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It is sweltering today, far too hot to attempt lukewarm fiction. The temperatures don't match up, y'dig?

I am somewhat pissed off at God for including sweat as part of the human condition. I understand how it might be useful if you were a hunter-gatherer, with little to no time to bathe properly. Sweat washes away dirt and mammoth blood and tiny creepy-crawly bugs. But us contemporary Westerners, well, we take a shower in the morning. Eight or nine subsequent showers washing down stickily from the forehead seems a tad excessive. It's a tasty glaze for hungry mosquitoes and thirsty flies.

Boiling sedately in my apartment is what I do these days. Summer classes are finished and I now face a three week stretch without any obligations, without any external motivation to ever leave. Not since the summer of first year undergrad have I had so much free time to cook. Back then, I was driven by uncomfortable feelings of apathy and financial destitution to take a job in a small-parts plastics manufacturing plant. That worked out poorly: my feet smelt horrible, and I was strangely and routinely compelled to injure myself so I could go to the air conditioned emergency room at the hospital.

The heat sucks all the energy right out of you, leaving a husk. The husk plays Guitar Hero and reads the daily news, but the husk is somewhat of a waste-case. It types, but the sweat dripping from its fingers threatens to short out the keyboard. It feels, but the feelings are tempered by irritability and often come in the shape of an ice cream cone.

Posted by Chris at 05:07 PM >> Commentations (3)