Hot France

 

Because my media is custom made for myself, I am not entirely sure how obsessed the rest of the world is with the European heat wave. I'm pretty sure... a little? I remember hearing about heat waves in other places and they always made me happy they weren't happening to me, but they were ringed with a touch of terror that they could.

And now they are.

Except, it's a pretty normal heat wave here, surely not nearly as bad as the worse ones in Saint Minneapolis. I know that this one is worse too in other places in France, where it's more like a hundred instead of our 93 degrees with a lucky breeze every once in awhile. But it's not like the sun stroked streets are shut down. We were out all day today, for some bizarre reason, and the city was packed as ever. People are on vacation here! That shit doesn't reschedule, so people throw on some scraps of clothes and plunge out into the sun. They sit baking on the rocks of the beach. They bob around in the water like so many corks.

Does anyone look like they're having fun?

I can't tell. You can write in any story you want on these people. It's vacation. They're all true.

What about air conditioning, you want to know.

Sure, we have it, as I mentioned yesterday, we have the only apartment in our building with it, and I frankly wouldn't mind if it went a bit colder, but it blows with ceaseless effort at this point. But that's a bit how it is all over the city. Some small stores in town have no air conditioning and they are insanely stultifying, though my darling wife bought something from one of those horrible stores today while I waited cowering under a tree outside. Many other places have air, but even at the giant supermarket and the glossy department store it doesn't go very cold like it would in the USA. And even more places in this city are so conversant with, and so open to the outdoors that their "We have air conditioning" signs for the tourists are completely meaningless unless you want to grab the ugly table in a dark far back corner where maybe an old vent weakly pours some cool air on you. And that's nowhere to drink a nice pint of cold beer! We had one at a table at the edge of inside outside, across from the opera house, and for about 15 minutes there I was even comfortable when the beach breeze found some life and a way through.

Or maybe I was just drunk.

I hate the heat. With cold weather I tend to harden to it, and adapt as it goes on. Not so with the heat.

We made it home much later with some groceries and it was nearly six already. The cool of our apartment was a blessed relief. 

But now, at 9:30 in the evening, under that same temperature, I slowly sweat.