Keeping My Cool

"What is cool changes;

that there is such a thing as cool is immutable."

-- Lionel Shriver, We Need To Talk About Kevin

Melting purple popsicle 9-5-14

"Get cool, boy!

Got a rocket in your pocket,

Keep coolly cool, boy!"

-- "Cool," West Side Story

As much as I love hot, humid weather and wide open windows, I have to admit that there are days when I feel pretty damned lucky to live in a house with air conditioning.

I grew up in one without it.

It was brutal.

My parents finally got  a little window unit -- in their bedroom. My little sisters would sneak in during the night and sleep on the floor. 

Not me. Never once.

I sucked it up and sweated it out in muggy, over-heated misery. 

Growing up in a sweat-box taught me that even when it seemed like I didn't have a choice, I really did. Several, actually. I could totally flip my shit, or I could:

1. Eat a popsicle.
2. Drink iced tea.
3. Take a cool bath.
4. Turn on a fan.
5. Spray myself with the hose.
6. Take something off.

The list still works.

Yeah, sometimes the "something" is a whole lot more complicated than hot weather, but usually the solutions are still pretty simple.

When life turns up the heat, I can't change the weather -- climatically or emotionally speaking.

But I can get through it it without it wrecking my day, or my week, or my sleep, or my waistline, or my whatever.

It's that old thing about perspective, I guess.

I can bitch and complain, which only makes it worse and intensifies the misery.

Or I can choose to do something else. Something cooler.

And for pretty much all situations, the old solutions still work:

1. Eat a popsicle.
2. Drink iced tea.
3. Take a cool bath.
4. Turn on a fan.
5. Spray myself with the hose.
6. Take something off.

Oh, I almost forgot.

My parents had central air installed the minute we all moved out of the house.

Not cool, guys. Not cool.