Dog Days

"WE'RE HAVIN' A HEAT WAAAAVE, A TROP-I-CAL HEEEAT WAAAVE!!!"

It's fucking hot today. Africa hot. 98 degrees is the high in New York City today. But that number doesn't reflect the heat burn (like wind chill, only hotter), which is 138 degrees if you're standing in the sun. This is how hot it is: It's so hot today that I actually WANTED to go to work, so that I could sit in my air conditioned office and do something besides bitch about how hot it is. Wait, I AM bitching about how hot it is.

They call them "dog days" for a reason: because it's so damn hot that it makes dogs go crazy. Think about it. What would you do if you had to wear a fur coat today? On top of everything else? How many people would you kill before breakfast? At least 50, that's what I think. And another 48 before lunch.

Given my curious nature, I actually wanted to find out the true derivation of the term "dog days." So, here it is, from your friend and mine, Wikipedia:

The Dog Days or the dog days of summer are typically the hottest and most humid times of the year. They are a phemonomen of the northern hemisphere where they usually fall between July and early September but the actual days vary greatly from region to region, depending on latitude and climate. Dog days can also define a time period or event that is very hot and/or stagnant. . . .

They get their name because the period this occurs is often during the time the star Sirius, known as the Dog Star (and the brightest star of all as seen from Earth), both rises after, and sets before, the Sun and is hence lost in the latter's glare. This period of invisibility, for Northern Hemisphere observers, is caused by the fact that the position of Sirius in the celestial sphere is well to the south of the ecliptic. The ancient Egyptians observed that the annual flooding of the Nile Delta would typically occur shortly after the star returned to view immediately before sunrise, taken to be around mid-August in the current calendar.

I stand corrected. Let me throw you another bone (heh, heh), dear reader:

"Sirius" is the name of an instrumental music piece by The Alan Parsons Project, perhaps most popularly known as the background music for pregame introductions for NBA teams such as the Chicago Bulls and the Phoenix Suns.

Bet you didn't know that. Isn't Wikipedia great?

Getting back to today, as one might imagine, my subway commute sucked royally. See my prior entry on this and multiply it by ten. The Sweat/Embarrassment Index hit a high of 92 out of 100. In fact, I was so sweat-drenched by the time I got to work, that I actually had dark spots on my lower (thankfully) right pant leg. That was a new one on me. I didn't even think I was capable of sweating down there. And why not the left leg? No idea. Since I had the good sense to wear light gray pants today, locating my problem areas was not difficult for anyone so inclined.

For a change, I was envious of the pasty white folk among us, who, like the albino-esque, pseudo-hipster I saw on the subway today, don't sweat at all, even on insanely hot days like this. Incredibly, this guy did not have an ounce of sweat-bead on his entire upper torso. From an evolutionary standpoint, his modern and efficient internal cooling system was clearly superior to my primitive, Cro-Magnon method of delivering heat from my body by sweating like an animal. I'll admit it, I was jealous. It was like comparing a McQuay industrial strength air conditioner to one of those big ice blocks people used to buy in the 1800s to stay cool. His Darwinian superiority to me in this regard sent me into a spiral of stunned, envious amazement, until I came to my senses and decided that I really wanted to smack him with my wet, hairy, Cro-Magnon arm for not sweating like a normal person. Who the hell did he think he was? I was too dehydrated to pursue the matter further though, so I let it go.

They say this heat wave is going to last the entire week, so I think tomorrow I'll come to work in just a towel and flip-flops. And a big floppy hat. Sounds reasonable to me. What's the big deal about semi-nudity in the workplace anyway?

I think I need some water. I feel lightheaded.