The thing is, apparently Spanish people - or should I say, ladies - don´t buy their feminine products in a drug store. Or at least there are no drug stores anywhere downtown Malaga. And actually, not only do you have to go into a pharmacy to BUY the damn things, you also have to specifically ask for them.

That would be fine and dandy if I knew how to say "Tampons, please" in Spanish. And, sure, had I been on my toes and not so stressed out by the fact that I had to ask the old hard-of-hearing Spanish pharmacist for a box of tampons, I would have said, "A box of Tampax, please" because apparently the brand is universal.

But no, instead I walked in, stepped up to the counter with all eyes and ears pointed at this absurdly tall girl (the Spaniards are a short bunch, whoa), and said, "Hello there. I´m looking for a product, but I don´t know what to call it in Spanish."

"Oh, write the name, then," he said, thinking I was referring to a type of medication.

"No, no. It´s not medicine. It´s a basic product for women. They can buy it in a drug store or a grocery store or whatever."

"Ok...well...what does it DO exactly?"

"Well, I don´t want to get into details, but women need it every month, once a month and..." (intentionally letting my sentence trail off)

"TAMPAX!!!" he cried, as if it were a contest and he had just won. Every head in the pharmacy snapped back my direction to see what the hoopla was about as the wacky pharmacist said, again, "Yes!! Of course!! TAMPAX!!!"

He chuckled, walked to the backroom and came out waving two boxes of tampons for me to choose from. Just in case everybody in the pharmacy hadn´t already figured out what I was there for. For a brief moment I feared he would sing a little song, with a tap dance to match.

But you know, I made a slick move by buying a nail filer, too. I think I fooled them.

1. My incredible shock and surprise at being able to speak Spanish, and then the mighty blow to my ego this afternoon at the tobacco place which is where, obviously, Spanish people go to buy stamps.

2. Sevilla.

3. Narrowly escaping death while trying to pass two trucks on a two-lane highway. The trucks smelled of very strong fake strawberry scent, and there´s only so long a girl can handle that while driving 35 km/hr.

4. Arcos de la Frontera has streets so small that each corner has scratch marks from the cars that just didn´t quite make the turns.

5. Walking back from dinner last night (for the Boy´s bday), Sergio let out an enormous belch: Five elderly Spanish women, sitting on a doorstep and fanning their faces in the Andalusian fashion, stifled their giggles. Another one of them yelled out in Spanish "And bon appetit to you!" Sergio and I round the corner and I said to him, "Did you understand what she said?" After I explained it to him he laughed loudly and the women around the corner echoed their laughter back at us. I think they figured out that I had made the translation. Our laughter fell down the mountainside to our left and spilled onto the Spanish countryside.

So for those of you that know and love me, or for those of you that have somehow come to care about me or this adventure for some reason, well....I´m really sorry that my postings are so short and are so seriously lacking. The beauty and the color and the sunniness of this place just cannot be accurately described while a counter is knocking off my available minutes beside me in the internet cafe. I just wish you all could be here to see this. It really is wonderful. Hopefully the pictures will eventually do the region more justice than my scrambled and poorly written blurbs seem to be doing.

1. When driving out of a Spanish city, don´t follow the signs. They have absolutely no logic to them. Just drive straight. You´ll get out eventually.

2. If you´re going to a castle in the middle of nowhere on the backroads, the scenery is going to be beautiful but the road will be windy. Be sure to count an extra hour or two into your previously figured time.

3. Sangria is absurdly tasty.

4. Spanish people are absurdly nice.

5. The two of us travel well together. Unless we forget to eat lunch, and then we become a little bit testy.

6. Sunglasses. Never forget your sunglasses.

7. Sunscreen. Never forget sunscreen.

8. Paella. Eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

9. In the little villages and stuff, people really don´t speak English. But, the good news is that...

10. I CAN ACTUALLY SPEAK SPANISH!!! These people understand me!!! I can ask questions and they can answer them and vice versa!!!! Someone made a joke yesterday and I understood and laughed!!! I hate exclamation points but LORDY LORDY LORDY, I CAN SPEAK SPANISH!!!!

