brrr it's cold in here

i almost hate to devote a whole blog entry to this, because i know that every new yorker's blog in, um, new york is going to be about what gawker called this MOTHERCHRISTING HEAT WAVE. that's right, motherchristing. it's really fucking insane, people. like ok. oklahoma, god love 'er, is really hot. it's so hot, in fact, that i would often refuse to go outside during the day. i remember a summer spent with mandy (my friend, not the barry manilow song) during which we did nothing during the day but sit in her dark room in the air conditioning. we'd only venture out after the sun went down, and even then it was just to go to the air conditioned perkins and smoke cigarettes.

what's different down there is that even though it's a (literally) scorching 112 degrees with 80% humidity, everything is air conditioned. everything. you go from your air conditioned house to your air conditioned car. and then when you park it, you walk the 10 yards to whatever restaurant or store you're going to, and you're met with a rush of cold air when you open the door. this, dear friends, is part of the reason we're all experiencing an inconvenient truth. it is also absolutely wonderful in the middle of the summer.

in new york things aren't air conditioned like this. i suppose it's because if everyone blew out their a/c's like i'd like them to we'd face permanent brown-outs (that sounded really gross in my head when i typed it. ew, brown-outs.). no one has central a/c, for instance. we all have these useless room air conditioners. they'll cool down a room the size of a closet until it's 90 degrees outside. then they'll do nothing but blow hot air at you while you're baking your vegetable lasagne in the next room. it was probably 85 degrees inside our apartment last night. and that's with two room a/c's.

so, yeah. let's just say that this heat wave might just kill us all. hilary informed me last night that a "cold front" is supposed to come through tomorrow. what does a cold front mean at this point?

that it's going to be a scant 86 degrees tomorrow instead of 95. oooh, hand me a sweater!