Hot City Diary: Day unknown

It's tooooo much.  I wake up to my dog nudging me and barking.  That's strange.  I was just riding my doggie around a race track and she was barking at all the other doggies and keeping them at bay, I was first place and bound to win the Preakness cup.  She barks again and the reality of it all hits me as I am in a pool of sweat and dirt on the carpet of one of the bedrooms.  The dirt helps keep my skin from blistering any further.  The carpet is filthy and the side door to the backyard patio is open.  The drapes flutter in the wind.  It's a hot wind.  No respite from the wind.  I try to ignore my dog and turn back over to fall back asleep and collect my wreath of roses, some kudos and do a victory lap around the track.  That's when she bites me.  The teeth cut thru my blistered skin and draw blood.

She's obviously had enough of this shit.

Ouch.  I jump up and acknowledge this furry little beast.  She's panting.  She bites me again and then collapses.

Ignoring the blood from these fresh bites, I lift up my dog and make my way to the pool.  It's green and all sorts of insects are floating around in it.  I fall in.  I don't have time to care about what kind of shit is growing in the pool.  My dog doesn't have the strength to swim so she just falls to the bottom.  I say a little prayer and swim up for air.  I could leave her down there, but that would be giving into the heat.  Giving up.  I swim down and grab her and pull her to the shallow end and prop her up on the stairs that are full of algae.  She starts to breath.  I crawl out of the pool and leave her on the steps.  I make my way around the front of the house to turn on the hose.  I let all the super hot water empty out onto the dirt and scorch the fire ants realm.  Those little fire ants are running for their lives.

Muwhahahahahahahahaha.

After a couple minutes and the water has cooled down to just a little hot, I spray my dog.  I lift her out of the pool and the direct sunlight and put her in the shade. I find her dog bowl and fill it with water.

This pool is disgusting, I'm disgusting.

Hot City Diary: Day 58

The wind whips around outside.  The palms rustle and the jacaranda tree drops it's pretty little blue flowers in the pool.  I step back from the window and drop the aluminum shades until it's pitch black in the bedroom.

It's 8am and 90 degrees in the house.  I turn on the A/C and it groans and then stops.  Shit.  I hope that's just temporary. Good thing my wife left.  She's gone to Italy to escape the heat.  Moving out of Los Angeles to the Desert was a lot to ask.  I couldn't ask her to stay through this heat.  So here I am. On my own.  I'll deal with this heat.  I'd rather it be super hot than super cold, I guess.  What kind of give and take is that?  I'd rather it be a nice sunny 70 out than anything, but I made this investment and I'm sticking to it.  Just have to wait it out 30 years until this mortgage is paid and I'll be sitting on a massive pile of money.  Who am I kidding, nobody lives 30 years out here in the desert.

I feel myself swoon and I make a beeline for the couch so if I fall I won't crack my skull on the 18 inch tiles that line the living room floor.  I'm hearing music, but I haven't turned anything on.  No, I won't lose control this time.  I breath deep and circulate the blood to my skull.  Must think clearly.

Stay hydrated and things will be cool.  Where did I put that water?  Over there on the counter.  I walk into the kitchen and realize that some of the shutters are open.  I close them.  It's important for it to be pitch black in here.  The sun can't kill me if it can't find me.  I'll show that motherfucking sun who's boss.  I pour a tall one and gulp it down.  My cells soak it up.  The music dies down.

What was I going to do today?  Look through the want ads on craigslist and maybe I'll find something good.  Why hasn't anyone returned my calls?  WTF is going on out here in the desert?  If I didn't know any better I'd say that these assholes watch out for themselves.  My 213 number is a dead giveaway.  Why would anyone hire a LA kid who lives in the cove when they can give a job to some underprivileged desert rat.  Maybe I should change my number to some 760 prefix.  Nahhhh, I'd still be a dead giveaway with all my work history being in the LA basin.

Craigslist is full of minimum wage bullshit.  How am I suppose to pay for this fucking house on some minimum wage bullshit.  I'll soon have to start dipping into my savings if things continue like this.  I put on Grooveshark and play some tunes to get my mind off the ever increasing heat.  It's going to be 100 today and I'm a goner if I don't play this right.

