Heat Wave

have you had your electrolytes today?

Has this ever happened to you?

You’re walking down Canal street holding a wok you just bought at a restaurant supply store. You’ve been meaning to buy a wok so you can make stir fries and cook new things and spend less on takeout. You’re waiting for the walk signal to change so you can cross the street. The metal wok that was cold to the touch in the store is now gently rising in heat. Outside is a stove. Outside is fire. You’re holding a metal bowl that is essentially becoming a heating pad in your hands. The thought of making a stir fry seems insane, distant, unlikely to you now. All you can imagine eating is ice or cold air from a fan. Maybe a tomato. It’s a heat wave. The devil has come to earth to punish you for that time you colored your dog’s nails with purple sharpie. For the time you turned down a promposal from a lovely man who played “isn’t she lovely” on the saxophone just so you could go with your actual crush, the guy you met doing high school musical theater. The love of your month. 

The devil has lured the sun closer to Earth. I’m sure of this, my 8th grade earth science teacher told me so. He also referred to global warming as the planet just going through a “hot time” and he also told us, unprompted, that “a boat is a hole in the water you throw your money into.” Public middle school is an amazing place to learn that adults are just winging it too.

It is so fucking hot out. This is the kind of heat that makes me angry at the trees. I’m angry at a dog because it barked weird. I’m angry at my chai latte that was too sweet. They’re always too sweet. Coffee shops mix oatly with a bottle of slightly flavored brown syrup and hand it to you as if you’re not 25 years old walking around town with a sippy cup of milk. I’m angry at my clothes. Nothing should be touching me right now. I felt a single bead of sweat start at the nape of my neck and make its way down, past my sports bra, eventually, to my buttcrack. A hero’s journey.

It’s too hot out. Nothing makes sense. I spend even more time than usual loitering in grocery stores because those are the coldest places on earth. Besides maybe a morgue. I carefully examine the difference between frozen peas and frozen peas with corn. I imagine that I’m a girl that cares about the different uses of such varieties of baby food vegetables. I shift my gaze to the nine varieties of Amy’s burritos. I think about how I can’t have those because I don’t have a microwave. I think about how outside is a microwave. I’m leftover pasta, spinning around slowly, getting so hot in some places but weirdly so cold in others. I beep when I’m done. The song of my people. 

Now I’m out of the grocery store and looking for signs of god in a godless place. The pavement glimmers either because of physics or because maybe I’m starting to hallucinate. I think about who I was in January. How I longed for heat. How naive I was. How small.

It’s 2am as I write this, parked in front of my air conditioner. My idol. I’ll lay a cockroach sacrifice at its feet. It’s hard to fall asleep when it’s this hot out. Usually my AC is great but apparently in heat waves ConEd lowers the power in general to avoid blackout. So she’s operating at 75% percent. And I totally get it. But why do we live in hell. 

One day, the heat will pass. One day I can go back to wearing Fresh Fields sweatshirts. Heat waves don’t last forever. It’s hard to know that when you’re in one, but it was cold before and so it has to be cold again. If that’s not accurate, don’t blame me, my 8th grade earth science teacher was a climate change denier.

The best thing I ate this week:

Was a piece of watermelon covered in Tajin. And a salted tomato.