Scientists claim July will go down as the hottest month on record, which is a dead giveaway that not a damned one of them saw Margot Robbie’s crowdsurfing scene in Babylon when it was released in December. Artists are no less skilled than solar radiation at generating heat. Or perimenopausal women like me. I’ve been dealing with hot flashes for a while. My body is an analog thermostat in a digital world, suffering in a perfect storm of atmospheric and hormonal fuckery.
The sweating used to only disrupt my sleep. Now, hot flashes punctuate my waking hours. It’s one thing to take off a layer in the winter, but what do I remove when it’s August, and I’m only wearing my cherished Damn the Torpedoes T-shirt that I bought at a one of Tom Petty’s last concerts?
Over the past year, I’ve gained 10 or 15 pounds, of which I assign 99% of the credit to the last gasp of my reproductive years and 1% to 14 bags of Ruffles. My weight gain doesn’t bother me, but the lack of AC does. We’ve lived 20 years without it, but the summer of 2023 has broken me. It isn’t even all that hot here, compared to the rest of the country, but that is so not the point. What is the point is that hardly anyone in our neighborhood had AC when we moved here. Now, we’re the lone holdout.
Since I’m a woman of action, I have two appointments on the calendar to gather quotes for a heat pump, which promises to mysteriously extract heat from the home in the summer and pump it inside in the winter. I’m also counting on it to jack up the resale value of our property so we can cash out and retire to a hotter state where the AC is always on full blast in every indoor space. Despite the heat, I’ve been killing it at life—hiking, cycling, banging my head at concerts, firing uncomfortable questions at politicians and spending time with my daughter—picking blueberries and walking through fields of flowers.
The drama of Johnny Depp’s trial kept me company last year when I lived for a week on a twin mattress in the kitchen while recovering from surgery following a skiing accident. So, I repaid the favor by buying tickets to a Hollywood Vampires show. I’d never heard Joe Perry or Alice Cooper in concert, and I figured the supergroup was the next best thing.
The show blew me away in the best way—the guitars, the drums, the keyboard, the cover songs, the light show and the goth frontman with the cane, the top hat and the ebony eye makeup. I could’ve done without the woman to my left recording the entire show on her phone and the young couple with matching greenish purple hair to my right, pawing and licking one another like a pair of feral cats in need of grooming. At least Gen Z appreciates rock.
One afternoon, I watched a zoomer in a white Camry with out-of-state plates roll to a stop in front of my house. I was hoping it was Door Dash, even though I didn’t order anything from Door Dash. Wearing an iPad necklace, he walked to the front door and dashed but didn’t leave a bag of food. In his wake, I found a Ron DeSantis door hanger that’s long enough to repurpose as a table runner. It has a tear off postcard on the bottom, which you can mail to “Never Back Down, Inc.,” which was also the name of the shitty wannabe Fight Club movie where Depp’s ex played the main character’s love interest.
Sometimes, I’m the one seeking out the campaign. A few weeks ago, I drove to a local winery to hear Ambassador Nikki Haley at a town hall event. When her stump speech ended, and the rain started, I raised my hand and asked a hypothetical question about abortion. Minutes later, The New York Times took interest. It’s just all so disappointing that we continue to question a woman’s right to bodily integrity.
Lately, I’ve been thumbing through Our America: A Photographic History, assembled by New Hampshire’s favorite son, Ken Burns. There’s the last formal portrait of Abraham Lincoln on page 42, taken ten weeks before his assassination. He was 55. One of the greatest presidents of all time. I’m living in the final days of 55. It’s time I start fulfilling my own purpose. Writing is a good place to start.
One bag of ruffles equals 1.065 pounds of weight gain... sounds about right.