that awkward moment…

… when you realize that your ex husband is the most attractive prospect on an online dating site.

let’s just be clear here. i’m not ready to date.

it’s only been about a month now, and the ex and i are still sharing the same space (and to his credit, he is the most kind and agreeable person i have ever broken up with).  i need to focus my efforts on things like moving, working, breathing, and cuddling my dog. i need to not be an idiot and jump into anything before i’ve had a chance to regroup and recover- at least a little. you know, common sense… blah blah blah, good advice… yadda yadda yadda…

BUT.

the sensible path sorta sucks. it’s lonely. and painful. and sad. so you start to try to make the breakup, the newfound single status (set carefully to your facebook for all to casually notice), more appealing than it really is. you dream of the possibilities. you start to remember everyone you’ve ever had a crush on and stalk them to determine current availability (just in case) (for later):

delirious.

it’s hot out. 100% humidity hot. like getting angrily smothered with a hot airline towel by someone with a fever who hates you a lot hot. now, i live in maine and i always have. thus, i am not biologically programmed to be able to deal with such conditions. point being, tonight i was supposed to write a companion article about cheap booze to the food post i did last week. instead, i lapsed temporarily into a humidity induced coma (sort of a sloppily splayed out half conscious fever state where my only awareness was how uncomfortable i was, and how my uncurtained windows were giving my neighbors a pretty excellent beaver shot) on my couch for about 2 hours completely unable to move. miraculously, i was finally able to pry myself from the semi-catatonia into a more mobile delirium that allowed my sweaty ass to be propelled into a cold shower (too smacked out to notice that there were no towels- only wash cloths in the bathroom- again, sorry neighbors), but i’m still not right. barely able to smash my hands against the keyboard, it has taken me roughly two hours to tap out this marginally coherent message in between nodding off and getting distracted trying to find a picture to go with this post. by the way, typing the word HOT into google images with the safesearch turned off will get you nowhere. the word FEVER on the other hand, will take you directly to ted nugent. anyway, you’re not getting a post about anything worthwhile. instead, i will fill the space where the real post should go with my insane scratchings and ted nugent jokes. that’s all you get. it’s hot, i’m crazy, and you’ll survive.

sweathogs.

my body is not equipped for high temperature regulation.  thus, over the last two weeks of MOTHERFUCKING RIDICULOUS HEAT, i have been a little wilted. and by a little wilted, i mean possibly suffering from heat stroke. why just saturday afternoon after sizzling in the summer sun as amplified by the heat coming off the generators and fryolators  at the yarmouth clam festival carnival, i passed out on the couch in a stupor. this would be an otherwise unremarkable event (as i am often passed out in a stupor from various causes ranging from sleep deprivation to excessive champagne consumption), but the boyfriend foolishly handed my partially conscious self a glass of ice water, which i then proceeded to dump all over both my crotch and my couch as i lapsed into complete unconsciousness  (which was brief on account of the ice crotch).

point being, it’s hot, and i’m no good at it.  in my other life at part time vagabond, i was just writing about (as part of my article about how to make stay-cations less suck-cations) how maine is not really an AC state. it’s cold here most of the time, and foolish things like central air just don’t make sense. window units are somewhat more sensible, but not if you can already barely afford to pay your electric bill.  buying an expensive piece of equipment that will make said electric bill even less manageable, isn’t really an option.  also not an option, putting an air conditioner in a room where the only window is a skylight (stupid sweaty 3rd floor condo). so not only is it hot, but there isn’t a whole hell of a lot i can do about it:

1. build up a cross breeze- my place is really not very well ventilated. 2nd & 3rd story with slanty ceilings and oddly placed windows, i’ve got to get at least 2 box fans going in combination with opening every window in the house. the major downside to this is that not all of my windows have screens, and after sundown, throngs of angry mosquitoes flock to my light sources and cover me in itchiness. it’s exactly like camping without actually camping.

2. cozy up to a cold pack- yeah, i’ve been sitting on those freezer packs that you put in the mini cooler with your juice boxes and tiny yogurts. as it turns out, they’re just as good at keeping my juiceboxes cool. although, unless you wrap it up in a towel first, you are in danger of getting some frostbite on your cooch. not cute.

3. make some popsicles-  when it’s soul meltingly hot outside, sometimes even ice cream is too heavy to be refreshing.  popsicles (take it. break it. share it. love it.) on the other hand, are perfection. kate over at the blueberry files inspired me to make some sophisticated adult popsicles, but all i bothered to do was freeze some limeade into ice cubes and throw it in my tequila. as it turns out, heavy drinking is not good for dehydration. maybe i should have just dug up my old snoopy sno-cone machine.

4. embrace the power of chiffon- what i hate about the heat is that there is only so much you can take off before you have to start peeling off your own skin. but even when naked seems like a good idea, i still don’t have curtains on my downstairs windows, and i don’t really feel like subjecting my neighbors to such horrors. zsa zsa knows best, so i found myself some frilly chiffon numbers that cover up most of the unfortunate bits, while still being almost as light as nothing at all.

5. escape to the mall– at the most dire of times, i often escape to target or the mall. basically, anywhere with AC and a starbucks. it’s not glamourous, and it’s not even the beach, but sometimes it’s nice to seal yourself into a windowless box and forget about the smelly sweatworld outside.

yeah, this list is pretty sad. that’s why this is the part where you tell me what humiliating things you’ve been doing to stay cool, so i can feel less bad about myself.