The Chronicles Of Jessica

I plump when you cook me.

I've decided that there are only about two weeks out of the year where it is pleasant and enjoyable to be outside. The fourteen days are not consecutive, mind you; they are scattered throughout the year and the odds of you having something fun planned outside on one of them are about the same as Brit's odds of staying on the wagon. The other 351 days of the year it's either raining, bitterly cold, or so hot that as Conan O'Brien once aptly said, "It's like walking through a cab driver's breath."

As you can see from this photo of my mirthful youth, I pretty much incinerate upon exposure to the sun. I'm pretty sure that during the era in which this photo was taken, the conventional wisdom on sun protection was to put baby oil on kids and turn 'em loose in the yard. The only thing that accomplished was to keep me moist while I cooked, not unlike a Butterball turkey or a Ballpark frank.

These days I make sure I have on SPF 30 before I step even one toe into the atmosphere. Of course there's usually at least one incident each summer where I forget this cardinal rule and I wind up looking like an amorous babboon's ass, and feeling like one, for it takes at least three weeks for the damn sunburn to fade and for that whole time, everywhere I go people are squawking the inevitable: "You got some sun!!!"

Yes, I got some sun. What an astute observation. Your mastery of the obvious is breathtaking. How'd you like some aloe vera with lidocaine in your eye, you boob?

We are entering the hot phase here in the District and the mister and I are not pleased. It's easily going to get close to one hundred degrees in the shade most days between here and September, and we live in a third floor walkup with very arthritic air conditioning. It cools the 3 square feet closest to the intake vent and that's about it. Which is worst when we're trying to sleep. Neither of us can stand being hot when we're trying to sleep. We just lie there in our own damp whining and cursing ourselves for choosing this apartment.

We really did choose the worst apartment in Washington, apparently. For the second time. But the apartment we had before with the break-ins and the sketchy neighborhood has now taken second place for worst apartment in Washington. At least we had a washer and dryer there, and it was near a Hooters. (What? We like the wings.) But this place is just a catastrophe. The windows are rattling out of the frames, not to mention disintegrating, the circuit breaker blows if I try to use a hairdryer, the sink backs up if you look at it crossly. Next time we go to choose a new place we're going to go with the one we're the least enthused about. It's the only way to counteract our luck and our (apparently) extremely stupid instincts.