Today was hot. Really hot.  Well, not by most of the world’s standards, of course, but this is Norway.  It can’t be helped, since it is summer, but I am weak to heat.  And since the summer is so short, almost no one has air conditioning.  (Except in their cars.)

A couple years ago I talked to the landlord about getting installed a two-way heat pump, which would provide heat in the winter and cool in the summer.  The utility offered to install it at no immediate cost, and just add the payment to the electricity bill over the course of several years.  Since it would save a good deal of heating in winter, the price would not be excessively higher than before.  I was all for it, and I would after all be the one paying it for as long as I stayed here. But I can’t just modify the house without the consent of the landlord, and he (not living here) just evaded the topic.  So I am stuck in the heat.

I have a moderately large fan that I use on the hottest days, but that is not all good either.  My body is then colder on one side than the other, and does not know quite what to do.  And of course a fan does not actually cool down the air.  It just makes more air pass by the body, so my sweat evaporates more quickly rather than collecting on the skin.  I still lose a good deal of water, and tend to not drink enough.  I try, though.

Another trick I use is to keep my hair wet.  It has a pretty large surface, what with all the individual hairs, from which the water can evaporate.  And that water does not have to pass through my body first.  If worst comes to worst, I will apply water elsewhere too.  It is not like I wear more than the barest minimum of clothes anyway.

But I write this each summer, don’t I?