That about sums it up. More to come. We have some wonderful pics already but I can´t load ´em up here. I´ll just keep you all in suspense. And God, I hate Spanish keyboards. Adios.

I guess what made it possible for Red Shirt to last so long was that it crumples into a handy little ball. And no, it's not one of those God-awful crumple up shirts. It's made of something ultra-synthetic and is a very simple shirt (just red), so it folds up to about the same size as a hankerchief. I suppose that each time I went through my clothes (all three times since 1998), I said to myself, "Ach, might as well keep it. It's so tiny and you'll never know when you'll need it again. Plus, it's red. Red goes well with black. And you have a lot of black"

And I'm glad. I think Red Shirt brings me luck. Here's why.

Exhibit A: I went across the street today to send a fax. My street is a one-way, one-lane street, rather narrow in size. Steaming down the street with perhaps three inches of leeway on each side was a big, white truck. It was coming absurdly fast for a truck of its grandeur on a street so narrow. As I watched it roar down the street, I stepped off the sidewalk and waited to cross between two parked cars. But then, rather abruptly, the truck stopped right in front of me. The driver looked at me, bowed, and made a sweeping motion with his arm as if to say, "After you, my lady." I stopped traffic!

Exhibit B: BHV is a huge store in the middle of Paris. Downstairs is the Home Depot-like section - lighting fixtures, drills, toilet seats, you name it. Inside is an absolute zoo; it's basically all the goods of Home Depot squeezed into the basement of a Parisian department store. I love BHV, I hate the downstairs. I avoid it when I can because I always get so horribly lost inside. But today, I waltzed in, found what I needed within two minutes, and snagged myself some sexy new pots for Alfred and Jezebel (my plants). Basquiat is going to have to hang on for awhile. He's gotten so big that I'm going to need to buy the super delux pot for him next go around. I hope I can find one for him that will be just as sexy. Still, I finally had a pleasant downstairs BHV experience.

Exhibit C: I have a hard time talking to strangers in France. I think it's purely because of the language barrier: I'm self-concious about my accent and often get flustered if I make even the smallest of mistakes. Today, after BHV, I got on the 96 bus to head home. Clumsily, I made my way to the center of the bus to find a place where I knew I could set down my bulky (and heavy) pots. As I did this, a young man - probably exactly my age - dressed semi-hippie-ly and holding his guitar case said, "Oh...you've got a thing. Wait. No, yeah, you do. A thing in your nose."

"Yeah, I do," I said, preparing to get in Flustered Mode (usually involves avoiding eye contact and doing everything I can to keep from blushing).

"Does it hurt?"

"Well, I've had it for seven years now, so I should hope it doesn't. I think I would have taken it out by now, honestly," I say, avoiding eye contact with those other passengers who have started listening to our conversation (and of course, I feel like my accent is reverberating down the bus' corridor alongside it).

"Oh my God, and that crazy one in your ear. Whoa! That must have hurt!"

He was a very exhuberant, charismatic type, not necessarily picking up on me so much as trying to pass the time on the bus in some way. His more trendy, more shy friend was looming over my left shoulder, but wasn't participating in the conversation. The Semi Hippie was fully aware of the old lady across from him who was listening in rather obviously, and he even tried to include her in the conversation. We talked about the piercings a bit more and he said, "Where are you from, with your petit accent?"

"I'm American."
"Oh!!! You're from...Pennsylvania?"
"No"
"Virginia"
"No"
"Massachusettes."
"No. Are you going to guess all 50?"
"Ha! I don't know all 50! Hm...no, wait. New York."
"No. I'm from Detroit" (not true, but I tell them that to avoid the explanations)
"Oh yeah! Detroit! Alright! And you're in France to...study."
"Yeah."
"To study what? Literature?"
"No."
"Biology?"
"No."
"Um..." he taps his thumbs on his guitar case as he thinks, "Political science?"
"No."
"Psychology?" his friend chips in.
"No."
"Art. No...no...not art. No, yeah, art! Painting!" Semi Hippie exlaims.
"No."
"Oh, wait, I know! I know!" The friend cuts in again, "Math!"
"No!" I laugh back, forgetting all about Fluster Mode.

