Tuesday, April 21, 2009

I don’t glisten, I sweat Gobdamnit, and it ain’t pretty

Where I grew up 85 degrees (some number smaller in Celsius, I imagine) is full blown, all out, glory wonderful summer.

Where I live now 85 degrees is the break before we get slammed with 100+ degree weather. Supposedly I’m to take this 85 degree weather and label it spring, which is LIES, dirty dirty lies. Spring is 65 degrees, sunny days, rain showers and brisk evenings. Spring is not supposed to choke the green out of whatever tiny foliage attempts to peak out and turn the world a dusty brown that lasts until it snows again. Spring is not supposed to reduce me to hiding under patches of shade and growling if people get too close.

Clearly, I don’t handle heat well. My genetics would have me in Northern London or Scotland somewhere, where the sun hardly ever burns through the mist and touches pasty European descended skin. My internal temperature gauge cannot regulate anything above 70 degrees. Around 75 I get uncomfortable, by 85 I’m vaguely annoyed and angry for no reason, by 100 I’m whimpering in a bathtub full of ice and trying to remember my name.

The heat dragged my lunch walk down today. It added five minutes to my time. When I arrived back at my office after my 2.2 mile loop I was a sweaty, blotchy, panting, disgusting mess. And I still had four more hours in which to grace my co-workers with my presence. I wouldn’t call myself fully ripe, but I would say I wasn’t spring fresh either.

I had hoped that what with it being APRIL and all that I would still have at least a blessed month before the heat hit in which to cram in physical activity during lunch. Sadly it appears that this is not the case. This current heat spell is here to stay. And I’m going to have to find a new way to get physical activity into my day that doesn’t involve soaking through my bra and undershirt right before important company meetings.

I envy my father’s generation. When he was growing up all they railed on about was the next ice age. The global climate trend was toward the cold. Now damn global warming has taken over and things are heating up. You won’t see me whimpering and confused in an ice age, is all I’m saying.

Damn heat.

1 comment:

sallyacious said...

My first thought is maybe layering? Like wearing a tank top or something that you can change after your walk? Perhaps you need a specific walking shirt to wear only during your lunchtime promenades.

I'm sorry you don't do well in the heat. I love the heat. Not the humidity (and yet, I'm moving to the shores of Lake Michigan), but being warm is one of my favorite things ever. I'm not good past about 90, but I could bake and bake and bake and be perfectly happy.