the depths of my poverty.

Last night, I was lying in bed, and I was sweating. Relax, Ma, it's not what you think. Have you been upstairs in my apartment? No, of course not, otherwise, I would have found your skeleton already, one hand on your empty canteen and one arm draped over the cactus that has recently sprouted in my guest room. I tell ya, it is hot up there. Downstairs is fine, almost comfortable. Upstairs, it's a toss up between walking around in my skivvies and throwing all the windows open. If I lived in the country, I'd do both.

Of course, the real solution is to just turn on the A/C. I have air conditioning, I even have central air, which was a big selling point for me when I signed up for my place. I should use it. I'm not even sure what I'm waiting for. Every time it occurs to me to just turn on the A/C, I suddenly am too lazy to do it. To me, suffering is easier than closing the windows and going downstairs to turn a knob.

I've lived without air conditioning in Winston before. I lived at Salem College one summer on the top floor of a dorm that was apparently built by the original Moravian settlers back in the year sixteen-whatever. My solution was to spend as much time as possible either in the Fine Arts Center (where there was A/C), outside, or with my head in my fridge. But at night, I had to be in that sauna. I had the top bunk, and I slept wearing as little as I could get away with without embarrassing my roommate, to whom I never spoke. Eventually, I put an oscillating fan at the foot of the bed, and then before I went to bed every night, I would wet a few of my socks with cold water, and then lay them on myself. I bet I sure looked stupid.

Maybe the problem is that I still think that I live in Boone. In Boone, no one has air conditioning, except maybe like the rich old people who summer there. It just doesn't get hot enough. People in Boone just throw open their windows or walk around in their skivvies or both. I was no diferent, and during my last summer there, I lived in the country. See, in Boone, I was just reluctant to turn on the heat. I remember one winter sitting at my computer trying to type with gloves on before the typos just got ridiculous, and I looked at myself and said, "I am not this poor."

And I am still not this poor. I am not poor enough to go to bed with wet socks all over me. I am not poor enough to wonder just how little clothing I can get away with before my neighbors start whipping out their binoculars. I'm even richer than when I was not poor enough to type with gloves on. I am rich enough to use the air conditioning that I am likely paying extra to have in my apartment. If only I were rich enough to just buy a house in the country.