At this point I notice that the entire bus is in on the guessing game. I guess we had been the only ones talking. But somehow I had made it over my flustered stage and was actually really enjoying this semi whacko convo with the Semi Hippie and his softspoken friend.

After running through practically every field, I finally give them a hint. "Think about the fact that I'm in France, and I'm not speaking my own language. But that apparently I'm interested in studying in another language, maybe...and that - "

"Linguistics! I got it! Linguistics!" Semi Hippie says as his eyes light up.
"Yep."
"Ha, did you hear that? I got it! Yes!" he declares triumphantly to his friend, who had spaced out for a second.
"Shit! What was it? I didn't hear."
"Linguistics"
"Oh...yeah. Oh, I can see it. Yeah."
"So you must speak a lot of languages, then, huh?" Semi Hippie asks.
"Well, I speak a few. Or at least I study a few."
"What do you study? German?"
"No."
"Japanese. You totally study Japanese."
"No."
"Russian?"
and so on and so on and so on. They got off the bus three stops before I did. The bus really did feel hollow and empty after their good-natured departure. But for some reason, that bus ride totally made my day. It was just friendly and silly and cute and kind. I guess it was just another thing that made me realize that I shouldn't let my accent keep me from talking to strangers. I love doing that in the States, I don't see why I wouldn't do it here.

Thanks, Red Shirt, for another great lesson in life.

(And plus, my plants look badass in their new pots. I'm serious. I hope my babies don't miss us too much when we're gone. One of Basquiat's leaves got a little burnt by the scorching-hot sun, and I'm a little worried for him. He's a tough cookie though, I'm sure he'll make it. And Alfred looks like such a stud in his new blue pot! Really, he does.)

We only know about the deal because a friend of mine in my Spanish class suggested it. Sergio had decided to be a gentleman (for once) when we first went to Spain two years ago, and we spent two nights in this gorgeous castle on him. I mentioned how lovely it had been to my classmate, and she told me about the deal, because she also happened to have fallen in love with the paradors. I was so excited at the possibility I looked into it straight away.

What's so wonderful about these hotelcastlethingies is that they are always a bit off the beaten track. The first one we stayed at was sort of in the middle of nowhere, but we got to see a bit of small-town Catalunian (is that what we say in English? I really have no idea) life.

We're hoping for more of the same, although now it will be Andalucian.

As for the other 21 nights of our vacation, we're thinking we'll just sleep in the car.

Actually, here's the itinerary to date (roughly). The only things that can't be modified are marked with a star, because we have reservations somewhere on those nights.

Pick up car in Barcelona and head to...

Valencia, Alicante (2 nights), *Jaen, Grenada, Sevilla (2 nights), *Cadiz (3 nuits), Malaga (2 nights), *Ronda

Cross over into Portugal...

Evora, Lisbon (2-3 nights), Porto (2-3 nights), Viano do Castelo

Cross back into Spain

Salamanca (2 nights), Madrid (2 nights), *Guadalajara, and Zaragoza

before returning to Barcelona to catch the train back on the very last day.

I'm happy with the way we've set things up. This way, we have a semi-schedule to keep, but we have a fair amount of flexibility, too. There were a few places we each insisted on going to (him - Alicante, me - Grenada), and so we've fit them in where they worked out along our map.

I'm getting so excited. I just can't wait.

So excited, in fact, that I might, just might, have made an entire folder dedicated to the trip. I also might have written down everything on a lovely piece of paper, with reservation numbers and hotel phone numbers and practical information, that might now be sitting in a protective sleeve in the trip's folder. I also might have printed out a colored map of Spain, looked up the driving distances and times between each major city, and color-coded the map accordingly. Maybe.

