SUMMER

It was uncomfortable, uncomfortably hot in the upstairs of the house I lived in in southeast Portland, where my bedroom was, where I wanted to sleep but couldn't, I thought I was tired and hadn’t had a good night sleep in weeks, and was up and at ‘em early that morning and had gone to sleep late that night before--when it's this hot all you want to do is sleep, or be in air conditioning if you have it, which I don't, most houses here still don't have because it's only this hot for a short period of time in summer, which is probably what makes it so miserable.

It's this hot other places, sure, hotter, but when you are not used to it, even though I should be because I grew up in the high desert but I'm not and never will be, it's relentless. So it was basement for me or the bar that I'll go to even though it's this early in the afternoon and I don't feel too much like drinking these days but probably will because I can't sleep and I want that cold artificial air that and I don't want to be alone and the bar I'm going to I can't just sit around and drink 7-up, which I like to drink when I’m not drinking, so I'll have to order an Oly, which I know I'll drink too fast--it's hot and I'm thirsty--then another, maybe a whiskey if I fell up to it, until I can't stay there, the Ship, anymore and I'll have to return home.

It'll still be hot in the house, this heat will last a week, the sun going down isn't going to do anything--this isn't the high desert--when I come back from the bar drunk and hungry I'll be those things and hot like I am now but maybe I'll be able to pass out, and, shit, that'll be then and not now, for now, or in just a few minutes I'll be at the Ship, cool and in company of others with a beer and this book I’m reading, out of this house and this heat.

It is, after all, my weekend.