#oneaday Day 718: Melting

I cursed it. The other day, I said to Andie, "oh, it hasn't been obscenely hot this year yet, has it?" and literally the day after, it became obscenely hot. The air conditioner for the bedroom has come out, the fans are on full blast, and just general existence is suffering right now.

a city during sunset — Photo by Fatih Turan on Pexels.com

Naturally, all the usual arguments are taking place over whether or not people from the UK really have a right to complain about it being hot, given that certain parts of the world are far hotter than it gets here, and they get by perfectly well without air conditioning, what happened to that stiff upper lip and all that, eh what? To anyone having thoughts of that nature, I say a hearty fuck off, it is boiling here and we, as a people, are very much Not Built For That.

We are a people built for overcast days, where the weather just sort of exists in the background without doing anything. We don't mind an occasional rainstorm, because that means we can complain about it. But when it gets hot — and for a good few years now, the summers have been getting real hot — it is actively unpleasant, and quite possibly dangerous for some people. One of the people I work with said that the temperature was almost 40 degrees C in his office today. That is not any sort of condition that a human being should even be attempting to exist in!

But still. At least it's a good opportunity to get the ice out, have some cold drinks, enjoy an ice cream or ten and occasionally sit in the garden if you think you can get away with doing so without irradiating yourself beyond repair. Maybe even have a barbecue! Some people in the nearby vicinity have been having barbecues over the past couple of days and they have smelled delicious. We have not, as yet, planned to do one, because neither of us fancy standing over a hot thing on a hot day, and with only a couple of weeks left until we go away on holiday, the opportunities for socialising before we head off are limited. Maybe when we get back.

Anyway, aside from the heat, today has been relatively unremarkable. I have done some work, I have played some Final Fantasy XI, I enjoyed a chicken sandwich with some Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce. The cats have been yelling at us, and all is, it seems, mostly well.

It's just too bloody hot, is what it is!

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#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.)

One A Day, Day 36: An Open Letter

Dear Universe,

I write with regard to the recent delivery you made to my person – specifically, the bumper package of coughing fits, temperatures and shaky hands.

I do not remember ordering these items, nor do I wish to keep them. As such, I must humbly request that you dispatch a courier posthaste to come and pick them up. Technically the items have been "opened" and "used" since they are coursing through my body as we speak, but since I did not order them and they appear to have been delivered in the dead of night directly to my person rather than appropriately packaged at a more sociable hour, I do not feel that the premature opening and usage of said items is my responsibility.

I am of the mind that this delivery was perhaps intended for someone else. If this is the case, would you kindly furnish me with the details of the intended recipient and I will do my best to forward on the items as soon as possible. I would not wish the items' rightful owner to miss out on the experience of coughing so forcefully it creates a side-effect of unintentional flatulence.

If, on the other hand, the items are an unnanounced "gift" from someone (which is possible, seeing as there did not appear to be a receipt with the items) then I request, with respect, that you provide me with their name and address so I may return the favour, perhaps through the medium of Uzbekistani sledgehammer dancing – a dangerous yet beautiful artform which frequently places bystanders' testicles in mortal peril.

I thank you in advance for your co-operation in this matter, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Yours sincerely,

Pete Davison