Never Too Hot to Handle

Allow me to brag for a moment.

July 2016 was the hottest month on record according to NASA, weather.com and just about every other science nerd institution that pays people to monitor such things in hermetically sealed buildings across the country.

Certainly in Richmond it was a scorcher.

Yet, for the 24th year in a row, I eschewed air conditioning. It's not like I don't have central air retrofitted to my 1876 apartment, it's just that I've never turned it on in seven plus years of living here. For the other 17 years of living as Mother Nature intended during summer, I chose to live in un-air-conditioned residences.

My reasons are myriad, but let's start with how unnatural it is to be cool and comfortable in the south during the summer. You may be able to separate yourself from your body's natural responses, but I can't. I actually like that feeling of sweat working its way down my chest or back.

What air conditioning devotees (who, in a Venn diagram, overlap almost entirely with cell phone owners) refuse to acknowledge is that by being in climate-controlled spaces so much during the summer, your body's ability to deal with heat is severely compromised.

Even long-time friends who've accepted this eccentricity of mine aren't above looking at me with disdain, say on a patio or rooftop bar, and saying some version of, "You're not even sweating, are you?"

No, I'm not because my body is acclimated to dealing with heat, just as yours was at one time.

It's not like I don't sweat because I am slick with it after walking six miles every morning in this weather, but I also walk four miles an hour, so I'm not exactly lollygagging, either. But sitting outside, having a drink in 90 degree weather? That's hardly sweat-worthy once you're used to your apartment thermostat climbing to (occasionally above) 95.

Embracing summer would be reason enough for living outside societal norms, but the benefits pile on far beyond my preference for summers more reminiscent of those from my childhood.

My July electric bill was $38, how about yours? My carbon footprint is smaller than my actual footprint (although I don't exactly have petite feet) and I'm among the few who aren't contributing to global warming for the sake of sweater weather in July and August and, being an old hippie, that gives me a great deal of satisfaction.

But, honestly, I turned my back on A/C to enhance the quality of my life.

When I looked at this apartment initially, every window was painted shut and I immediately told my landlord-to-be that I wouldn't take it unless every window opened easily and had screens. Already pegging me for a long-term rental gem, he accommodated. Two years ago, he had storm windows put in so my 19th century windows were a bit more air tight during polar vortexes.

Open windows are like porch sitting; they involved you in the goings-on of your neighborhood.

I hear people riding bikes a block before they pass my windows, their voices projecting ahead of their tires. Snippets of pedestrian conversation and car music drift up from the street (hearing Al Green blasting from an open car window has been known to cause spontaneous harmonizing ), along with the hum of cicadas at night and birds in the morning.

Granted, I also hear the trash truck on Wednesdays, the neighbor's hound alerting his parents to people in the alley and VCU's catastrophic siren, but, really, that's all just part and parcel of city life, like dings on your bumpers from daily parallel parking. If you want to feel isolated from the world (and maintain pristine bumpers), move to the suburbs or country.

And did I mention the perks of living without A/C beyond your physiology, the planet, your wallet and neighborliness?

When the mercury climbs precariously high in my apartment, I take that as summer giving me permission to wallow in it. That means cool showers, heat naps with three fans pointed directly at me, reading in my north-facing bedroom or on the shaded balcony and ice cream, lots of ice cream.

It means that there are times when I don't do anything at all because it's simply too hot. Summer was like that when I was a kid and it's still like that.

I ask you, what other season extends such glorious goof-off opportunities?

I Like Being Hot

I am a pig when it comes to eating crabs; I don't have any childhood summer eating memories that don't include crabs. So naturally I am a pro at picking them. And eating them (although in this category I have also been called a glutton).

During our most excellent crab feast on the porch last evening (during which I picked for myself as well as the less competent), we found ourselves drifting into several philosophical discussions; the one which interested me most was the one about air conditioning.

I am currently reading Reprieve: A Memoir by Agnes de Mille about the cerebral hemorrhage she suffered in the late 70s after a longtime career as a groundbreaking dancer and choreographer.

While recovering in one of the best hospitals in NYC (and one of only three in the world at the time that had a CAT scan capability), she mentioned the long summer nights in the hospital.

"It was hot I suppose because it was midsummer and no air conditioning was allowed in the hospital but I was high up and there was always a breeze of sorts [through the window]."

The group was appalled. No a/c in a hospital? How did people survive, much less recover? How inhumane! How archaic.

