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Last week, I paid $40 for a pair of black sandals with a small heel and a sassy strap to go with my cute summer skirts and keep me from doing what I really want to do, which is to wear sneakers every waking moment. Today, I am wearing my new sandals. And I am ready to steal some morphine from the nearest pharmacy. Why, oh why, must shoes that feel perfectly comfortable when you try them on in the store mutate into torture devices after a mere 15 minutes of walking in them?
Speaking of torture, I've been cutting back on chocolate. At the same time my boyfriend is trying to quit smoking. Our house is a gloomy place. There have been fist-fights. Instances of kicking, punching, biting, slapping, clawing at the walls (and each other), killing various living things. I imagine nicotine withdrawal is worse than chocolate restriction, but judging by my moodswings, it can't be by much.
In spite of all the quitting afoot, I enjoyed my long 4th of July weekend immensely, watching no fewer than four different fireworks displays from my friends' New Jersey terrace and sampling three different types of homemade potato salad over the course of the weekend. There was plenty of relaxing at home with my love and our industrious Netflix account (we have no TV!), enjoying Jason's cooking and some good grillin' at my aunt's house and relishing the mild weather. Lucky for me, it doesn't take much more than a 3-day weekend to replenish the ol' joie de vivre.
Today, it's hot. I don't like hot. I have never been particularly fond of hot weather. Warm weather, OK. Hot weather, please skip over whichever region I happen to be living in and move along.
I have to remind myself it's been four years since I endured a real summer. In San Francisco, they start throwing around the word "heatwave" when temperatures climb past 75. That's what I miss most about the city--it's my kind of climate.
Seriously, even when I was a child, I remember feeling miserable on those especially hot summer days (though growing up in Los Angeles often meant a spate of unseasonably hot days in spring and autumn, as well). Aren't most kids mostly immune to the weather? I mean, who hasn't seen little kids playing in the snow, wearing short sleeves? Well, I was that kid at summer camp who dreaded the beach because there was no shade. I couldn't understand why the other kids insisted on running around, playing soccer and ga-ga and softball in the hot sun when there were arts and crafts to be done at picnic tables shaded by huge oak trees. I didn't even mind it when other kids poured glue on bees or stuck popsicle sticks meant for building popsicle-stick houses into their noses, ears and other orifices. I was just happy to be out of the sun. I avoided it obstinately, even as a kid--always sitting on the shady side of the bus so the hot seats wouldn't burn my legs, finding an excuse to be indoors whenever possible, even if it meant helping set up or clean instead of playing. Maybe that's why the other kids were always chasing me with garlic and gigantic crucifixes?
New York City may be a steambath for the next few months but I'm still glad to be back. I just need to remember that when I'm shvitzing like a marathon runner on her 26th mile. Sticky and wet--it's the new black!