The Heat

I know I’m Australian but I fucking hate hot weather. It’s
probably because I’m Australian and live in the heat for so much of the year
that I can’t stand it. If I lived in Siberia or England or somewhere, I’m sure
I’d love a little bit of sun. The grass is always greener, the weather is
always better somewhere else.

But as it is, the hot weather always gets me down. Above
about 30 degrees and any amount of humidity, I just can’t do anything
productive. Just surviving the day is an achievement, and by night I’m too
zonked to do anything anyway. I sweat like crazy and I can’t focus. If air
conditioning is available, I feel too bad to use it because it’s destroying the
environment, probably making things hotter. However, the environment is trying
to destroy me, so is it really worth protecting?

Were humans ever even meant to live in Queensland during
summer? Surely we’re all supposed to head over to New Zealand or Antarctica,
somewhere a bit more hospitable.

Don’t get me started on the beach. Well, actually the beach
is fine and I quite like being near the water. Being in it is another story.

The ocean? Not for me. The pool? All yours. I’m not a
swimmer, I never will be. I can’t deal with my legs not being stable on the
ground. I can’t handle skiing for the same reason (and I can’t see myself water
skiing anytime soon either). I know it’s a weird phobia, and I should probably
see a psychologist about it but they’d just try to fix me and it used to make
my mum cry and that’s never a good thing, but at some point you just have to
work out who you are.  And I’m not a
swimmer. I’m fine with that, I can do other stuff, but it sure doesn’t help me
cool off when it’s hot.  

Senaai and I used to live in a place that was basically an
oven, so in summer we wouldn’t spend anytime at home during the day. I have
fond memories of going down to the corner shop to get ice cream in the
afternoon, and sitting on the stairs out the front of the place, waiting for
the sun to go down. And I remember us saying at the time that we’ll look back
on this fondly. And now we do. Were we always going to, or did we make
ourselves?

We still go to the movies and the shops a lot when it’s hot,
mainly for the air con. I guess I’m not guilty about it killing the environment
when I’m a step removed from culpability – I mean, they’re going to have it
blasting anyway, right?

We go to the movies and the shops a lot anyway, no matter the
weather. Mostly we just do as little as possible.

I feel sorry for our animals. They didn’t choose to live on a
frypan with beautiful fur coats. We wash Sam down with a wet cloth and leave an
ice brick in his bed, but he still flops on the tiles. We take Cooper for a
walk down by the creek for a paddle. He gets his belly wet but doesn’t go too
far. I think he’s not much of a swimmer either. Kitty usually keeps to herself
when it’s too hot, under a bed or under a chair outside. She probably has the
biggest coat of all.

The heat is the only thing stopping us from raising a family
here in Queensland. Well, we’re also too young, and have no money, and no life
experience or even jobs. Pretty sure those things come in handy when you have
kids. The plan is to travel first anyway, get our careers sorted first, then
think about babies. When we can give them a good life, that’s when they might
happen. But that might not be in Queensland during summer, hottest place in the
universe, no thank you very much. Sorry family members, if you want to see our
offspring, we’re going where it snows.

I’ve talked about my love for the cold before. Never do I love
it more than now. Sure, when it’s really cold you’re just as incapacitated as
when it’s hot and humid. But at least you can have a blanket on. At least you
can do the washing up without needing a shower straight after. At least you don’t
get butt crack sweat.

Oh yeah, that’s a thing all right. You don’t see it in the
Australian tourism brochures, but it’s real and it’s excruciating. And it’s
hot.