the heat August 26, 2007
Even if you accept that global warming is real (and I do), this recent heat wave isn’t any more extreme than heat waves I experienced as a kid, when we lived in an old farmhouse that lacked any air conditioning (or heat, but that’s another story). I routinely lived thru periods of 95 plus degree heat in that house. Lots of times, my little brother and sister and I would sleep out on the front porch, with the bugs and the dogs crawling all over us, because it was just too damn hot inside the house. I remember those nights as very, very hot, but also a lot of fun.
Now, however, when it gets really hot, like it has been the past two weeks, I am not only uncomfortably warm, but also bothered by a vague, yet overweening sense of worry that it isn’t just hot, but hot because of some terrible environmental crisis. It makes it seem hotter…and more sinister and unpleasant.
I don’t know what the highs have been in Knoxville, but I’ve lived in Nashville most of my life (with a six year stint in K-town for college) and I have never seen heat like this! The high last week was 106 degrees at the airport! And we’ve broken all kinds of records here this month. I agree that it feels ominous and just frightening in general.
[...] That’s how I would’ve titled this post. [...]
You are probably just feeling a little anxious with all the hormonal stuff going on.Take a deep breath,put it into perspective and be greatful it’s not snow!
I live in Phoenix. I am therefore used to the extreme heat…if anyone can ever truly be used to such extremes. I still take it hard, though. My husband and I have lived here over a decade and it seems as though each year, the heat gets just a little more miserable. For us, it’s the humidity that is the problem. It is true, the old adage of a “dry heat.” Hot is hot, but if the hot is dry, you can get relief in the nearest shade. It is easier to cool yourself off from a dry heat. The humidity clings to your skin. We have had very hot, very humid weather with very little relief from our annual monsoons, which generally break the heat and humidity and cool everything off for a couple of hours. The lack of monsoon activity is worrisome. We could use the rain.
You are not alone in your worry. Of all of the legacies that Resident Fuckup has left behind, his utter disregard for the destruction of our planet through lack of responsibility and failure to consider Mother Earth is the one that our children and our children’s children will have to burdened with the most. Well, that and the tab for the war.