#oneaday Day 859: HAWT

It is officially Hot. The sun has been out all day, and this means that all the world’s Hot has been stored up for the whole day and is now being stored in our bedroom making it an unbearable oven almost impossible to sleep in without leaving a noisy fan on all night.

This means that Summer is Here, or something along those lines, anyway.

I have a weird relationship with summer. I’ve written about this subject in the past, but after 858 previous daily entries, frankly it’s sometimes difficult to come up with completely original topics, so I’m going to write about it again. (The last time was in 2010, anyway, so I think I’ve earned the right to do it again.) I digress. Let me start again.

I have a weird relationship with summer. I like the fact that it’s warm and it looks nice outside and you can wear shorts and not put a coat on and whatnot, but I dislike the fact it makes my arse sweaty (apparently my arse contains my body’s thermostat, meaning that if I get slightly too hot it’s the first place to start sweating) and it can be uncomfortable to sit outside in for too long, particularly if you’re prone to burning like I am.

I like the fact that it’s socially acceptable to get out a hosepipe (assuming they haven’t been banned in your region due to “drought” conditions — and let’s not get started on the misuse of that term) and spray it all over yourself on the “mist” setting. Well, okay, maybe not socially acceptable, but certainly understandable.

I like the fact that paddling pools become a viable option in the summer, even for grown adults who should really know better.

I like that you can do normally indoor-type stuff outside (though techie geeks really need to invent a phone/tablet/laptop screen that is actually at all visible in the sunlight and has a faster response time than e-ink displays) and that it’s pretty much obligatory to have some sort of iced drink to hand at all times.

I dislike the fact that if you get burned, then everything hurts for days afterwards. Particularly worthy of ire is getting burned on the top of your head, which is enormously uncomfortable and itchy — doubly frustrating for one such as myself who suffers from a perpetually-itchy head.

I dislike the fact that scrawny chavs feel the need to take their shirts off and display their hairless, prepubescent-looking chests to the world while walking around town.

I dislike that you can very easily inadvertently blind yourself with nothing but a phone screen and an unfortunate reflection.

I like that you can get in your car, open all the windows and drive to your destination with fresh air blowing in freely, regardless of what it does to your hair. (My hair inevitably looks stupid, so being windswept has very little effect on my usual appearance.)

I like that it’s a good time of year to play Dead or Alive Xtreme 2, not only one of the most perverted non-hentai (well, there’s no bonking in it, anyway) games in the world, but also one of the most summery things in existence.

I like the feeling of summer humidity exploding into a heavy rainstorm, and standing out in that warm rain getting drenched.

See? Mixed feelings. I don’t do “being Hot” very well, and if I had the choice I’d rather be too cold than too hot. But there’s plenty to like about the summer. It’s a cheerful time of year, particularly in a country such as this which spends an awful lot of time overcast, raining or both.

As such, I’ve bought a bike and will be picking it up tomorrow with a view to actually Going Outside when I get the chance. This, then, is doubtless a cue for the sun to disappear for the rest of the year and a torrential deluge of Biblical proportions to begin. Oh well. Good intentions and all that.

What are your favourite and most-despised things about the summer?

(Cue silence. In the past, ending a post with a question has generally been a prompt for there to be no comments whatsoever. But I’m not giving up now, dammit.)