Aug 10 2009
Summer Affective Disorder
When people talk about Seasonal Affective Disorder, they always mean winter, the season of snow, hot chocolate, Christmas presents, the Rockettes, and New Year’s Eve cocktails. Sure, it gets dark early, but that just means you can curl up by the fire and enjoy being inside with your cats and a good book or two.
The main problem with winter is the cold. But here’s the thing: it can be fixed easily with a sweater. Or a duvet. Or someone to cuddle. Easy even for someone as languid as Self.
I think winter is the pit bull of seasons: misunderstood and actually easily handled.
Summer, on the other hand…
Everyone loves it, including, oddly, east coast dwellers who know perfectly well that their heat always comes with a heaping side order of humidity. When I tell people that I hate summer, and start dreading its arrival along about February, they look at me as if I’m completely insane. They back away slowly, smiling brightly, and start looking through the Yellow Pages for asylums.
But the fact is that when you’re too hot, you can be completely naked and still be overheated, as well as aesthetically unpleasing in most cases (why is it always the beauty-challenged who feel compelled to public nudity?). See what I mean? Just a sweater will make you more comfortable if you’re cold, but if you’re hot, you’re doomed.
Sure, some genius invented the air conditioner, and should be high in the pantheon of the inventing gods, along with whoever invented the remote control and taxis. But girls of my lack of means can’t afford the electricity bills induced by using an air conditioner. I do have window fans in the kitchen and bedroom, and floor fans in the living room and bedroom, too, but I can tell you that it’s not even noon and I’m already wretched.
There’s hours of horror ahead, too, since my house retains heat like I retain water, and it will still be sweat-inducing at 9:00 pm, long after it’s cooled off outside. So here I am in the hot, depressing gloom, with all the blinds closed against the evil enemy. My cold shower wore off by the time I got dressed. Sigh.
Is it fall yet?
2 Responses to “Summer Affective Disorder”
I hear you about the humidity, not my Forte. Here in Ottawa we are in a Valley where we get all extremes. When it’s hot, it’s hot and very humid and we get down to -30’s in the winter, go figure.
I despise humidity, but love heat. And I don’t agree at all that you can always put on more clothes (a swewater in Michigan won’t cut it in December). I’d rather be too hot than too cold. It’s why you like San Francisco and I hated the weather there.