Hot City Diary: Day 55

Midnight gardening. It's cold outside. Must be in the low 80's. Weather.com says it's 87. Whatever. It's like free air conditioning. The plants and lawn must be watered at night so out I go. I'm stretching the 50 foot hose to it's full length and I still can't hit the mango trees in the corner. I'll have to fill up a bucket and attend to the mango trees, later. I spray the dry pieces of hay that fill up the yard. Thank god it's dark out or I'd see I'm just spraying dirt. Dirt and fire ants. Nevertheless, I still water the lawn and dance around to avoid standing on the hill and getting ant foot. It takes about half an hour and then I switch from the fountain spray nozzle to direct spray and hose down the big palm trees and some smaller palms. Then it's the buckets of water to the mango and olive trees. The bougainvillea gets a good soaking twice a week.

These plants are getting scorched.

Wonder what is happening to me?

Hot City Diary: Day 150

Indoors. I don't even dare open the shutters to let light in. My dog and I walk around in the dim light and accomplish our daily routine remembering the whole time that we must stay hydrated. Stay hydrated or go mad, then die. I open the door to grab brunas water bowl and it's like opening the oven door. I'm hit with intense heat and flinch. Whoa! 111 is hot. I yank it inside and slam the door. I carry the water bowl to the sink to fill it up and think to myself that 111 is the lowest it's been all week. That is good for an August day.

The water falling into the bowl sounds like gold coins splashing into diamonds. I close my eyes and jump into the golden gems for a swim. Diving among the jewels and floating on top of all this treasure. I open my eyes and realize that I've put my face in the doggie bowl.

I turn off the water and pour myself a glass of the filtered stuff from the fridge. Water never tasted this good. How can water taste this good? I pour myself another cup. I know I'm filling up when it comes out down my cheeks and onto my shirt. Water. Water stops the madness.

These days the sun will rise around 6:09 AM and set at 7:30 PM. I feel like a vampire without any of the cool abilities. Yesterday I did some laundry out in the garage and stepped outside and thought I got stung by a couple bees. Turns out, I just stepped into the sunlight.

Hot City Diary: Day 250

I'm a dirty, dirty dolphin.  I swim with strength and poise and can do multiple back flips out of the water.  I live here in the water.  It's too hot to be anywhere else.  Wait a second.  I'm at the beach.  My wife is smiling at me.  No, No, No, this must be another one of those illusions.  How did I get to the beach?  Oh this is so nice, though, I'm jumping around in the water like a dolphin and all my dolphin friends are here.  Wait, I'm human.  I'm just swimming around in the breakers.

The cool breeze whips across the water and I can hear my wife laughing and splashing in the water.  She must have driven me out here to the beach.  She's surrounded by sharks, but she seems to know them and they don't hurt her.

I'm never going back to the desert.  It's too hot.  It will bake your brains and then kill you.

I wake up on the filthy white faux leather couch in my living room.  I'm not at the beach.  Maybe I'm already dead.  This must be the moments when you flashback before the blood and oxygen stop going to the brain.  I trip over something on my way to the kitchen and open the barn door to let out the cows.

It's cold inside the barn.  That's where I want to be.  I see a flash of food and beer and realize I've opened the refrigerator door.  The illusion stops for a moment.  I reach inside and drink something, anything, I think it's cranberry juice because there's red juice pouring down my chest.  I hope it's cranberry juice.

The moment I close the door it turns back into a barn and my dog is barking in the distance.  I don't have time for this.  I'm a dolphin.  Dolphins don't live in barns, unless you're a country dolphin, and I'm sure as hell not one of those.

I make my way to the light.  The burning light.  It takes me outside where I'm torched and flip and flop until I find myself in the green pool.  This is where dirty desert dolphins live.  In a dirty algae filled pool in the desert.

This is the life for me!!!

Hot City Diary: Day 9

It's getting hot out.  Really hot.  We've turned on the air conditioner to keep things at a cool 70 degrees inside the house, but it's really unbearable outside.  It must be the third or fourth day of 90 degree heat.  I'll have to put more chlorine in the pool and cover most of the plants outside.  I know I was moving to a desert but I guess I didn't plan for this.  My wife says she's leaving for Italy if it continues to get this hot.  I don't blame her, I want to leave for Italy, but I've got to stay in town and look for a job and hopefully score one and then keep it.

Our neighbor across the street laughs and laughs when I tell him it's hot.

"This is nothing! Wait until we're into the third month of the heat wave.  Temperatures typically stay over a hundred for a couple months!"  He throws in the obligatory "You'll get use to it!"

