"What is cool changes;
that there is such a thing as cool is immutable."
-- Lionel Shriver, We Need To Talk About Kevin
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| 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:
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.
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.
