Heatstroke

Nothing exciting to report here in the land of New York, other than to join the chorus across the nation that is crying out: IT'S FRIGGN' HOT! It will hit 105 today, and whith humidity, it will FEEL like 115. Either way, one knows they are UTTERLY SCREWED when it is 85 degress at 6am.

First thing to note about New York: you can escape the heat and you can escape the crowds, but you can't DO BOTH. EVERYONE has the same ideas. Every single large, public space with air conditioning is JAM PACKED. I went to see a couple of movies this weekend, only to discover them MOBBED and every movie SOLD OUT. People were buying tickets for Woody Allen's Scoop, a movie that was headlined as "'Scoop' is Poop" in a recent review, by the handful, that's how much they wanted to be out of the heat.

I remember this sort of behavior happening when I lived in Boston. One very hot summer, my friend Rob and I would go see the CRAPPIEST movies just for air conditioning. Once, we went to see Lake Placid, in the middle of the day, only to discover the theater was packed and that the show was completely sold out. I would never in a million years have seen that movie, unless I was DESPERATE. Believe me, when you see Betty White, playing a sweet faced grandma with the most unbelievable potty mouth, you know you are seeing a movie that was made for DESPERATION. I used to believe that summer blockbusters were made for the kids and the vacationers. What they are really made for are REFUGEES from their sweltering apartments.

I've recently discovered I am prone to heatstroke, having got it twice in the last month, and I want to make it clear to everyone that a movie theater in New York is the LAST PLACE ON EARTH you want to be when your heatstroke peaks. I thought a movie theater was the BEST place for me--it was dark and COLD. I forgot that I had to first buy the tickets, which means buddying up with a ton of hot people in an un air conditioned area first. It also means, making your way in the river of man to the theater, where the darkness and the cold may take place. Then there is the fact that when you have heatstroke and are feeling like you're going to, well, DIE, you don't want to navigate through THOUSANDS of people. You pretty much want to lay down and close your eyes and never wake up. I was sitting, trying to watch The Devil Wears Prada, when it hit me that underneath my raging headache, I was about to throw up. Not in that, "I feel sort of nauseas," but in that way of "GANG WAY! GANG WAY! It's COMING UP!" It was a blessid miracle that there wasn't a line the length of the The Great Wall of China in the bathroom, like there usually is. For those of you who have thrown up in a public place, you know for better and for worse, that you've somehow left a PART OF YOURSELF there and it will NEVER BE THE SAME.

Graham and I put on a movie last night that showed a different New York. It was a New York in November and I said, "Lookee! Remember that? They are wearing SWEATERS!" It seemed so EXOTIC, like a foreign land that only shows up in OUR DREAMS. Was it ever like that? Could it ever be like that again? Do I DARE to dream it? Then I went outside our one air conditioned room, our bedroom, and was slammed by the stiflingheat outside the door. The humidity came over me like an amnesia, and I thought, HOGWASH. I'll never be able to wear anything long sleeve EVER AGAIN. Or got the movie theater in Union Square, for that matter. The stall in the back. To the right.