99 Degrees

Summer officially started yesterday, and I'm sick of it already.

The blog title above doubles as today's forecast. And yesterday's forecast. And tomorrow's and probably every day after that, unless we finally break the triple digit mark we've been lingering just under. It's hot outside. While I was sleeping one day last month, someone apparently moved Nashville to the surface of the sun.

I'm a wimp when it comes to any temperature lower than 61 or higher than 79, but by any measure, summer heat is a bigger nuisance than winter cold. Walking through the cold in the morning is miserable, but once you get to the office and turn the heater on, you can pretty much go about your day as normal. Ten minutes later, the fact that you were cold earlier in the day is long forgotten.

Not so in summer. Once you sweat through your clothes on the morning walk, you're stuck with that sticky feeling all day, counting the hours until the next available shower. And it gets progressively worse with each trip outside the office all day, until you actively fear the impact getting on an elevator containing anyone else might have on your professional reputation. Also, it's easy to dress for winter, as one can always add extra layers. But employers, and the general public, tend to look at you disapprovingly if you do the inverse in summer. You just can't go to work in your underpants.

Trust me. I've tried.

But I was definitely not working in my underpants yesterday. I only have to appear in court once every two or three months, but yesterday, on the hottest day of the year, I had to be at the federal courthouse at 1:20 in the afternoon. As fate would have it, the federal courthouse is located half a mile on the exact opposite side of downtown from my office, which happens to be half a mile in the opposite direction from my parking lot. So faced with the options of walking half a mile to drive to court, or just walking half a mile to court, I doused myself with water(in part to clear a stain from a morning iced coffee, and in part to avoid spontaneous combustion) and starting walking toward the courthouse, sporting a full sweat-covered suit.

As I walked, snappily dressed, through the shadeless, heat-absorbing asphalt valley that is downtown Nashville, more than one homeless fellow approached me with the initial aim of requesting financial assistance, only to turn away when they got close enough to get a whiff of me and decide that whatever might be in my wallet wasn't worth having to stand close enough to me to ask for it. And truthfully, I can't say that I blame them.

I finally made it there and made a somewhat futile attempt to refresh myself. After 2hours of court (which tends to leave me tired, sweaty and thirsty by itself), I had to walk back. Since I was excused from the office for the day because of court anyway, my plan was to walk to the car and go home directly after court.

I couldn't make it. I changed plans midstream and actually chose to voluntarily go back to work for 2 hours just to get a break from the heat and finish that diet coke I had started earlier in the day that sat in the refrigerator. Drenched, I managed to make it back to the office and then come up with a clever excuse to wait on the next elevator to my office rather than step into the crowded one waiting as I entered the building.

I survived. But when it's so hot I'd rather be working than walking towards the car that will take me home, it's just too hot.

And it isn't getting better anytime soon.