low morale, high fashion

The house is cooking me again.

Summer cooled down for a few days and I made the mistake of noticing.

Today it is back in the high 80s.

The house is cinder block. It spends all day banking the sun’s heat in its exterior walls and all night transferring the balance to the interior.

I open the windows after dark. I put fans in them.

Mostly the windows let the cool air in so this oven can heat it up and spit it back out.

Today was also the day with the most meetings.

Of course it was.

Business clothes. Camera on. In the hottest corner of the house, naturally the only place the office could go.

Every call ran over just enough to eat the space before the next one, then took a bite out of that too.

At some point I had to pee and then apparently that became tomorrow’s problem.

The meetings I wanted were canceled.

The ones nobody wanted multiplied.

Something was always on fire. Somebody was always unhappy. There was always one more conversation none of the participants wanted to have but that needed to be had because apparently the world would stop turning if we waited until morning.

By the last call even being aggravated felt like too much work.

You have to care a little to feel bothered.

Mostly I was sweaty and tired and wearing a face that looked enough like mine to get through the meeting.

Then somebody said she liked my vest.

That was it.

A stupid little compliment.

But it caught me somewhere I had forgotten to armor.

I smiled.

A real one.

It came up slowly, almost against my will, like the curve of a woman’s hip you notice from across the room before you remember you were trying not to notice anything.

The house was still sweltering.

I still had to pee.

Everything was still stupid.

Nice vest, though.