Melting

I feel like I am fucking melting.

I ran the air conditioner this morning for three hours upon waking up. Roughly three hours, anyway. It lowered the temperature in my house five degrees...to 88.7.

I am not making this up. After I turned it off, the temperature went back up to around 90-92 within two hours, and there was nothing I could do about it.

This is my lot in life during the summer -- either run up the electric bill to $300 a month (which, obviously, I cannot afford) by running the AC nonstop, or to sit here, sweat, and feel like I'm melting, every day, for three months.

I've mentioned before that my home is like a greenhouse. I don't know why. It's always sweltering in the summer and there's nothing at all I can do to stop that. Unless we get a few weeks of mid-70s temperatures and lots of rain, this never changes. Never, not ever, for the entire summer. After a certain point it is no longer cooler downstairs than it is upstairs, and there is nothing I can do and nowhere I can go to escape the heat unless I leave the house and go somewhere to shop, or something -- which, on my unemployed-summer-budget, it's not like I can afford to do that every day for hours on end. I simply have to deal with the fact that my house is a sauna of oven-like proportions, and get used to it.

This is my fourth year, and fourth summer, of living in this place. One would think that I would've gotten used to it by now. But I haven't. Again, I stress that there is nothing I can do but take it. I could take a cold shower three times a day and still be miserable and sweat-coated again ten minutes after I dry off (yes, I've tested this theory). I can drink all the liquids/water I want, but it just makes me ill and makes me feel bloated rather than cooling me down or keeping me adequately hydrated. Any extra liquids I drink just comes pouring back out of me as sweat through my pores.

Even the cats seem affected by the heat; they've been sleeping in the bathroom on the floor/tub/sink where it's dark and cool quite a bit, and when they're not in there, they're downstairs sprawled out someplace. Even Sadie, who rarely wants to leave my side, has been spending almost all of her time downstairs to avoid the heat of the upstairs. I really can't say I blame her.

I think it's going to get to the point where I take my other two fans downstairs and plug them into the power strip, make a line of all of them blowing directly onto the bed, and see if that makes anything feel better. The drone of the fans may be loud, but I can tolerate that if it means that I'm not losing a liter of fluids via sweat every time I go to sleep this summer. I can barely sleep as it is anyhow, as you know.

Daisy told me that upon arriving home last night, her parents asked why she hadn't brought me back with her so that I could spend some time in the air conditioning there. I found this both amusing and very, very sweet. I'll be up there in a week and a half anyhow for the 4th of July, which is one of the reasons I didn't go back up with her this time. If I last that long, that is. It's supposed to be in the 100s later this week. As it's only 93 right now and I'm so hot that I feel physically ill, I don't know how much more of this "no rain, no cool nights, nothing but heat" shit I can take. Daisy really worries about me in the heat; she's afraid I'm going to keel over, or something.

I filled out an application and numerous background check forms for a teaching assistant job in Lincoln, Nebraska this afternoon. I'm not exactly sure what kind of teaching assistant it will be, but it's implied that it's heavily focused on childcare and child services, and is a state-run job. I can do that. I don't necessarily want to, mind you, but I bet it pays well, it's probably quite easy (there's no degree requirements) and it's something I could do while looking for other teaching gigs. And, of course, a big part of it is that it's the only position I've actually found in Nebraska. Lincoln is about an hour's drive from Omaha, but it's also a smaller city, and it would probably be easier to find a place to live somewhere between Lincoln and Omaha, similar to how I live in Newton but went to school/work in Wichita every day. I couldn't tell you, though. I don't know the area as well as, say, Daisy does, obviously. It's better than nothing. I had to print all the forms and fill them out, and then apply via snail-mail (something I hate doing because it costs me stamps), but again -- it's all I've found in Nebraska thus far.

I mentioned previously that before she came down this week, Daisy was planning to look at and, if possible, book the location for our wedding. This didn't happen. Well, half of it did. She did go look at the location, which was adequate, if not more than adequate for our needs...but while our date was open and available, the company changed their policy recently -- you can no longer reserve the location for the deposit only. Now, to book a date the entire rental fee and deposit must be paid in full and up front whenever the location is booked. Daisy doesn't have that sort of money right now, and neither do I...so until one of us does, we're back to square one. I've encouraged her to keep looking for other places in our price range, because even eleven months or so away, dates are going to fill up fast whether we like it or not.

There is really nothing else going on but my discomfort; I have done little because of the heat and its ability to make me queasy. There are severe thunderstorms and tornado watches on the western side of the state, hundreds of miles from here, but nothing here. Not a thing. It's infuriating. It's raining in Missouri, it's raining/storming in Nebraska and western Kansas, but here, there's nothing but heat and sun and hot wind. I cannot overstate how frustrating this is. It's as if there's an invisible wall for a 50-mile radius around my home where no rain, storms, or cool air is allowed to penetrate, and it's fucking maddening.

I plan to sleep a bit this evening, if possible, and then stay up most of the night applying for more jobs and paying bills. I need to make a Walmart run at some point as well, as I am almost out of cigarettes (and I didn't get any when Daisy and I were out previously this week).