Friday, May 16, 2008

It's Times Like These I Wish We Could Climb Out of Our Skin

It's hot.

Last week, last week, I was shivering as I got into my car in the mornings. I'd shutter and sputter and shake my head before starting my car. My hands cramped with the cold.

Last night, however, I wished I could simply slip out of my skin and rest in my bones.

There's an old Shel Silverstein poem about this exact thing:

It’s hot!
I can’t get cool,
I’ve drunk a quart of lemonade,
I think I’ll take my shoes off
And sit around in the shade.

It’s hot!
My back is sticky,
The sweat rolls down my chin.
I think I’ll take my clothes off
And sit around in my skin.

It’s hot!
I’ve tried with ‘lectric fans,
And pools and ice cream cones.
I think I’ll take my skin off
And sit around in my bones.

It’s still hot!


It's true, you see. I think if I had walked around in my bones, I would still have melted. I returned to my home at 9 at night. NINE AT NIGHT! And it was 89 degrees inside. 89 degrees inside a house is much hotter than 89 degrees outside. I opened the windows and doors, turned on the fan, and tried to let some of the day's worth of trapped heat out of my 600 square feet of living space.

Still hot, indeed.

Eventually, I downed about a quart of ice tea, put on something that was most certainly not flannel pajamas, and rested on top of all my sheets in the cool, dark. It wasn't actually cool; it's merely that the dark in the room gave over the impression of coolness. I thought cool thoughts. I tried to dwell on what lingering coolness I'd felt from watching Ice Age: The Meltdown and fell into a restless sleep.

I woke again nearly suffocating on the heat at five in the morning and turned on the dreaded air conditioning. The cat looked like he wanted to open his mouth and thank me. Instead, he joined, for the first time all night, on the bed and stretched out.

I stretched my body across the entire bed, letting no body part touch another.

It's hot.

1 comment:

megabrooke said...

wow! send some of the heat our way and then we'll both have nice temps!