Hot Town, Summer in the City

It’s hot here in DC. I mean, this does have a tendency to happen around this time every year, but in the past week it’s just been ridiculously hot and unpleasant, which has left me extremely appreciative of having air conditioning. A friend of mine doesn’t have it (she lives in Charlottesville,VA) which I think is pretty much asking for trouble. Either you won’t be able to sleep, or you’ll have heat stroke, or something along those lines. Sure, in Ithaca it was fine to not have AC, since it never really got that hot, and even when it did, it would always cool off at night. Here, it’s a different story.

It does tend to lead to people living like they’re in space, though. You run from inside to your car with AC, and then from your car to your work or the grocery store, and then back home in the evening. And of course it makes everyone sedentary, because who wants to exercise when it’s like this outside? I went for a couple of runs last week when it was nice, and it felt quite good. But the idea of running in the current soup just seems silly. Yes, it’s cooled off ten degrees from yesterday to today, but even so.

This of course leads to the difficulty with excess air-conditioning. I understand that it’s nice to feel a cooling breeze when you walk in the door of somewhere, but cooling buildings to 65 degrees, as often seems to happen in a lot of institutional settings, is just ridiculous. Having to keep a sweater at work for the summer is just plain stupid. It also leaves you with a difficult choice when it comes to clothing: Do you pick something that will be comfortable inside but cause you to roast when you go outside? Or do you try to be more comfortable outside and risk feeling cold whenever you’re in your office?

When I was at Origins a couple of weeks ago, I opted for the ‘wear warmer clothes and tough it out in the heat when you’re outside’ because I knew I was going to be inside the convention center almost all the time. Our short excursions to the North Market were unpleasant, but I managed to feel cold inside even with long pants, a shirt and a fleece on. Not a good place to wear shorts and a t-shirt, certainly.

I guess the theory is that your clothing shouldn’t have to change depending on the season, so you can wear whatever you want inside? I just find that kind of silly and absurd. We do live in a climate, no matter how much we may try to avoid it by staying indoors.

/end rant