heat index my ass!

its hot. new york is going through a heat wave. the last few days have been in the 90's with a heat index of above 100. i didnt even know what a heat index was until saturday, when the weather report said it was 89 degrees but felt 106. like everything else in new york, even the weather is more intense than it seems when magnified under the glass of this metropolis.

we installed the a/c and we run it all night, but during the day when im home alone i leave it off and embrace the heat. it feels good to sweat, i dont mind.

growing up in san francisco, i always felt cheated out of any real weather. its perpetually autumn in the city by the bay. no matter what time of year it is. even on the nicest, hottest days, come 5pm you will need a light jacket to protect yourself from the chill. it never gets so cold that it snows, and it never gets so hot that you need to sit shirtless on your porch and drink iced tea. its always the same, and i felt slighted because of it.

all the stories i read and television shows i watched and movies i viewed painted the picture of some magical world where in the winter you had to wear a scarf and in the summer you had to wear sandals because the sidewalk would be to hot to step on with bare feet. i never got to experience any of that.

the winter got cold, sure, but i never had to wear a really big coat, at best i would just put on a sweater under the jacket i usually wore. and even then there would be clear days where the temperature reached 60 or so and people went to the park to play frisbee.

the summer would get warm, but never fully hot. shorts werent entirely encouraged, unless you planned on switching to pants later in the afternoon. usually, even on the hottest days, i would pack a sweater wherever i went, prepared for the impending chill.

but here in new york, the weather is clear and defined. in the winter it snows and you have to wear a huge coat and boots. the streets get covered in snow and the gas bill skyrockets. you have to pack away your shorts and tshirts and sandals and sunglasses. you wont need them. that is, until summer, when the heat falls upon you like a hungry beast. then you switch the wardrobes and put away the big coats and long socks and scarves and what not. you install the a/c and your electricity bill skyrockets.

that is, unless youre me. and you want to feel the heat because for some reason it means something to you. also, you want to start writing again every day. not just fun and goofy or serious and meaningful stuff, but anything that comes to mind. like the weather and the seasons. you want to write something and it doesnt matter what. and it doesnt matter if any one reads it [although you guess its safe to admit you like when people read it] and it doesnt matter if its written well.