I don't want to get use to this.  This isn't normal.  I come from the Los Angeles Basin where the temperature is always a nice 70 degrees.  This isn't right.

It's not only the heat but the sun stings.  I've got to invest in a large hat and sunscreen or else I'm doomed.  It's only the second week in April and it's over 90 degrees.

What was I thinking of investing in a house in the desert with all this talk of Climate Change.  If things continue like this, there won't be a Coachella Valley within a hundred years.  Unless of course the sea rises and brings all kinds of water back over there to the Salton Sea.  Then maybe.

Stupid Desert living.

Hot City Diary: Day 7

The Desert is like some strange time warp.  Maybe it's the idea that Palm Springs is a vacation destination and everything slows down when you're on vacation.  I can dig that.  I like it slow.  After the fast pace of Los Angeles and the Go, Go, Go feeling when you're forced to get up and get your shit done hourly, it's nice to be able to relax and take it easy for a while.  The problem is that I'm looking for a job and every resume I've sent out has yet to be addressed.  It's not like I've got a shitty resume either.  I've worked at some of the top hotels in Los Angeles and you'd think that employers would be pretty happy to interview me.  Well, I guess that I'll just take this time to enjoy my swimming pool and fix up some things at the new house.

Dirty Dan, the previous owner, and we call him "Dirty Dan" because he left the place in shambles and all kinds of dirt streaks on the walls and the carpet in the bedroom looks like somebody just rolled around in dirt outside and then rolled all over the place in a drugged induced haze, so Dirty Dan is going to get a strongly worded letter from me and my Realtor about some cleaning fees that he needs to pay.

So time floats by on the gentle winds that sway the jacaranda tree.  The small palms list this way and that.

It's a little bit hotter today than it was yesterday, but nothing that can't be remedied from a dip in the pool and some air conditioning.

Hot City Diary: Day 5

Wow.  Some of these Desert Rats (indigenous people, not the indians, but the white and brown trash) are horrible people.  I thought I was getting away from all that shit when I left Los Angeles.  Well,  I guess there are a few bad apples everywhere.  Most of the people out here in the desert are either over 70 or gay, and those two sets of people are typically pretty nice.  They're referred to as the Gay and Grey set.

Whatever, so, I'm making a left turn and I'm hitting it at maybe 30 miles per hour because I wanted to make the green arrow, so I gunned my little ford escort, and some shithead coming the other direction makes a right on a red without stopping and we almost ram into each other.  His huge fucking truck would have demolished me and my car, but somehow that doesn't stop me from pulling up beside him once we get down the road and rolling down my window and asking him if he typically drives like an asshole, or if he just started today.  He flips me off and then follows me around for the next ten minutes honking and yelling and causing a scene while I drop off my mail in the drive-by post office blue boxes and then even follows me into the supermarket parking lot and blocks me into my space and continues to cuss me out and tell me how he's gonna get all his homies to get me.  I ask him why can't he do it by himself, while I make sure he see's me write down his license plate number and then I walk into the pool store to get some chlorine and acid and by the time I come out, he's gone. That fucking jerk.  That's no way to welcome somebody to your new city.  Another thought on the subject is why did he seem like he was in such a big hurry and blasted thru the red light where we almost collided and then had ten minutes to follow me around.

I moved away from Los Angeles to avoid some kind of Road Rage incident.  I think I'll carry my machete in my car from now on.

Also, the pool people made me buy like 3 other things that I don't think I need.  What the fuck is conditioner?  Do I need pool shampoo also?  

Not feeling the love today from the Coachella valley.

Spring Break

Hot City Diary: Day 243

I'm still underwater. It's so nice and refreshing down here. I swim around like a seahorse, dither this way and that. Moving with the tides.

Then I bump into a cactus. What's this cactus doing down here? 

All the sudden the full force of the scorching heat comes back and I snap out of my dreamy water world. I'm laying in the front yard up against a cactus. How did this happen? I look around and find some mail, a pennysaver and some advertisements scattered around the rocks and Cacti that cover my front yard. I must have gone out for the mail and the heat got me.

I crawl back over the hot stones and burning tile that leads to the front door. I can see the door handle in front of me but the whole world goes watery again. I'm flushed into the house through the door and my dog is there swimming alongside me. I smile and swim down to the couch and grab the remote control.

Some television would be perfect, but will it work underwater? Of course it works! I turn on my favorite Alaskan show and enjoy them walking, hunting, playing in the snow while my dog swims above and around me.

This is the life!