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I've been thinking about heat. If you live in the DC area, you will know why. For those of you who don't, be glad, for now. Today is the 10th day in a row with 90+ degree heat, and there have been a total of 17 such days in June so far. This is the kind of summer, already, that turns into one in which people talk about only one thing. The upside of that is they stop talking about politics for five minutes. All right, maybe three minutes.
Yesterday, my dashboard thermometer hit 101. Arizona: You think you're tough? You and your "dry heat." You haven't experienced true torture until you've stood on an asphalt parking lot in broad daylight in the DC suburbs with 90+ degree temps and 75% humidity pressing you into the pavement. It's like being sat on by a Sumo wrestler. Not that I know what's that like.
The novel I'm working on is set in the summer of 1980, when there was another severe heat wave in the DC area. I was trying not long ago to remember the feeling of day after day of meteorological oppression. Before computerized forecasts gave us some indication of when relief might come, the days could stretch on indefinitely like the big sticky vinyl seat in my dad's Pontiac. Now, at least, we have some idea what the future will bring (I can hold out until Thursday, I think). Heat like this changes things. It can change history in the big picture, but what I'm interested in is how it changes history on an individual level. If heat is a character, its goal is to break you. It seems worth asking: Which alliances shift, which decisions are ill-considered, which relationships fail, which disagreements takes a violent turn, when even the people who never seem to sweat are sweating?
