An Incomplete Taxonomy of Air-Conditioning
Metadata
Highlights
- Mall air-conditioning is the dream of being able to want things without having to admit it is your sticky, sweaty, soggy body doing the wanting. This is the same dream as money, desire unweighted and without human consequences, always sowing and never reaping. When I leave the mall, for a few minutes I am overjoyed to be back outside in the weather and aware of my own skin. Outside, it’s a thrill to be able to experience consequences again.
- We love people most when they embarrass themselves, when they show their soft bellies, when they feel least lovable, when the sweat stains print on their clothes and the party decorations get caught in their hair. The failure of the window air-conditioner at a house party is this sort of wide-armed love. Failure makes room for grace; grace and love and failure crowd into the kitchen at somebody else’s house, trying to hear the good gossip.
- We are all discomforts to one another. The best synonym for love is inconvenience, and no one loves you for your grace or your elegance or for all the times you managed not to embarrass yourself. It’s not a party if you aren’t sweating; it’s not a party if the air-conditioner can do anything about it.
- Distance from things removes their threat and sands their edges.
- Fictional memory pumps invisible fake air in the room until all of the sweat dries and every surface is cool to the touch.
- . It says a whole lot of big stuff, frankly; it seems pretty sure of itself for a plastic item that cost $30 at Target.
- Box fans don’t solve the problem but they feel like a party, and like the momentary relief of a frozen vodka bottle on the back of your neck. They insist that summer is actually happening, and that your whole life is actually happening to you, here in the heat, in the room that smells like sweat, in the open door, in all the green and swarming static air.
- The whole world becomes the couch, and the couch is always the couch in a furniture store, and never the couch in your home.
An Incomplete Taxonomy of Air-Conditioning
Metadata
Highlights
- Mall air-conditioning is the dream of being able to want things without having to admit it is your sticky, sweaty, soggy body doing the wanting. This is the same dream as money, desire unweighted and without human consequences, always sowing and never reaping. When I leave the mall, for a few minutes I am overjoyed to be back outside in the weather and aware of my own skin. Outside, it’s a thrill to be able to experience consequences again.
- We love people most when they embarrass themselves, when they show their soft bellies, when they feel least lovable, when the sweat stains print on their clothes and the party decorations get caught in their hair. The failure of the window air-conditioner at a house party is this sort of wide-armed love. Failure makes room for grace; grace and love and failure crowd into the kitchen at somebody else’s house, trying to hear the good gossip.
- We are all discomforts to one another. The best synonym for love is inconvenience, and no one loves you for your grace or your elegance or for all the times you managed not to embarrass yourself. It’s not a party if you aren’t sweating; it’s not a party if the air-conditioner can do anything about it.
- Distance from things removes their threat and sands their edges.
- Fictional memory pumps invisible fake air in the room until all of the sweat dries and every surface is cool to the touch.
- . It says a whole lot of big stuff, frankly; it seems pretty sure of itself for a plastic item that cost $30 at Target.
- Box fans don’t solve the problem but they feel like a party, and like the momentary relief of a frozen vodka bottle on the back of your neck. They insist that summer is actually happening, and that your whole life is actually happening to you, here in the heat, in the room that smells like sweat, in the open door, in all the green and swarming static air.
- The whole world becomes the couch, and the couch is always the couch in a furniture store, and never the couch in your home.