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Summer lovin’…sucks

Posted on July 2, 2022 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

I hate summer. With all my heart. The heat, the mosquito bites (to which I’m allergic), allergies, and did I mention the heat? By heat, by the way, I mean anything over 70. I really prefer under 60, but 60 – 70 is tolerable. I am at my happiest at 0. as long as I have heat, of course, which I set at 62 during the day and 60 at night.

When I say I hate heat, it’s not hyperbole. And I don’t mean that I intellectually dislike it; it negatively affects me in every way. I get red, flushed, sweaty, short of breath, and I can’t breathe. I get cross, irritable, and ready to fight the air.

Add to that the mosquitos. I’m allergic to them and when I get bit, they swell and puff up. One time, I was in Taiwan for the summer, and my legs were covered with bites the size of silver dollars. Mosquitos love me and if I’m outside, they will bite me.

Many years ago, Angry Black Lady and I were riffing on white people and their love for the great outdoors. We were joking about how white camping is and how it speaks to a mentality of being rich enough to pay to sleep outside your house when many people of color can never dream of owning a house in the first place.

It’s something that is encouraged when you need to take a break or get away from the hustle and bustle of your daily life. Which, I get. If you spend most of your time in an office chained to a desk and on a computer, a breath of fresh outdoor air can seem like a great thing.

But for someone like me, stepping outside is an exercise in misery. I’m immediately hot, prickly, and sweaty. I get heat rashes, too, so that’s fun. I’m allergic to everything under the sun–and maybe including the sun. Every plant, flower, tree, and probably even the air. I’m acutely aware of how miserable I am and how much I want to be inside.

Now, you would think I have my AC on at all times because of how much I hate the heat, but I don’t like to waste energy like that. I have it set for 78, but I will admit to bumping it down to 76 when I really can’t stand it. I’m still in the elite of the elite in my neighborhood when it comes to energy use, however, so I’m happy about that. I do have a fan blowing at all times when it reaches 80 degrees outside.

Hating everything…including myself

Posted on July 29, 2019 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

I hate the summer. I hate everything about it. I hate it with the intensity of *irony alert* a thousand burning suns. I’ve tried to describe how much I hate summer, but it’s hard to find the words to do my feelings justice. If I were to try to use my words without filters, it would just be a stream of curse words whenever I think of summer. I know I bitch the most about the heat because I am a delicate fucking flower who wilts in anything above 70.

Side Note: On Friday, one of my taiji classmates said that we could go to the lovely park on Saturday for class. Quick context: we had been going to her condo and using the rec room for the last few Saturdays, but it had already been booked for this week. That’s when she said we could go to the park (my teacher offered her house, which was where we met on Friday as well), and I said with a laugh, “You can, but I won’t be there.” It was supposed to be ‘feels like’ 95 on Saturday, and while it ended up more like ‘feels like’ 89 or so, no way in hell I was going to do anything remotely physical in the heat. Right now, the ‘real feel’ is 81, and it’s not even 11 a.m. yet. I know I sound like I’m whining when I bitch about the heat, and I am. It has such a great effect on me, however, that I can’t even think after a minute or two of being in the heat. On the way back from taiji Friday, I stopped at the gas station to buy some snacks. That’s another post for another day. I step out of the car, and–by the way. The A/C on the driver side is broken. Only the driver side. That’s how I know there is no god.

Anyhoooo. Two minutes in the heat, and I’m a wreck for the next hour. Not only am I exhausted and sweating profusely, I am angry. Not just irritated, but actually angry. I’m enough of a bitch as it is; I do not need the hotness to shorten my temper. When I’m in the heat, I’m acutely aware of how miserable I am. It’s all I can think of, and my whole world has narrowed to how fucking hot it is. Earlier, I said that anything over 70 starts that miserable feeling, but if I were going to be real with you, I’d say 65 is really the upper limit of my comfort zone. It makes it interesting for me to read debates on hot vs. cold because even the cold people are more like ’65’ is perfect. I have my heat set for 62 during the day and 60 at night (in the winter). Some of the cold people were saying that 68 was good. That’s considered cold? That’s me shorts and a tank top if I have to be civilized.