Writing With Abandon

It must have happened on Thursday.

I woke up drenched in sweat, confused by the feeling. I haven’t had night sweats in months, not since starting to dress warmer (isn’t that strange?), not unless I was sick like in January with fever, unable to lift my head.

P wasn’t home, and I figured it was because I’d taken a bath that night, that must have been it, raising my body temperature like the water temperature, hot but not too hot, but hot enough to make my skin red.

Then on Friday, 9 o’clock hit and I heard the fan of the AC click on, familiar, but didn’t feel the cool breeze that normally sends me to grab the throw blanket on the couch. Strange.

By the time we were ready to climb into bed, we knew something was up. The thermostat read 78 degrees. The air was blowing, but it wasn’t cool.

Shit. Everything in a condo breaks on the weekend, when you can’t have any repairs done in the building.

We slept splayed out, our limbs stretched like starfish, tossing and turning and sweating. Is it any better with the window open when you live in south Florida?

I spent most of the weekend out at the beach, my first ever friend from my whole life visiting. We lazed at her fancy hotel’s fancy pool, big green cushy loungers, umbrella, poolside service, crispy chicken tenders, the best watermelon paletas I’ve ever had. It was the first really hot weekend we’ve had in a while, reminding me that summer is coming, summer is here. I luxuriated in the cool water of the pool, just right, letting my fingers turn into prunes.

When I got back to my apartment with its shades drawn to keep the sun’s heat out, I was greeted by warm stale air. Poor Pheebs.

On Saturday my yoga teacher lent me a tower fan. When the repair guy texted me that our unit was “really old…,” I ordered our own and carted the fan back for Sunday’s class. “That’s ridiculous,” she said, when I told her they didn’t allow repairs on weekends.

Monday meant back to work, but working from home means working from the heat. My head throbbed all day. My appetite was small like those hottest days of summer when all you want is fruit that’s essentially water.

I sat on calls with the fan blowing right at me and felt my brain slowly becoming mush between my eyebrows. I laid horizontal on the couch when P got home and agreed to go to Trader Joe’s just for the AC.

I thought about all the other times I’ve laid out like a starfish, sweating.

In Madrid, with its dry heat and that old apartment with no central heat or AC.

In London, when Reeta and I stayed in a bed & breakfast during a brutal heat wave of 101 degrees that made my feet swell inside my sneakers, giving me blisters.

At summer camp on the warmest nights, my legs hanging off the top bunk.

The repair man came this morning and gave his verdict: the unit needs to be replaced. We have one of the last original AC units in the building. Most apartments have already replaced theirs. Our landlord has approved his quote, and it’s just another few days before he’ll be able to install it. Hopefully.

Til then, I’ll be living in this strange heat world, my brain traveling through memories of other hot nights, moving slowly, hydrating excessively, and trying to eat better than I did today.