Reaching deep down and finding confidence has made all my dreams come true. -Arsenio Hall
1. We Almost Broke Up. For those of you not in New York, you might not know that the city was basically the same temperature as the surface of the sun for much of the past week. It was something like 99 degrees with 85% humidity, and the heat just radiated off the pavement and blacktop… it was impossible to escape. On one of these nights I had a sleepover at boyfriend’s beautiful uptown townhouse. When we started dating it was already Autumn, so I had no idea that his house was lacking central air because it’s over 110 years old. I never thought to ask, and didn’t care as long as he was nice, charming, and still taller than me in my heels. In fact, even today I don’t really care… but that’s because it’s only about 70 degrees as I write this, and I’m not sweating profusely in a last ditch effort to save my body from a near-fatal case of heatstroke. As we climbed into bed on Wednesday night, I looked into his eyes, thanked him for the delish dinner, told him I loved him, and asked if he would throw the AC on before turning the lights out. He quickly laughed.
“Why are you laughing? Aren’t you hot as hell too?”
“No, I feel fine… I like it balmy. Plus, I don’t really have AC up here.”
“Balmy? It’s 11:45 at night and it’s 89 degrees INSIDE. This is not an option. This is not the 18th century. THIS IS THE 3RD FLOOR AND HEAT F*CKING RISES.”
“Bryce, I don’t even know where the window unit is. Let’s just sleep like this.”
“Call me high maintenance, I don’t care, but I simply will not. I’m either going downstairs to sleep on the couch, or you’re fixing this now. Were you seriously expecting this climate to be sexy?”
“Fine.” <scuffles along to the closet to pull out the window AC unit… does so very begrudgingly.>
2. I’m Getting to be Higher Maintenance. I remember when I was 20 and I bought my first condo with my then boyfriend. It wasn’t enormous, but it was our little slice of Manhattan and we thought it was pretty sweet. We signed all the papers and closed on it during a particularly cold stretch of winter. He was so excited to spend the night our new apartment as a homeowner that he literally made us sleep on the floors (the furniture wasn’t being delivered till the next day). I wasn’t thrilled about it, but I remember dropping our winter coats down as padding for our young bodies from the hardwood floors so we could crash after a late night of partying before our sofas and bed would be delivered at 8 the following morning. I did it. I ached like an old lady the next day (as it turns out, bony hips are not a good mix with hard floors), but I still did it. If ANYONE asked me to do the same thing today I’m 99% certain I’d respond with, “F*ck you.”
3. On a lower maintenance note... I taught Benny the joys of riding luggage carts today. And the joys of Milky Way bars. Especially when combined.
