how anyone ever accomplished anything in the south i do not know. how anyone ever accomplished anything in the north, during summer, is equally confounding. because here i am, looking at my not-so-lengthy to-do list and, after some pretense of rescheduling, deciding that nothing is important because the heat is just too oppressive. the heat and humidity have assumed a steady stream into my room. i've tried closing the curtains and the window, opening the curtains and the window, even a hybrid of the two, and i have an industrial-sized fan in front of my face, settled on the highest setting. i'm even lounging in the most unflattering and light outfit i could manage - and here i am, baking in my bed, looking at my to-do list and deciding that everything can be rescheduled or put off until we dip into the 80's.

off the top of my head, i can only think of one truly great floridian (which, appropriately, denotes residency in florida, not origination): ernest hemingway. he settled in key west, the southernmost tip of the archipelago that extends from the peninsula, closer to the equator than i've ever lived and, thus, much more prone to heat. and while he wrote tremendous novels, novels of love and courage and honor and independence, he also killed himself. because he died before the widespread adoption of the necessity i call air conditioning, something tells me it was the heat that did him in. no man, however strong, can write of matadors and the spanish civil war and brett ashley in that heat and not lose the will to live. and so he lost it, and so he shot himself.

i'm not yet at that point. though my shirt has decided that it can, indeed, support condensation, i've not given up. my laundry's in the dryer, and it gives me an excuse to feel productive without actually performing any labor. it's an accomplice in my attempts at delusion: i have done this, and so i can go on to do other great things. really, though, my accomplishments are sparse and pathetic and rather depressing. i've managed to keep my room clean. i moved a mirror. i've oriented a fan in front of my face. i've written two paragraphs. i took a much-needed shower. end.

unfortunately, i'm not like ernest hemingway (aside from the obvious unfavorable comparison between my writing and his). neither love nor courage comfort me in this oppressive heat; and even then, i'm unable to accomplish even the imagery of such things when the weather happens to be more conducive. he became lost in thought, in words; i am lost in ambivalence and reluctance. it is 91 degrees. two more hours, and we shall achieve the 80's. then, maybe, i'll be able to look at my to-do list with something more than an eye for excuses. i'll get around to what i've been meaning to do all along. and unlike ernest hemingway, i won't give up - because i have a fan and few accomplishments and a sense of purpose. sometimes, that's all one needs.