Summer Laze

I am currently lying on the floor of my apartment looking up at the underside of my lofted bed, my laptop propped precariously in front of my face while my brain oozes out my ears to leave two moderately-sized sludgy puddles on either side of my face, probably which will leave a stain which no doubt will come out of my security deposit.

I say that my laptop is propped precariously because at any moment, if I breathed too deeply or typed to vigorously, my laptop would come crashing down on my head. Imagine this: I am lying on my back in what is essentially the fetal position-- my head and spine are on the ground, but my legs are curled up. The laptop is leaning against the tops of my knees, being held there by the underside of my bra and my wrists which if absent of the keyboard would look a bit like T-Rex Arms. One wrong move and the screen could rotate forward and clobber me on the nose. One does not know shame until one's laptop, phone, tablet, e-reader, book, or other item occasionally used while on one's back has crashed down with the full force of gravity and hit one in the face. And yet I continue thusly because I find my head throbs the least when in direct contact with the floor.

My head is throbbing because my apartment has become an ungodly furnace of hellfire. I have never been so hot in my four years in Seattle. If I have, I have blocked that memory out. The weather report says it is 71 degrees outside. I haven't been outside yet today for a variety of reasons--the main being I am too lazy, a feeling not assisted by the heat. It is not 71 degrees in my apartment. 71 degrees is sweater weather compared to the temperature of my apartment.

How an apartment can get so blindly, blisteringly hot when outside it is so relatively reasonable is my main source of frustration. A secondary source of frustration is why any modern apartment building would be built with out an air conditioner-- I don't care if it's Seattle and two months ago I was still using the heating unit. These are the days I *really* believe in global warming and I just think, "if it's just going to get warmer, you'd think developers would think ahead". My windows have been open all day and at just barely 7pm I am starting to feel a very slight breeze.

It is summer. Officially. If I close my eyes and I block out the noise of the freeway and jabbing of the laptop into my ribs, romanticized childhood memories of summer flood in. It's always dusk in my memories of summer, after the temperature has dropped to something more reasonable. All the best parts of summer happen at dusk. Barbecues, pickup games of kickball or basketball or tag, walks to the community center, bike rides to the elementary school. For some reason when I play any of these memories back the sun is always sinking in the horizon, slinking away sullenly.

I've always been a summer person. Buuut I've also always been an air condition person. I like warm weather, I like being hot, I just don't like being inescapably hot, stiflingly hot and trapped like a wild animal in a poorly ventilated zoo enclosure. Which is why today I have unwisely decided to rot away in my apartment, too hot and too lazy to do anything but watch "Weeds" and read a book. And slowly let my brain ooze out. Which is an unfortunate loss, but not to be helped.

Some people will undoubtedly criticize me and anyone else like me who has decided to sacrifice a day like to day to laziness inside. These critics do not appreciate the fleetingness of life. This might sound contradictory--why shouldn't one use every day to it's maximum potential? Isn't doing as much as you can appreciating and indeed recognizing the fleetingness of life?

Yes. It is. It is also exhausting. And in any case, doing nothing is doing something. Nothing is never nothing. For example. I folded all of my laundry today, even my hand towels which are more often then not just shoved in the cupboard. I took a shower, I even lather-rinse-repeated. I finished a book--for fun--and continued another. I watched half a dozen episodes of "Weeds" which is a lot of "Weeds" but at least they are 30 minute episodes.

And now I am here. On the floor of my apartment. Writing. It took a day of nothing to do a few things I never do (that makes it sound like when I list showering as one of my day's activities above showering is not a daily activity--it totally is). Doing nothing is very important because suddenly you realize that there are things on your list you finally have time to do. When everything is go go go things fall by the wayside. It took a brain meltingly hot day and my own sloth to start writing again. Worth it.