Tag: AC | A Banana Peeled

I hate summer

Posted on July 5, 2023 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

I hate the summer.

The end.

Kidding. But not really.

Summer is everything I hate in the world, writ large. Let’s start with heat. To me, anything over 60 is too hot. But, I find it wild that people set their AC at 72 or lower! There was a thread on Ask A Manager in which the AC was set at 74 and people were saying they would be melting at that temperature.

I was gobsmacked because I keep mine at 78. I will bump it down to 75/76 foer my morning Taiji and to go to sleep at night, but otherwise, it sits at 78. i have a fan that I have going at all times.

Part of the reason I don’t like to have AC on all the time is because fake cold air is not as pleasant as naturally cool. But I much prefer it to 80 degrees and me profusely sweating.

There have been Canadian wildfires that make the air bad as well. Because of my immunity system being shitty, I have to keep out of it as much as possible. I like to do my Taiji lesson outside, but I can’t for the winter, obviously. And I haven’t been able to yet this summer because of the air quality and the high pollen.

Which brings me to yet another reason I hate summer. Pollen. Allergies. Everything wanting to kill me. That’s my biggest reason for hating the outdoors–I am allergic to everything. When I was a kid, I got allergy shots every week. I had no idea why, but my arm would swell, and I would be hot, miserable, and itchy for the next few hours. My mother never explained it to me, so of course in my brain, I was like, “this shot makes me sick.”

I did not know that they inject you with the actual allergens as a way to get you used to them. My brother had to stop getting allergy shots because he reacted too badly to them. I didn’t know that, either, so I was envious that he got to stop getting the shots.

When I was in my twenties, I had to get retested for allergies. You’re supposed to do it every so often. They poked my thigh with twenty or so allergens, and my entire thigh swelled up. The whole thing was hot and miserable.

The conclusion: I am allergic to everything under the sun–including the sun. I’m allergic to every flower, probably the grass, and mosquito bites. Whenever I get bites, they swell to the size of a tennis ball. One time, I spent the summer in Taiwan, and my legs were covered with huge mosquito bites. I was so miserable. And, as I mentioned recently, I stopped wearing my contacts after living in the Bay Area for a year beacuse my eyes just could not handle the local pollen.

The heat is on

Posted on June 21, 2022 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

It’s hot. It’s 87 ‘feels like’ 94 before 10 a.m. hot. Tarzan couldn’t take this kind of hot. A slight paraphrase, but factual. It’s so hot, it hurts my feelings. It’s so hot, I have the air on, which I try not to use*. Normally, I use the air a few times in a season. This year, however, it’s been really hot in the house, even when it’s not that hot outside. I don’t feel that bad about using air because I don’t use any heat in the winter.

I have been tagged as the elite of the elite when it comes to being eco-friendly with the furnace/aircon, which pleases me. My brother and I have had discussions about this because environmentalism is his passion. So he’ll sometimes point out ways I can save more, but he doesn’t push it. Why? Because I’m bare bones already.

I have my air at 78 and my furnace at 62 (day)/60 (night). I have one light in the kitchen on most of the time and then the light in my living room when I’m in it (which is most of the time). I’ll turn the light on in my computer room when I’m there, but that’s an LED. So is the one in my kitchen. I have a hybrid car that before the pandemic, I filled the gas every three months or so. Now, it’s every six months or longer.

I do have a cat who has a carbon pawprint, but I have no kids. That’s the biggest thing. I do laundry once a month or so. I do eat meat. I’m trying to cut down on that, but it’s slow-going. The more I do Taiji weapons, the more meat I want to eat. I noticed several years ago that my meat intake was increasing. I mentioned it to my Taiji teacher; she explained that it was probably because I was upping my Taiji routine.

This is more an ethical matter for me than an environmentalism one. Meat comes from animals. They are living and breathing creatures. Factory farming is brutal and not animal-friendly (to vastly understate it). It’s hard for me to sit comfortably with that. I would prefer to eat non-meat protein, but there is something just so satisfying about meat.

My brother and I have this ongoing conversation about environmentalism. He does EV car shows and has a passion for EV cars. I do not begrudge him this, but he has a hard time seeing how niche it is. And how far out of the norm it is. A few years ago, he stated he thought that maybe 50% of cars on the road were EV. Well, maybe not that high. I can’t remember exactly, but it was a high enough percentage that even I knew he was out of line–and I know nothing about cars. Nor do I care. I’m going to say he said 25%. That seems like a reasonably high number.

I am a delicate flower, damn it

Posted on June 16, 2021 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

The heat has finally broken–somewhat. It’s 75 right now, which is still outside my comfort zone, but it’s way better than 107. My parents were shocked when I told them because it’s actually hotter than where they are–which almost never happens. They asked how I’ve been dealing with it. With AC, a fan blowing on high directly on me, iced water, and ice packs. Also, taking off my shirt when the sun goes down. I’m a less is more kind of gal in general when it comes to clothing in part because of hating clothing on my skin and partly because I hate being hot. Oh, also constrained. In my idea world, I would be naked all the time in a 50 degree world. That’s not gonna ever happen, though, because that’s not the world I live in.

My energy has been sapped even for the few minutes I’m outside when I’m taking a few puffs. It’s just so oppressive, especially when you’re not used to it. It’s similar to how the South deals with an inch of snow–it’s no big deal unless it only happens once every five years or so. We get over a hundred on occasion, but not for a solid week as we did this time. We’re supposed to get back up in the nineties this week, which is just not right. I mean, yes, it’s June and yes it’s summer. But this is Minnesota! We’re not built to deal with sustained 100 degrees.

Even though I’m inside most of the time, I’m still affected by the heat. My sleep has been worse than usual and my brain refuses to think. I’m grumpy, which, admittedly, is my normal state of mind, but it’s also extra with the heat. I feel like a dope for being so susceptible to heat, but it’s the way I am. I love the cold with all my heart and feel alive when the temperature is around zero. But anything over sixty is not fun for me and past seventy, I want to throat-punch somebody. Eighty? Grrrrr. Ninety is unfathomable and a hundo is personally hurtful.

I’m drinking iced water and iced coffee like they’re going out of style, which is helping a bit. But mostly, I’m just mad. I know it doesn’t help, but it’s how I feel.

In better news, my left thumb is roughly 92% right as rain. That steroid shot was a miracle worker, but I’m glad the doc clarified that it might take up to two weeks to work. I had been expecting it to be like magic and work instantly. Knowing that wasn’t the case meant I didn’t freak when it didn’t get better right away. It took a few days for it to improve at all and by the one week point, I was at roughly 60%. Now, I can bend it with very minimal pain and it’s only slightly sore when I touch it. To be honest, I’ll be happy if it stays like this and doesn’t get any better. I’m just so relieved I can use it again.

Tag Archives: AC