Sunday, August 16, 2020

AUGUST , MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

Mid August, and the nights are too damned hot for any reasonable person to put up with, a situation made worse when one realizes after starting this sentence that there is nothing "any reasonable person" is able to do to make the temperature of the day and the night that follows more agreeable. So it's hot, one flips the pillow over and over and over again in an effort to stay keen with the coolness the underside might provide to one's reclining face, yet this is in vain as the evening humidity is such that the body is maintaining a light patina of sweat at all times , a perspiration that covers you again quickly no matter how many times you washing your face in cold water or the number of cooling showers in the day one takes. The relief does not last, and the flipping of the pillow to get a bit of a chill is undermined by the cushion's quick absorption of the perspiration that drips in quick rivulets from brow to pillow case. It's near the same thing as trying to rest on a pile of damp dirty laundry.

But one gets up , trying to be reasonable and anxious, perhaps, to do something with this time not sleeping, so the television gets turned on, the thumb depresses the buttons on the remote control in rapid succession looking for something of interest to stare at and so get lulled into a somnambulist state but the crushing inanity of popular culture racing by the eyes --emus in dark sunglasses, smiling people on hikes and having family picnics while an announcer intones warnings of many awful theoretical ways this cure might kill you, people of all races and genders and sexual identities acting like nine year olds when the mystery brand name doesn't match their collective expectations, talk show host  and pundits in a car going over a cliff.

 Not so much for the last entry,it's just the wishful thinking that might occur as a nagging undertone as one speeds through the channels and rejects what this many tentacled monster is offering one to waste time with, the whispering urge to somehow make all these actors get into a big station wagon and speed recklessly into the Hollywood Hills where the road is winding, narrow and an easy fantasy to have when the wall paper seems to bleed cheap paste and the darkened fixtures of the kitchen, the sink, the dishes, the refrigerator, are outlined like a demon's posse spare -changing in the corner for beer and chips. Nothing on television . It is 4 AM and work begins at 8 AM, the essay one is supposed supposed to write , a thousand words on writing in quarantine as a means of keeping one's wits sharp and focused. So one arrives at work early because it's too damned hot. Any reasonable person would, no?