#9 - It's So Hot. Milk Was A Bad Choice.

New month, new me!

There’s something clean about starting something on the first of the month. It feels like hitting a mini-reset button.

Anyway, June sucked for me! Anyone else?

Not that there weren’t highlights. My girlfriends birthday was solid. I made a rippin’ cheesecake, my best friend secured herself a new apartment a mere 20ish minute walk from me, and we even went on a fun (albeit highly emotional) road trip. I got to shop at a Wegmans! The dream!

But otherwise, this last month? It can straight up go fuck itself.

It’s really due to the heat. Spent the entire month in absolute misery. I am terrible in the heat. I sweat a lot. Like, dripping sweat instantly springs from my forehead in a way I rarely see replicated. I’m uncomfortable. I want to remove my own skin. (Speaking of, my skin hates the hot weather too. It’s one of the only conditions that causes me regular breakouts.) I hate the feeling of being in my body anytime it’s over 70 degrees. So, the start of summer usually is also the beginning of my bratty hermit phase. I get super rude at the drop of a hat and don’t want to be touched by anything or anyone. Have I mentioned that I’m super fun to be in a relationship with? All I want to do is sit directly in front of the AC and whinge. I’m a total catch!

But, time has continued its trudge forward and thankfully that means a full restart. For whatever reason my brain really likes the feeling of a clean slate. The kind that can only come with starting a task on the hour, or beginning something on the first of the month. There’s nothing better than an arbitrary time stamp. Right? I can’t be alone in that since that’s basically the entire concept of a new years resolution—and despite all of our discourse these days, we’re still clinging onto those.

(Remember a few years ago when everyone got obsessed with doing something every day for exactly a year? I swear half of the articles in January of 2014 were just bloggers seeking backdoor bookdeals. Like the lady who ate nothing but Starbucks food for an entire year. Uh, for why? Did she just really get a jonesing for cakepops and decide to make it her entire personality? I can’t imagine she was having regular and healthy bowel movements, which is not my favorite thing to think about while reading a piece on Jezbel.)

Anyway, it’s hot. Like, really hot. I’ve never been more thankful that I moved out of Portland than this past week. It’s the hottest it’s ever been, people are suffering, and it feels like we really need to increase the urgency at which we’re attempting to solve this whole whoopsy doopsie the ozone eroded and gas emissions something something Global Warming it’s getting hotter crisis. (Remember in the dem debates when Kamala says she doesn’t call it ‘climate change’ she calls it a ‘climate crisis’ and then in her literal next sentence called it climate change again? The dem debates were fucking hilarious, but we also thought we were fully doomed so I don’t think we were in the right headspace to appreciate the hilarity at the time. But show me a better burn than Klobuchar referring to Buttigeig as a ‘local official’. It doesn’t exist!)

I love living in New York. It might not seem like it, since I’ve done my damndest to not leave my apartment for the last month, but this city is my favorite place I’ve ever lived. (Obligatory ‘and I’ve lived a lot of places’ vague trauma check!) I hate that in the summer I feel absolutely confined to my apartment (though thankfully I upgraded from a studio last year and this place has a crossbreeze baby!). This week, ConEd emailed and texted me, and everyone got a push message on their phones (which feels slightly invasive and we still need to talk about that time everyone in Hawaii got a push message that a bomb was coming their way??) begging them to use less electricity between 4-8pm. Last summer we had blackouts, so I was good. I unplugged.

Then, yesterday, I got a fascinating email. Turns out, we got ranked on our energy efficiency. That’s right, you are reading the words of the 19th and 16th most energy efficient person in my area. ConEd really does know how to make a girl feel special!

But the whole time I was sitting as still as possible (admittedly watching BTS content, longest running singular obsession I’ve had as an adult but I’ve just accepted my fate at this point) Times Square was fully lit. So like, how is my individual consumerism balancing that bullshit?

New York is an incredibly efficient place to live. I walk or take public transport everywhere, I frequently buy local, my largest contributing factor to my carbon footprint is my cats, and I take up very little space & energy (remember? 16th!). When I was in Rochester recently I was taken aback by just how easy it was to up my plastic consumption in the three days I was there. Drive-thrus are designed for single-use waste, and it’s so easy to stop by and grab another coffee. In 2012 I worked in a restaurant that used all compostable items. There have been cost-effective alternatives available for years, so why the fuck haven’t we forcibly moved towards that? Give restaurants incentives! Buy their plastic back! Credit for the amount of compost vs. waste their contributing! Why do we insist on passing legislation about individuals access to straws rather than enforcing sweeping regulations about corporate waste? Oh, lobbying? American obsession with individualism being the solution? Booooring, give me governance that takes the pressure of saving the world off my back, I’m begging you.

(Obviously, this isn’t to say it’s fine to be an asshole who purposefully ignores sustainable solutions within our everyday lives, but like, a five minute shower is not going to help much if Nestle still has free reign over California’s water system, ya know?)

So, it’s hot, I’m miserable, and I’d appreciate if we would hold corporations accountable more often! Make GM pay to reinstate the Queens/Brooklyn streetcare they dismantled in the 1950s in one of their most successful campaigns to force people to buy cars. I still have to go into Manhattan to get to Brooklyn. Figure it out, New York! Put more solar panels on rooftops! Make my landlord let me in the backyard so I can grow things! (The last one is more selfish than anything but I can’t stand store bought tomatoes and I just want some homemade pico de gallo is that really so bad??)

*Shaking my fist in the vague direction of Washington DC* Pass the Green New Deal you cowards! Replace old energy with renewable! Retrain communities that have historically been employed in the energy field! This doesn’t feel super complicated!!

I’m gonna go sit still on my couch and calm down. It’s too hot to get worked up these days. I hope July is better. I think I just really hate summer? Which is like, one of the least cool things about me. My complete and utter inability to chill.