To Live and Die By Sticky Humidity
I do not aspire to perspire!
There are only so many ways to talk about the historic and preposterously harrowing Canadian wildfires that turned New York City into an apocalyptic war zone. It carries heavily allegorical aspects that put anthropogenic climate change into focus, both in terms of the specific climatic conditions that made it first possible and then devastating, as well as the broader social and political situation that limits the scope of our existential counteroffensive to using more paper straws. These climate disasters play along the horizons of what kind of man-made horror is actually imaginable, or legible, and that’s before I even wrap my head around the concept of “wet-bulb temperature” that goes beyond aesthetics.
I cannot and probably should not maintain this level of moral or intellectual heft every post, and while it’s nice and sobering to drop the irony mask every now and then, I have to remind myself that it is also important to stick to what draws the readers to this deranged newsletter: Moderately heated rants about what you would do if you found a sandwich in an unexpected place. Instead, the discussion around some Canadian wildfire smoke will pivot to appreciating the chance for a real sweet breath of swamp-ass bouillabaisse.
Living in the city mostly brings me joy and convenient access to concerts and sports and restaurants, but by the numbers, in these past few weeks, the weather has been boggy and dense, and from one moment to the next, everything is gluey and extremely gross. And I wouldn’t ordinarily say that anything I’m associated with has Summer Vibes—I personally do not have “summer vibes” as a general rule, to the point where I have some weird personal rules about when it is and isn’t OK for me to wear shorts and floral shirts. I’m a naturally sweaty guy, so in this miserably glutted humidity, it feels like I’m walking through a car wash in the Amazon rainforest, or someone set off a huge bath bomb above the skyline and carries a piquant stench of wet Saint Bernard.
All of this sounds kind of gloomy, and I guess actually is kind of gloomy, because something about the merciless summer heat makes the smell of artisanal sidewalk urine and freshly smoked crackpipes uniquely astringent. But even this is secondary to the awful, stagnant ubiquity of mosquitoes. Like Moses and the Plague, 10 million of them descend from the sky and feast on my face until I timelapse back to my derpy 16-year-old pubescent self—a.k.a. a meat lovers pizza from Domino’s.
I walk down five blocks in a strikingly dreary and dreamlike inertia; the thick humidity drenches my wooly chest and it carries the same musty dampness as the windshield of a truck that just pulled off the Interstate. We city folk will pretend like nothing bad ever happens in our glistening and glorified metropolises because it would shatter our sense of unearned superiority if bridge-and-tunnel suburban goobers begin to think that living in the city actually sucks sometimes. I giddily pay $3,000 a month in rent strictly to maintain a decorum of elitist contempt. Our IG stories will say something like, “Nights in NYC >>>>” while we’re ripping Goldschläger shots in some obnoxious nightclub, and right after we post it, we’re plucking the fifth mosquito out from our eyeballs.
The meme of White Boy Summer has experienced some startlingly recent and ever more decisively vanished renaissance, but in a way, there is a righteous idealism that makes peak sun the ultimate dude season. Chillin’ on your four-foot apartment balcony, cracking a Coors Light, jamming out to the Allman Brothers. Going for a 15-mile post-hangover run and throwing up your breakfast burrito. It unites the good ol’ boys shooting an Uzi in their backyards in Kentucky and the gangly hipsters grabbing a smoothie and hitting the skate park in L.A. I fondly indulge in the quaint idyl of lazing around outside, reading on a hammock in the shade and sipping on ranch water or a gin-spiked lemonade. And now I hate summer so much, which would horrify the younger me. As children, we were conditioned to like summer because it was our extended vacation from the dread of high school. Now, I realize the yawning cleft between spending an entire summer in a swimsuit and schlepping from place to place, fully clothed, doing a fake email job, and having to shop for groceries.
But all things considered, no one is trying to make “hot ___ summer” happen anymore, which is already a vast improvement.
If this is what’s on the internet, I support it.
I lived in the city for about 20 years, and now I'm kind of on the edge of the 'burbs.
It's hot.