(no subject)

My brother claims he's "the last person who actually who actually reads [my] livejournal". Hah! "Last" implies a series; dude, you're the only one who reads it (or, at least, admits to it, even in private). So I may also send this mini-essay out to one of my mailing lists, but I doubt it, since I've missed the deadline.

See, yesterday was the 100th anniversary of AC. I thought I'd have time to write up my thoughts on the matter in the afternoon, but we're currently mired in a Cherub Invasion and my near-idling at the front desk has turned into a furious rondelay of Intro to Them Papery Things and Intro to That Glowy Thing With the Buttons. Just as well, since this article isn't even as coherent as my guest column in The Decomposing Corpus.

It all started with an entry in that blog, the one for July 5th in which Moll says "2 days of A/C has been enough to turn me into exactly the kind of wimp I've been feeling so superior to for the past 15 years." A mutual friend confessed to me Tuesday night that he doesn't understand why anyone would take an attitude of moral superiority towards air conditioning. He says that whenever he's had to do without it, it just makes him feel like a dumbass. Since I've lived almost my whole life--including my whole life on my own--without AC, I came out with a jumble of justifications, which I still haven't managed to rank more than roughly. They are:

Money Anyone who knows me well knows what a tight bastard I am. I hate spending money. The bigger ticket the item, the more I fret about whether it really suits my needs, whether I should've shopped around more, and so forth. (It doesn't help that I'm also a major procrastinator, so that when my sister-in-law is picking up Christmas gifts cheap at summer sales, I'm still wondering what to get my father for last Christmas.) It's not that I don't pop for luxuries, but I chose them judiciously. It doesn't take an awful lot of splurges to begin living outside of one's means.

It strikes me that viewing AC as a luxury is a major conceptual difference between me and the current generation. They probably see it as exactly on a par with central heating. Do you know anyone who does without that? Yes, you do: The indigent. Many of the "moral" arguments that apply to cooling (and which I'll get to soon enough) could equally well apply to heating, but I don't know anyone who would make them. Still, I grew up in a time when a long-distance phone call meant that you dropped everything and kept it brief and there are some things I don't think I'll ever take for granted. AC isn't something I necessarily expect when walking into a restaurant; it's something I consciously figure into the price, just like any other aspect of ambiance--such as cloth napkins, noise level, or Woof! quotient. Same story when I choose an apartment.

Stubbornness This is probably where I get closest to the sentiment quoted above, though I still wouldn't term my superiority "moral". I grew up in Misery and weather that has my Californian friends weeping hardly registers with me. Part of this is legit. Given that people from drier climes who have lived here most of their lives still can't suffer the humidity, there must me a certain acclimation that occurs when one is growing up that cannot before completely undone. I simply notice humidity less than some other people. But it's a short leap from recognising this difference to taking perverse pride in it. Also, there's some element of justifying one's past suffering. Yeah, it was shitty living in a brick house with only fans for cooling when it used to hit 100 degrees with 90%+ humidity, but I'm a stronger person as a result.

Of course, once you've done this, you're stuck. Then if you ever get tired of putting up with conditions no sane person would, you're getting soft and weak. I'm still convinced that one only needs AC for about two weeks out of every year, in the depths of the dog days, when there's no cool air to be brought in at night since the mercury never drops below 90. But it's a slippery slope--once you start running it, it's hard to turn it off even if you don't need it (say when it's a refreshing 86 degrees). As with most any indulgence, it's always easier not to start. So when the temperature soars, I simply flee my four walls for the domicile of some weak-hearted, far-sighted friend.

Contrariness Related, but different. If the kind of pride that stems from doing something that some other people simply can't do is perverse, it's nothing compared to the pride in doing something simply because other people don't. Apparently, over 80% of all Americans have AC (and those that don't are probably split between the poor and the strategically located). This makes me part of an elite! I like to think this is a small, small part of why I don't own an air conditioner, but experience with my own fraility forces me to admit it's probably not.

Environmental consciousness Whatever. Maybe you know eco-nuts who see every watt saved as one less heel digging into Mother Nature's spine, but I admit that, if power were free, I probably wouldn't give one whit about sparing it. It's like food. I'm sad when I have to toss out mouldy leftovers, but for no other reason than it represents a waste of my money and effort. The planet will go to hell (or not) regardless.

Fresh air If I'm such a connoisseur of this precious commodity, why do I live in Chicago? You might well ask. But, regardless of how clean it is, I associate outside air with, well, the outside. It makes me feel like I haven't lost all connection with my drooling, poo-flinging, tree-dwelling ancestry, despite how sanitised and alienated my lifestyle. Conditioned air always smells musty to me, no matter how recently the filter was changed. And one doesn't get breezes, which always give me a little shiver of excitement, or smell the rain coming. (On the other hand, one is reminded less often of what DUMBASSES one shares oxygen with.)

Isolation For a people person, I spent an awful lot of time alone. It occurs to me that one of the reasons for the contraction of public and civic life is that our dwellings have gotten much, much more comfortable. When you can have gourmet coffee in your own overstuffed chair while listening to your own choice of music in your underwear and talking to your best friend on the phone, where exactly is the impetus to pay for it in a corner cafe with a mediocre guitarist and a managment that puritanically insists on pants?

They only way I know anyone in my building at all is from time spent on the common back porch. Partly, it comes from sending my boyfriend out there to smoke and then coming along for company (haHA! one of the few benefits of cigarettes with none of the disadvantages), but I've also been known to stretch out in a flimsy plastic chair with a cocktail and a novel. If not for the occasional vespertine stroll, I'd forget that living in such a gorgeous neighbourhood is what justified my exhorbitant rent. Would I still do these things if I had AC? Sure, but I'd do them less. When you're as ill-endowned with moral fibre as I am, every crutch helps. (The counterargument, of course, is that if I had a nicer place with more creature comforts, people might actually come to visit me. Wow!)




So there you have it: specious post-facto rationalisations of my overriding perversity, none of which will influence your preconceptions about air conditioning in the least. And now, time at long last to stop hiding in my workplace and face the hideous consequences of my poor decisions in the form of a horrific Chicago heat wave. Thank the lord I'm so goddam tough! You wimps