I'm very close to complaining about the heat. I would, probably, except that spouse has been letting me keep the AC on until late at night. Every time he goes out to have a cigarette (at least every hour, poor sap) he announces how "delightful and perfect" the temperature is outside. I just shout "NO!" every time he announces it. Then last night he tried a new tack, "It's cold in here. I'm freezing." I told him what he always tells me when I complain about being cold, "Put on a sweater." My rules are pretty clear, if it's still 80 outside when I go to bed, the AC stays on. Usually, Serge will turn it off before morning. It's just been really hot and still the last few days and increasingly humid. Sweaty bed weather.
Speaking of sweat, I can smell the downstairs tenant from my bathroom. I think it's the combination of him having very sporadic hygienic practices and the terrible heat we've been having. Certainly, the bad insulation between his apartment and ours plays a role. Or maybe it's because I can actually smell all the things now, both good and bad. Anyway, he poisons the corridor every time he comes in and out with his stinky BO, so much so that we installed one of those automatic mister fragrance devices in there. (Wouldn't it be awful if he read this? This is what just occurred to me.) Well he does smell, but that's an easy fix. Bathe more often plus deodorant, and he'll be clean as a whistle. There's a more salacious story about him, but now I feel self conscious about it, so I'm not telling. When he moves out, how about that. I will say this, it involves whores and drugs.
I wonder if parents realize how their musical choices during their offspring's childhood influence them (the children) later on. I have been re-addicted to JC Superstar for the last month and it takes me back to a time that was safe and "everything's alright yes everything's alright yes". Mom tells a story of when we went to see JC Superstar as a family. It was at an outdoor amphitheater. I remember it in that clip-from-a-movie-way. I must have been 5 or 6 years old. Apparently when Jesus is killed or getting ready to be killed and there's smoke and dark music permeating the scene, I turned to my mother and said, "That's just terrible." Mom, the pride growing inside her for how mature her son is for grasping the play, smiled at me. And then I said, "All that pollution." I think I sent that story in to Reader's Digest but never got a reply. They always have corny stories like that in there.
25 comments:
Clips from a movie, still photographs... it fascinates me, how some moments are captured from early childhood and remain, sometimes hidden away, sometimes recalled in an instant by a stray smell or sight or sound. Have you seen "What the Bleep do we Know?" And if you could, would you delve into the computer of your brain and retrieve ALL those videos and snapshots, good and bad?
(Oh shit. I just remembered a spanking I got. I think the answer to my own question would be "not everything.")
I completely adore your last two lines. I never sent anything in, due to my appalling writer's block which began when I was born.
Here in Coastal Maine it's been nice and autumnal, though I gather the heat's supposed to come back today.
I seem to recall seeing "JC Superstar" once, but it was South Carolina in the 70's so it was kind of de rigueur. I also got dragged to "The Late, Great Planet Earth" and some other whacked out end times movie I conflated with it for 30 years before I found TLGPE on DVD recently. The fond memories are of listening to soundtracks from musicals on LP. Who'd have guessed?
Challenge my kids to a game of 80s music/movie trivia and you will see just how influential parents can be!
It's 5:30 AM here and +4C. It's fall, baby!
It is interesting how the music your parents listened to makes such an influence. It's so true. I am of the JC Superstar era too. The story of the smoke cracks me up!
He reeked when I was there, he must be really ripe now! Have you ever just confronted him and told him so, I'm sure that would work. I know if someone would have told me how much I stunk from smoking, I would have quit much sooner. Perhaps he would feel the same way. You want me to come back and tell him, I'd love that!! Ha!
I would not doubt that a large part of your sensitivity to the smells is your re-sensitized olfactory "tools".
I chuckled at your response to the "tragedy" of the play, but also reflected on how insightful it is into our human reactions to some events. We frequently miss the forest for the trees.
I remember one time we were in Toronto and we went to a restaurant on YOnge street that had a balcony overlooking the street. We wanted to sit there, but they told us it was closed due to the heat wave. It was roughly 91 degrees. :)
It was 91 degrees here yesterday. heat wave...Pffffttt, 91 degrees is no heat wave. But that fact that they consider it a heat wave, and the fact I hate heat, is yet another reason why I LOVE Canada. :)
HUGS...
An environmentalist is a guy who would see Jesus on the cross and shake his head because a tree was killed needlessly.
Tell the renter with B.O. his clientelle of the street walking persuasion will like him better if he takes a bath.
I go to my parents house and it is stuffy so I say why don't you turn on the Air conditioning? Mother's expected reply, "It is on". ed
Poor you and your weather-- we've had nearly two months of temps in the 100s. The A/C hasn't been turned off yet. And probably won't until November!
(Note to Serge: Please quit smoking.)
I saw the Broadway revival of JCS a few years back. Talk about stinking up a room. I love the score but haven't seen a good production yet.
Poor Serge. Learn to embrace the heat!
I didn't know Reader's Digest still existed.
My parents were teens in the '40s and was "subjected" to the CBC, swing music, early folk, and marching/ pipe band music. HATED the car trips in the early walkman days when you could hear everything outside the earphones. U2 + "Pennsylvania 6-5000" = bad fusion. I now however love all of those genres.
Sorry, typo: ...teens in the '40s and *I* was subjected...
Mmm, heat. It's cold and damp in Ireland...
Ooh la la...sweaty boys downstairs. As for the AC, I absolutely 100% have to sleep in a cool room....so it's at night that we turn our AC on FREEZING COLD>
Who needs Reader's Digest when you have Blogger?
I always feel a bit sorry for Andrew Lloyd Webber that he wrote his best work at the beginning of his career and went downhill from there.
I love a good whore and drug tale!
Hot here too, ridiculously so for September!
Strange and maybe even scary, I recently downloaded JCS from iTunes and I really don't know why. I remember when it came out and it was all the rage. Maybe there is some type of subliminal message in it that makes you reawaken to the music 30 years later. Since downloading it I have not listened to it since. Maybe I need to cut down on the alcohol, wait I don't drink. God now I'm really worried.
Maybe you should add some insulation between his apt and yours.
Maybe you should leave a plastic bag with soap and deoderant hanging (anonymously) from his doorknob.
Mark :-)
Did you know it's environmentally and economically unsound to turn off the a/c at any time of day during a heat wave? To say nothing of the stress it puts on the machine itself.
You don't want the cooling to start from scratch every time. Better to leave the thing on a low-cool setting throughout the day and adjust as necessary at night.
European friends always point out that Americans keep their buildings so unnaturally cold in the summer and so unnaturally warm in the winter that Americans no longer have any connection with or understanding of the natural world. To many Europeans, it feels very unhealthy and unnatural to always have the inside temperature of buildings be the opposite from the temperature outside. I tend to feel the same way, but I have to keep my books and computers from ruining in the stifling heat where I live so I do use the air conditioning some.
I can't believe there's a guy whom you can smell through a wall.
Time for a shower, dipshit.
Jeez.
Yah, if you can smell this guy at a distance, it's time to meet him with water-and-soap balloons and a garden hose in the street.
No wonder the whores, tho...hope he paid 'em extra.
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