The first issue was that this required putting on acceptable clothing. My uniform for several days now has been my running shorts with an itty bitty strappy tank top. This is just so that I could officially say I looked "decent" if the neighbors were to catch a glimpse of me. Although I don't really mind if they see me changing, I don't feel like being known as the Always Naked Girl.

I ended up finding something to wear eventually, and I forced myself to put it on. I wore one of those tank tops with semi-boob support because, seriously, I don't know what kind of raving psycho wears a bra in 100° heat. And nobody can argue back that they're the type of girl that can't go out in public without a bra, because I am one of those girls too. All social etiquette goes out the window when your brain is boiling.

So I went over the alteration guy's place, which is unfortunately tucked away from ANY breeze whasoever, as it's in a special little indoor strip mall deal. It's not air-conditioned, of course. Walking in, I immediately started dripping.

The guy that helped me was nice enough, but we both felt awkward trying to talk to one another while pretending sweat wasn't dripping off our chins.

My neighbors across the street have put up a huge sheet to cover the sun from coming in. They get the hot sun (afternoon), we get the bearable sun (morning on one side of the apartment, evening on the other). I would say their sheet is probably doing more harm than good by blocking the breeze, if only there was even a friggin hint of a breeze within 10 miles of my house.

I went to the grocery store and, although expecting the water selection to be rather pathetic as it has been since this heat wave took over, I was not expecting there to only be 12 bottles of Perrier, two bottles of Coke, and a few cans of Sprite left. In the ENTIRE drink section. We, of course, being entirely selfish people, grabbed the remaining Perrier and made a mad dash for the cash registers. That stuff's like gold to a parched Parisian.

These are the big glass bottles of Perrier, like a 40oz bottle of beer. I have alredy drunk two bottles since I woke up. It is 15.30.

I don't know who in their right mind decides to go to Spain in this sort of heat. But I'm under the impression that the temperatures throughout Europe are looming at this uncomfortable 100° point, from Spain up to England. I'm just hoping that the sea breeze along coats of Spain and Portugal will ease the heat a bit. I would argue that Paris, France may just be the worst place to be in this moment (alongside London): an inland city with no air-conditioning, lots of pollution, and crabby old ladies.

I am sleeping an average of 3-4 hours a night because it's too hot to consider doing otherwise. I haven't run in two weeks because, even at it's coolest (meaning in the middle of the night), Paris is in the high 70's.

The only nice kickback I can think of from all this heat is that people are literally not leaving their houses. My street is only alive after 21.00 - when the temperature drops down to, oh, I dunno, 88° and one can consider wearing a bra out in public. Otherwise, several merchants have just decided to take the week off (hey, they didn't have any clients anyway) and my usual hustling and bustling street is oddly mellow. It's kind of nice, in that I-live-in-a-relaxed-and-calm-neighborhood kind of way.

Were it to last forever, however, I would have to move. I like having the drunk guy who never wears a shirt and sometimes wears pants with a huge hole in the ass yell for half an hour, every night, at 3.00 am. I wonder where he's scurried off to in this heat. And if he is even bothering with the pants at all.

Can they be any cuter???

Sometimes I want to just live in their comic. I would rub Hobbes' belly and pretend I'm in a spaceship with Calvin. Although Calving really is in a spaceship, and I guess that's where we differ.

Oh, by the way. Why the hell is my site so fucking long all the sudden? What's up with that?

We keeping it gangster say "fo shizzle", "fo sheezy" and "stayin crunk"
Its easy to pull a breezy, smoke trees, and we stay drunk.
Yo, I activism - attackin the system, the blacks and latins in prison
Numbers of prison they victim black in the vision
Shit and all they got is rappin to listen to
I let them know we missin you, the love is unconditional.
Even when the condition is critical, when the livin is miserable
Your position is pivotal, I ain't bullshittin you.
Now, why would I lie? Just to get by?
Just to get by, we get fly.
The TV got us reachin for stars
Not the ones between Venus and Mars, the ones that be readin for parts.
Some people get breast enhancements and penis enlargers
Saturday sinners Sunday morning at the feet of the Father.
They need somethin to rely on, we get high on all types of drug
When, all you really need is love
To get by.. just to get by
Just to get by, just to get by.

