a moment in the day: heatwave

It's sweltering in the back room of our third floor apartment, my writing room, the farthest spot from our small window unit air conditioner. I've been eating ice pops and trying to concentrate on my work, but the thick heat pushes all inspiration and motivation from my brain and makes my wrists itchy and chafey against the edge of my laptop.

Stephen peeks through the open doorway. He says, "You don't even have the fan on." 

I look at the fan sitting on the floor three feet from my chair. "Oh yeah."

As I go to turn the thing on, Stephen says, "What would you do without me?" 

"I'd die," I say. "I'd die an embarrassing, embarrassing death."

too hot to think of a title

So hot last night in the Dangerous Writers' basement. Everyone in shorts and tank tops but me, and why did I somehow think being in a basement would mean it couldn't get all that hot? Yes, there's something in science about heat rises but there's also something in science about cramming lots of bodies in a room under a flank of hot lights. Sitting there in the crammedest spot in the whole place, my back against the wall and John at my left and Brad at my right - my god, Brad's got on some sort of button-up long-sleeved shirt.

I never much mind feeling hemmed in, but at 4 o'clock yesterday, workshop about to start, the air in that place felt like a hot bag of wet cement. I don't know if you can have a hot bag of wet cement, but I was having one of those panic thoughts like, I don't know if I can do this. Sit here trapped at this table for four hours.

Of course, as much as I'm a wimp, I'm also a wimp, so I wasn't about to get up and say, OK, I've got to leave. Even if I did have to have some sort of claustrophobic heat wave freak out.

But seriously, the magic of a good story. As soon as the pages started going around the room and we started reading, I forgot about the claustrophobic heat wave freak out. I have to hand it to the table. Stories so good you could read them under a hot bag of wet cement.