Lately I've been working on another web site. I had a lot of problems with it at a certain point, uninstalled the whole damn thing, reinstalled it, configured it, changed it around, blah blah blah...It was quite an adventure.
Anyway. It was launched today and I am happy about that. And sure, I'm a big, big dork but that's not my fault. I was born this way. Can I prove it to you? My sister sends my family trivia every week from her trivia nights. Although she emails them to everyone's addresses, my Dad tries to pool heads with me - from across the Atlantic - when he can so as to get more questions right. We're not allowed to cheat by looking up the answers, but of course it's perfectly valid to call up your daughter overseas to ask her who sang "When a Man Loves a Woman."
That's my family. I love them.
Anyway. The reason I have been able to get so into the site I have been working on in the last week is because it's been frighteningly hot. I've gone into this before. It's frankly just too hot to go anywhere.
Regardless, the Boy and I went out to the crepe restaurant a block away. We literally could not go any further. Moving one foot in front of the other took far too much effort to dare venture past a one-block radius from the house.
While at the restaurant, a middle-aged woman got up from her table to leave, and she had a magnificent triangle of sweat formed from her ass to the bottom of her skirt. In the same beat that I felt a twang of embarrassment for her, I questioned what the hell my sweaty legs would look like once I got up from the table, and thanked the same mysterious force that I was wearing gray pants.
I don't think Americans, no matter where they live, can possibly understand what this sort of heat wave is like. Why? Because Americans have AIR CONDITIONING. Sure, your own house may not have it, but the restaurant down the street does, and you can sit there for an hour or two to escape the inferno. Your CAR probably has it, the mall certainly does, and honestly, if you want to you can avoid suffering from the heat all but an accumulated hours's worth of to-and-fro commuting, if you put your mind to it.
But here, in Paris, there really is no escape. Kari made the valid point that there are movie theaters, but they are just asking too much for such shitty movies. Going anywhere requires either walking, taking the bus, or, God forbid, the metro. And honestly, all three are very hot options. Stores aren't air-conditioned, although I did dawdle for an extremely long time in the frozen food section today just to enjoy the air for a moment. Other than the frozen goods, though, we're all pretty much SOL.
In the end, I've learned to live with my own sweat. We are all dehydrated. At the grocery store today, the bottled water department was close to empty. My Lemon-lime sparkling water was out. The Bottled Water and Soft Drink Monoprix Stocker Boy (I know all my grocery guys, of course) looked a bit more haggard than usual.
I am not complaining, though. This incredible, unbearable heat has brought one good thing to the surface:
My hair is on top of my head right now!!
For those of you not following this site, I am growing my hair out. It has been under an inch (or around an inch) long for the last five years. Now I would put it at a coupla inches. But today was the first time in five years that I went for the rubber band.
Now, I'm not saying that I can actually go out in public like this. The ponytail is literally half an inch long, and half my 'do is clipped up by a supporting barette that is responsible for all the hairs on the lower part of my head that couldn't quite make it into the measly collection I have gathered up top. And than there are all those hairs in front that just can't quite go anwhere. And there are lots of those.
But still. It's off my neck. I have it up, however haplessly. This, in and of itself, is a small miracle. And a momentous, momentous event.
Okay, coupla thoughts:
1. You guys are such CHEATERS! although not really, since I suspected that was what was happening all along, and TOTALLY what I would do too. Looking things up is not cool, but calling people who might already know? Passable.
2. The trivia bar doesn't have a/c. My classes don't have a/c. Our home doesn't have a/c. And considering I'm unemployed, my work definitely doesn't have a/c. Portland is a lot like Duluth--no one really has a/c here BECAUSE IT USUALLY DOESN'T GET THIS FRIGGIN' HOT. That said, y'all made the NYT today with this European heatwave. Apparently, and not to put you off your trip or anything, Spain and, yes, Portugal are bearing the brunt of it. You lucky duck.
3. Congrats on the hair. And whatever you said earlier, it was never even vaguely mullet-like.
4. Oh, and that NYT article was talking about Andre' Citroen park? With some water and fountains and stuff? Would that help?
Kari - yeah, that's global warming for you, I suppose. It's friggin hot.
California didn't have air conditioning either. But malls always do.
Kari - are you older or younger? Did you go to Huron?