Of course, it loses some of its greatness when its not put to music, and it may make a lot less sense, too. But it's pretty impressive.

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.

Hence why, this afternoon, I was thrown out of my doctor's office for telling her that she lacks any sense of ethics or morality. I had been insulted, berated, and told that I am whining about nothing for half an hour before my doctor realized that she had made a serious medical mistake, at which point she then tried to blame me for it. For twenty minutes, I listened to her prattle on and on about how someone in my situation should never take antibiotics, after which I calmly asked her why she had prescribed me antibiotics two months ago if that was the case. She insisted she would never have done such a thing, and asked me the exact name of the medication she had given me. Not able to remember, I came up with Flogyl (it turns out it was Flagyl, but any doctor with any intelligence would have been able to discern what I meant) and she told me that I had no idea what I was talking about, am obviously totally unaware of my health, and have been completely disorganized ever since she met me (I've seen her only once before, and I had come with a medical history file about an inch thick, put in reverse-chronological order and placed in protective plastic sleeves. Anal? Maybe. Disorganized? I think not). She continued to say that it is impossible to deal with patients like me because all we do is whine and we don't keep up our end of the doctor-patient relationship.

"See, you can't even remember the name of the medicine I prescribed to you! You obviously have no idea what you are talking about!" she yelled, and when I informed her that she had prescribed me one week's worth of pills that were to be taken with meals, she said, "Oh la la! You obviously didn't read the notice! Those weren't pills, they weren't to be eaten! They were to be inserted! You were drinking gelcaps that were meant to be inserted! Lord knows what you have done to your system!"

I tried to tell her that she hadn't given me gelcaps, that they had been large, white discs to be taken orally. She insisted that she would never have done such a thing, and I insisted that she had. We went back and forth like an Olympic ping-pong game, each hit getting harder than the previous. I refused to let up. I was fucking positive of what she had given me. (I have now double checked. My prescription says, "Flagyl. 500mg. Oral. Take one tablet in the morning and another at night, always with a meal, for seven days." That doesn't sound like insertable gelcaps to me.)

"Don't you have a copy of prescription you sent me? Didn't you make note of the prescription somewhere, anywhere in my file?" I asked, trying to find some way of proving that I knew I was right about my prescripition.

"No!" she fired back at me, "Why would I do that?"

"Because you're my doctor!" I shot back. "You're supposed to have a more complete medical file on me than I am!"

Then she continued to tell me about how disorganized I had been about giving her my medical history. How I was expecting her to perform miracles and how she can't do anything without the proper information. How I have obviously been going from doctor to doctor because I can't even keep track of my own health. "For example, when did you have _____ bacteria?" she asked, as a test.

"Um...I don't know...six months ago, maybe," I estimated.

"See, you have no idea!" she cried, incredulously, "And what did you take for it?"

"I don't know the name. Sorry, I don't retain medical terms very well, but I gave you my entire file last time I was here and you should have photocopies of all of the prescriptions my previous doctor had given me."

"What are you talking about? I only have this one sheet of paper and it is full of question marks."

"Well, that's not my fault," I said, "I clearly remember you making photocopies. I came with an inch-thick folder of all of my medical history, clearly organized so that I could show you everything you needed. You made at least four photocopies. If you don't have them in your folder, I don't know what to say. That's not my fault"

She, of course, insisted that I had never brought in my complete medical history (lie), that she had never made the photocopies (lie), that I had no idea what I was talking about (not true), and that her prescription had not been for oral pills but rather for insertable gels (just so not true!).

So this continued for awhile. I had decided to focus on just a few of her errors. Nevermind the fact that she had sent me my prescription without having verified my boyfriend's test results. Nevermind that she obciously hadn't even LOOKED OVER his results because she had somehow "misplaced" his information (which she blamed on the secretaries, of course). Forget that she had told me that our "deviant sexual practices" were obviously at the root of the problem, or that whatever problem I had, it was most likely just "in my head."

