Dies caniculares

 We've been watching this coming for years, but just a month ago I met a man at a party who told all of us in rambling, incoherent, belligerent nonsensical detail that climate scientists are all incompetent and/or liars, that the warnings of human-accelerated climate change are a hoax, bla bla bla. I was filled with such a sudden rage that I had to leave the party. I want my daughter's future to be bright, yet all around me, for decades, I have been watching as we push the planet's limits. The planet will go on without us, but we can make life intolerable and even impossible in a very short time, in our lifetime, and when I look at that reality straight on, I want to break things.

Last year on the 4th of July, I was with friends from Spain here in Minneapolis. We were able to see the fireworks right next to the Stone Arch bridge, in the pouring rain. It was fun as hell. This year, everyone is out of town, and yesterday it was over 100 degrees with an excessive heat advisory, so I stayed home with the cat and heard the booms over the noise of the air conditioner and the fan that are keeping my place at a barely tolerable temperature. This past week of super-hot temps and super-high dew points is fraying my nerves. I think today it may be time to see 3 movies in a row so I can have some decent air-conditioned time. The headlines today are "This is what climate change looks like."

I finally gave up my foolishness and installed a window A/C unit in my bedroom, because the one in the living room can't cool the whole apartment, and it is 95 degrees inside my house. My poor cat and I just can't deal with it any more. This city was never intended for permanent human settlement in the first place.  My consumption is part of the problem, but I don't want to die of heat stroke.