Like a slatternly Blanche Dubois

I can't ignore the heat. It's getting to me in a bad way, a way that makes my head roil and my heart thump. When I feel the trickle of sweat that rolls down the middle of my back and then collects somewhere near the top of my bottom, I feel hot.

Like Blanche Dubois, I am wandering listlessly, restless, and self-flagellating with a soaked, flannel nappy. It's a large square of wetness that I can drape in any number of ways on my person.

This is probably where the comparison ends in my favour.

Unlike Blanche, I am not smoking. And unlike Blanche, I am not making eyes at a man in a singlet who looks like Marlon Brando but who's name is Stanley Kowalski.

Unlike Blanche, I am not coiffed. My hair is a bird's nest of Dilleresque proportions, thanks to a swim in a friend's pool this morning, and wearing a hat, on top of yesterday's beach hair.

Also, unlike Blanche, I am dressed for the weather. While she was dressed in a very frou-frou frilly, chiffony house-dress, and trying to be elegant, I am schlomping around in not entirely unattractive, and quite strappy, black slip. I drift, as I recline, as I wallow, and I complain. I've been wearing this for two days now. It's the coolest thing next to naked, which I can't do as the house is filled with children.


So yesterday at various stages I said or yelled the following things:

"Some of us are going crazy here!"

"So are you happy in this marriage?"

[Drinking an enormous glass of chardonnay at 6pm, breaking our alcohol-free January pact] -
"Yes, I've cracked, I'VE CRACKED AS YOU CAN SEE!"

"I'M NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO SLEEP!!!"

"I don't hate your children, that's what you think, DON'T YOU???!!!!"

"Fuck, four more days of this???????"

"If you saw Vicki Christina Barthelona, you'd probably want to leave me for the stability of someone like Pene Cruz. You would!"

"I wonder what the statistics are for people going mad on hot days like this."

"I wonder what the stats are for murder and other bad stuff on hot days like this."


[Storming out of MSAC because they had a "lock-out" and then stuffed up their numbering system] -
"You can keep that [tossing scrunched ticket at slow, dimwitted tool behind counter] WE ARE LEAVING!!!"

I am not the most tolerant at the best of times. I am not suited to the super hot. I have a Celtic background, my genetic memory is in a spin and my body is like a broken record - Nolikenolikenolikenolikenolikenolike. Nocandonocandonocandonocando. Dyingdyingdyingdyingdyingdyingdying.


Like all other Melburnians, I am amused* that the cool change we can expect will bring a temperature of 30-35 degrees on Saturday, and that then we won't be any cooler than 30 for several days following.

The one thing I can't stop is the coffee. I will drink it hot, that's fine. But I've also taken to having my morning coffee as normal, then putting the rest of the pot in the fridge so that later in the day I can have an iced coffee.

I think we plan to go to the beach again this evening, perhaps for cold beers and fish and chips. We will take the Gigi for a swim, but it will still be too hot to walk, even though it's only 10 mins.

So with the black, the coffee, and, it seems, the whinging, I am a true daughter of this fine city.

Time to go and re-soak my wet nappy.





* so amusing, I want to ram a fork into my head.