportunities for shorts in January or February even here.

The last couple of days have seen us into a cold snap however, and a wet one to boot. When it gets cold enough for jackets, I like that, as I feel I look good in them. I start with my nice blue jacket, then transition to the leather one when it's cold enough for that. When it's cold enough for that one but too wet for it as well, I'm really out of luck. I end up in something that isn't adequate for one thing or the other. It's like Valley Forge.

Out There A Storm, In Here I'm Warm

It rained yesterday here in Los Angeles. I've written about it in the past, but it must have been a while, right? Perhaps we will find that something new emerges from an old subject through the passage of time. A person can't help but change at least a little. Now, I am of two minds about rain. I grew up in a desert community where the necessity for some rain soon was one of those safe topics everyone could readily agree on.

It was just the kind of rain that I like. It was hard, cold and had the decency to select a day on which I could remain indoors. I like rain fine when I am indoors, which I suppose is common to all reasonable people. Being caught out in it is awful, although it's really just the getting wet that's bad. It's a funny thing, actually. They say that illness is prevalent during rainstorms not because people are stuck out in it, but because the weather compels them to stay indoors for so long. That's where the disease runs rampant.

So Hot Right Now

As September gives way to October and the officially declared autumn wears on, there continue to be rather warm days in Los Angeles. I know they must not compare to things back home in Arizona, but as I'm acclimated now, they're rather warm. I'm grateful that it cools off at night here, but that is all too little comfort at times. Mostly things are fine, but there are those occasions where I just can't hack it very well, pedigree aside.

An example is there in some of the places where I practice the performing arts. I suspect that they may not be erring on the side of too much air conditioning, and I don't mind that. I try to spare it as much as I can myself, but when the air goes off at home, the windows open. Where I have improv classes, there seem to be no windows that can be opened, and opening the doors seems downright unsafe. I mean that some unsavory characters walk by there. As a consequence it gets rather warm during class sometimes.

AC Savior

The weather in Southern California is generally far more pleasant than that which I had lived with anywhere previously. It doesn't get cold like Chicago, humid like Florida or blisteringly hot like Arizona, except when it does. It's all the worse here. Here you probably get a wall-mounted unit that cools the immediate area around it. During the two or so years I lived with that, we just didn't bother. I had my own little sweat lodge in my bedroom.

Here in the new place, we have that miracle wrought by God, central air conditioning. We try to use it sparingly, but when it's needed, it's worth it. Over the past few days, the temperature has grown rather more robust, signaling that a real summer is in the offing. I guess when the solstice hit, that was all she wrote. In any case, I finally had enough, and stalked over to the thermostat in a huff (heightened emotions seem to be the norm around that device). I activated it, and we quickly sealed the previously-opened windows.

She's Got Legs (And They're Blue)

Southern California carries a certain reputation where its women are concerned. They're said to be quite beautiful, and while that's probably not uniformly true, it's true enough that the reputation is well-earned. The women are indeed very good looking, and they are resolutely committed to showing just as much as they can. In fact, if anything, it may be so that they show too much. I certainly don't say so out any sense of puritanical devotion or propriety. It would hardly be the time now to start with that attitude. Nonetheless, I have my reasons for at least half-wishing that LA's women, breathtaking though they are, would cover up some of the time. It is something like how if one engages in unsafe stunts during an improv scene, it does not matter how funny it is when the audience fears that injury may come to one of the performers.

The thing is that one who only has visited the area during summer or perhaps spring break would not realize how cold it can get here during winter. It's especially bad far out in the desert areas, but in the city it can be rough. At the late hour during which I write this, it is in the mid 40s. I certainly can recall praying for temperatures like that during winter months in Chicago, but then I had proper clothes at the ready then too. I don't have that now, and neither do the very attractive and ordinarily beguiling women of this town. As I said, they are most committed to showing what they have to full advantage. You see even now short shorts and miniskirts that would be most appealing to me if I did not fear for the health and well-being of the wearer. Is it sexy when they shiver? I've heard that black is beautiful, but is blue? Weight loss is a popular pastime, but what about when it comes about as a result of frostbite?

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

Whether The Weather

As I have written, summer is just about upon us, and it's a time when the weather is very much on my mind. For most people I know, the weather is largely something experienced while traveling between the car and an air-conditioned building. To some extent, that's true even for me, except that my domicile offers relatively limited protection from the elements. Sure, it keeps out precipitation, but little else. Even if we used the air conditioner, it's not central air. For that reason, I keep my window open most of the time, allowing in wind, noise and any living thing which can elevate itself to a second-story window.

Since I feel the effects of the day's weather more than many others, it's something on my mind. I notice the warmer and cooler days and nights. I make more deliberate effort to cope with them while at home, and suffer perhaps a bit more while in transit, as I am often moving around on foot. You understand,  I'm neither bragging nor attempting to solicit sympathy. It's just how things are for me. I like to think that it makes me a bit more of an interesting person, taking the burden off my personality to do that.

A Pair Of Trifles

Recent weeks have brought with them the delightfully cooler weather of Autumn. Much as the activities of summer are to be enjoyed, one can grow weary of the heat when not using the AC at home. There are plenty of measures to help the situation, and they range from judiciously using the shades to drinking cold water all the time. In spite of all those things, though, it's rather brutal.