The fact of the matter is this: she prescribed the wrong medicine to me, lost all of my paperwork (or at least pretended to so as not to have to recognize the fact that she had prescribed the incorrect treatment) and then tried to shove it off on me: my bad organization, my lack of knowledge of exact medical terms and dates, my "deviant sexual behavior," my naive belief that she could perform miracles.

I finally stood up and said, "You have no ethics. You have made a horrible mistake, and there is no sense in our continuing to discuss this matter. At the price you ask for a visit, I am shocked at how unprofessional you are, at your utter lack of organization, and most of all, of your inability to at least admit to having made a mistake. If you did something wrong, fine. But do NOT try and say that any of this is MY fault. I brought you my entire medical history. You examined me and said that you would wait for the results of both me and my boyfriend, after which you said you would send me a prescription. You did so, but without ever looking at my boyfriend's results, and it took you SIX WEEKS to write back to me. And now we both find out that you in fact prescribed me the wrong medicine, and you refuse to admit your error. I am not disorganized. This is not in my head. And you should be ashamed to treat your patients in such a manner. You have spent the last half hour insulting me," I said, tearfully. (I have a problem - when I actually do have to confront someone, I cry. I hate it, I wish I could get rid of it. But that's the way I am.) "I see no reason to stay here."

"You have no reason to put yourself in such a state. I have no reason to waste my time with a patient like you. I suggest you find yourself another doctor and leave my office at once. I have other things to do that to spend my time with someone as irresponsable as you. I am simply wasting my time. Please leave." she said, forcefully and coldly.

As we left, my boyfriend, who had come with me for the visit and had remained entirely silent throughout this entire scene, piped in and said, "You have no integrity. You should be ashamed," as we stepped out her door.

She slammed the door behind us.

If I was in the US, I would sue that bitch like nobody's business. I cannot believe how she continuously insulted me for over half an hour. I took it and took it, but finally could not handle her comments anymore. I really blew my top. Coming out on the street, I was shaking and crying. I have never been so mad at someone whom I did not know personally. She had actually succeeded in making me feel really guilty there for a moment, until I realized that she had just been trying to cover her own ass. And that's just wrong. As a doctor, you should admit your wrongdoings and try to amend the situation. You should certainly never, ever say that it is the patient's fault for not knowing the exact names of the medication she had prescribed, especially when you, as a doctor, never took the time to WRITE THEM DOWN in your patient's file.

I want to send her a photocopy of the original prescription that she had given me, with a letter attached saying, "At least recognize that you fucked up big time. Bitch, die in hell."

But I guess that would be a bad thing to do, huh? Is it really all that bad? Can't I do it?

Meanwhile, here, with the song pumping full blast in the back of my head at all hours of the day, I have resorted to desperate measures to remain cool. I eat little, as food has a tendency to gross me out in hot weather. I attempt not to move from the one-foot-wide (ok, maybe two) space in which there is a breeze entering my bedroom. I have dunked my head under cold water at least five times today.

It's not only hot, it's STUFFY. As if we were all sitting in a sauna without an out door. That's the only reason I can even stay IN the damn sauna to begin with: that out door is always such a relief. What the hell am I supposed to do when there is no freakin out door?

I have drank lots and lots and lots and lots of water, but I still feel horribly dehydrated. I mean, really, HORRIBLY dehydrated. I feel like I always have a lukewarm glass of H2O in my hand, and that the semi-cool moment of almost-good-enough refreshment is always coming or going but never quite there.

The funny part about this kind of heat is not that it makes trash smell stronger or people move slower, it's that it has tangible effects on my body. These are:

1. Every vein that I have coursing through my body has tripled in size. I am already a veiny person - especially in the foot region. My feet now look like 3-D roadmaps of the Chicago area.

2. The skin. It swells. I put on a pair of shoes today - the kind with the wrap-up straps (so sexy!), and found when I took them off that I had permanent strap marks running up and down my ankles (not so sexy!). Strap marks, people. From my shoes.

