Truth be known, though, I haven’t wanted to come into the office for the past couple of days. No, this isn’t the typical "I hate my job and will avoid it at all cost" woes. It’s as simple as not wanting to be in this air-conditioned environment.
I know it’s weird, but over the past few days, the heat here has struck me as a good thing. If anything, the heat has seemed honest. I want to be outside and sticky, knowing that my body working to cool itself. I want to feel my muscles working, drawing in the heat and somehow energized by it. Sure it’s uncomfortable, but the discomfort is just part of the experience. It’s real, it’s tangible, and it makes a great deal more sense than closing myself in a box and getting doused with refrigerant-cooled air.
Near as I can tell, I’m not a side of beef. And before you get on me for not knowing what it’s really like out there, let me just share that I’ve chosen these hottest days of the summer so far to start bicycling into work again. I know, it's HOT.
On a side note, I blame air conditioning for summer colds. I’ve no empirical evidence to support this, just some cockamamie theory I cooked up somewhere along the way. Summer colds seem to hit during the hottest part of the summer, when the difference between the real world and the maxi-fridge is the greatest. As our bodies struggle to adapt to the 20-30 degree temperature changes that occur every time we step in or out of our offices, we’re left weakened. Whatever virus or bacteria we’ve happened to pick up in the course of our day (which, of course, are thriving in the heat) go straight to work on us.