I told the group I don't use air conditioning and haven't since 1993 by choice. Well, if Agnes' situation was appalling, mine was sheer idiocy. The 70s were one thing, but this is the 21st century, they squealed. Why on earth?

Why not? It's green and oh-so economical (more money for crabs). I never claimed to be like other people. And I really do like feeling warm to the bone.

When we got down here and were choosing bedrooms, there was one with twin beds, one with a double and one with a queen. No one wanted the twin bed room except me, which worked out exceedingly well for me.

It's the only room on the ocean side. So I have the windows flung wide open so I can hear the waves and feel the breeze.

But I am obligated to keep the door to my room shut at all times so my warm, humid salt air doesn't dilute the meat-locker temperature in the rest of the cottage. Can do.

Truthfully, the essence of summer in the south for me isn't crab eating (although I'd hate to do without), it's that little trickle of sweat that runs down between my breasts on a hot day.

Just add it to the list of my oddities.

Too Cool a Mockingbird

Like generations of Southerners in the summertime before me, I went to the movies today for "air conditioned comfort" and because the theater would be "cooled by refrigeration" like the banners outside theatres used to promise.

And don't you just know I had to pick a suitably hot and Southern film to see, namely To Kill A Mockingbird, set in un air-conditioned Alabama in the 1930s.

Let the fanning begin.

Not only had I never seen TKAM on the big screen, I'd never seen it at all. I've read the book at least three times that I can recall and read plenty about the film's cultural significance, but that was about it. Movieland was showing it for their Movies and Mimosa feature and I honestly was looking for a couple of hours of cool air.

To my great delight, the details of life in the South in the summer were all there.

Open windows with barely moving curtains. Men with wet underarm stains on their shirts. Foreheads glistening in close quarters. Wrinkled cotton and linen suits and jackets. Men fanning themselves with their hats while women in hats used fans.

A block of ice in front of the courthouse, chips of which were to be used inside for cooling purposes. I know I'm in the minority on this, but I accept being a sweaty mess because I chose to live in the South and summers here are hot.

My windows are open 24/7 and the curtains are often still.

When I get back from my morning walks, my t-shirt has more than just underarm wetness. My forehead glistens under my bangs and my normally straight hair curls where it meets my moist neck.
I tend to wear cotton knit dresses so as to not show the inevitable wrinkling that comes with heat and woven fabrics.

And I even have an Art 180 paddle fan I keep nearby (I once took it to an outdoor wedding and got envious stares from other dripping guests).

But the block of ice I hadn't thought of. Maybe that'll be my next summer coping mechanism. Surely the original occupants of my 1876 house made do during a hot spell and the women back then wore a lot more clothing than I do.

One habit we probably have in common is an afternoon nap in our undies, stretched out under the ceiling fan with the shades drawn.

I may even try employing a chip or two of ice this afternoon...you know, in the best Southern tradition.

Heating Up the Seven Year Itch

Having the Bowtie Cinema show classic movies on the big screen every weekend morning is proving a boon to my film knowledge.

Somehow, I'd never seen "The Seven Year Itch" with Marilyn Monroe, but a friend and I corrected that today; he couldn't believe how small and young (29, but playing a 22-year old)) she looked given the voluptuous image of her he had.

What struck me was the very different world of 1955, with men who sent their wives and kids away for a three-month vacation during the summer and then cut loose smoking, drinking and chasing other women while the fam was away.

I know it was a pre- sexual revolution time, but was it really as male-centric as all that?

And, if so, thank god the sixties arrived and things started to change.

Of course, the premise is that by about seven years into a relationship, the male of the species is bored with his partner (I'd put it more like 5.98 years, but that's just me) and looking for fresh meat.

Of course, in the sanitized Hollywood of the fifties, he resists the temptation of M.M. and returns to the loving bosom of wife and family, as opposed to today, where we just move on once we're bored, male and female both.

Not surprisingly, a little research uncovered the fact that the itch length has been shortened to less than 4 years now.

Apparently boredom sets in much sooner and we're far more comfortable with abandoning the old and seeking out the new.

Who knows, we could be on our way to a two-year itch, and, really, why bother at all then?

On the other hand, a prominent part of the film was about how few and far between air-conditioned homes and buildings were (including the guy's office), causing people to be overheated in the summer time.

Of course, as someone who has voluntarily lived without air conditioning for 18 years, I thought it was pretty cool (bad, I know) to glimpse a time when that was the norm and I wouldn't have been considered the oddity I am now for eschewing it.

And I am definitely hoping to disprove the whole itch thing altogether before I die.