3. The boobs. I don't want to suffocate them too much, or else that could prove embarassing to all three of us. But really, I only have so many cool, summer apparel pieces, and most of them do not help with the air-flow situation in the chest region. And lace is hot stuff. I need more really ho-ey but miraculously not-made-of-polyester-or-latex pieces of apparel. I don't know if the ho stores have heard anything about cotton or linen yet, but somebody should let them in on it.

So obviously, I have a lot of things on my mind right now. That's one more thing: the heat makes you stupid. Haven't you all ever heard of Valley Girls? It was so damn hot in that Valley that they just got really stupid.

Almost seven years ago, my boyfriend had a kid with another woman. They had already broken up and she had moved away by the time she found out she was pregnant, but she decided to keep the baby despite the bad timing. The two of them had been together for several years, and although he protested and said he did not want to have a child if he couldn't be there for him properly, she held strong in her decision. Since then, the Boy has kept up his end of the parental bargain by going to see his son once every month or so, helping out with the bills, and setting up a trust fund. It's about all a father can do when his child is living in another country. A few months after The Kid was born, she got pregnant with another man's child, and the two of them have raised the half-brothers together. Soon, just after The Kid's seventh birthday, she is going to have her third child - bringing the family total to five.

The funny part about having The Kid around is that he speaks Dutch - the language he speaks at home with his mom, brother, and "dad" - and neither The Boy nor I do. English comes closer to Dutch than any of the five languages that The Boy can speak, so I could occasionally decipher things ("You stole my money!" and "Where is my bag?" are amazingly easy to understand in Dutch) that escaped The Boy entirely. Not surprisingly, I was able to make out more and more things The Kid said as the week wore on, and he began turning to me as his makeshift translator.

At first, I had been hesitant about having him come to stay with us because of the language barrier. But really, who needs language when testing how quickly paper airplanes drop from a sixth-story window, how long The Kid can do a headstand against the wall, or how far a wind-up car will drive on its own before burning out? As he knows how to count in English, French, and Dutch, all we really needed besides that was gestures, which we're both pretty good at.

I've been amazed at the warmth and affection The Little Guy has given us, how patient he has been when we can't understand him, and how well he's managed to explain things to me so that we can communicate on some level. He's taught me how to count in Dutch, the basic colors, and important words like eat, drink, sleep, and trashcan.

Yet, I think, I've been even more amazed with myself. I've always known I wanted to be a mom, but now I'm even more sure of it. I never bored of his endless lego games, his nutty stunts on the bed, or his constant need for attention. I was also surprised at how laid-back I was with him, as I always thought I would be a sort of paranoid mom. Maybe it's because it's not my kid, but in a way I would think I would be more paranoid with someone else's little one than with my own. Still, I noticed that his dad is a far more authoritarian than I am - when The Kid wanted to put his lego skateboarder in his water cup, I nodded and said, "Sure" with a shrug, while his dad got a stern look on his face and forcefully said, "Don't put that there." Or, when he wanted to eat a tic-tac before dinner, I said, "Ok" while his dad said, "No, we're going to eat." I guess I just don't see the point of certain rules, whereas I clearly think that running across the busy streets of Paris without looking first is a bad, bad thing. Together, however, I think The Boy and I made a good team with The Little Guy: The Boy took over the physical stuff like picking him up, wrestling, and making him dangle by his feet, while I handled the more homely things like showering, brushing teeth, and pillow fights.

Overall, I'm just happy to know how much I liked making The Little Guy breakfast. How much fun it was to chase pigeons with him. How silly we could both get together and how much, I guess, the kid in me still lives on. That's gonna come in handy whenever I have kids of my own.

Last night at dinner, The Boy looked at me and said, "You never really get bored of him, do you?"

I looked at him while prepping the wind-up Lego car once again, and said, "No. Why would I?"

"Some people do," he said, and proceeded to do a magic trick with the car's tailight that had fallen off during our previous time trial. "I'm glad you don't."

Yeah, me too, I thought, as the two of them began their second farting contest of the night. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my life.