It was snowing. For 115 days straight. You couldn't go outside because your apartment door was barricaded by a mountain of ice (Thank you NYC street cleaners) or if you could scale the conglomerate of snowy madness, your eyelashes immediately froze together, blinding you until you could stumble into the closest bar/retail shop/ ace hardware so you could reclaim your vision/dignity.
And much to others chagrin, you bitched about it on Facebook for 115 days.
New York is the kind of city that likes things done in a hurry- our food, our clothes, our telephone calls and even our seasons...We sort of skip Spring every year in a mad dash to get to the 4 months of elusive magic we refer to as summer. So the ice has melted, the rain has ceased and summer is miraculously, finally here. Lo and behold, you are still bitching. You people are very hard to please.
Mind you, friends who actually know me, lovingly refer to me as the Polar Bear. My body temp normally runs a bit warmer than yours, I rock tank tops in December like they're parkas, and if I don't have an umbrella at the beach for shade I immediately pass out from heat stroke in approximately 20 minutes. It's a great time for everyone... I make lots of friends at the beach.
So, you can generally assume I feel your summer pain. Yes, the city is hot. I do agree. But 99% of our indoor dwellings have AC and if you don't, go sit inside the nearest Old Navy...they have so much AC they keep their doors open in 92* weather. It's so good for the environment and everyone walking past their doors gets that "Holy Crap That's a Cold Store" wind blast. It's not that I don't get what you're saying- it's just that you were complaining about the reverse 5 months ago, and frankly, though I love most (okay some) of you, I'm sort of kind of sick of the bitching. So coming from the Polar Bear, who just loves summer I've developed some general ways to beat the heat in NYC, short of moving to North Carolina... where incidentally, it's hotter.
1. Naked Freezer Trick
This one is awesome. Ok, if you don't have an AC first off let me congratulate you for surviving to your mid-twenties... Quite a feat in Manhattan during July. No seriously, you should legally be dead. Your organs are cooking from the inside out....but I digress. You've just gotten home from work, your covered in the general filth of NYC...some depressing mixture of sweat, dirt and that indian dude on the subway who sneezed right on your arm. So gross right now. Think cool thoughts because this one needs to be done quickly. Turn your shower on to cold. Not luke warm, fucking Antarctica in February, no hot-water-needed cold. Discard all clothing...and leave it on the bathroom floor- there's no time for formalities, and your girlfriend will probably pick it up later anyways. Jump under the shower only long enough to wet your hair completely, and if you survive the shock from you body temperature plummeting from 102 to 68 in 3.9 seconds, run into the kitchen soaking wet and open your freezer, then stick your head inside. This is double summer fun! Not only will your hair turn into icicles but all the water you just sloshed through your kitchen will freeze in the AC making an indoor Ice Rink. Fuck Bryant Park! Your girlfriend will be so excited when she gets home! ...Ice Rink and naked people in the kitchen? She'll probably want to have sex! So try Number 2 next :)
2. Summer Ice Sexcapades
It's Saturday and your AC is broken- again. You're trying to decide whether to go the Union Square greenmarket for fresh air or HBO on Demand that episode of Game of Thrones you missed.... It's so fucking hot you're delirious, you've created a sweat puddle on your sheets (seriously, the only thing worse than a wet spot) and your partners breathing is so shallow in the horrific morning heat you need to check her pulse....didn't you read somewhere online about how your organs could cook from the inside out? Well, now that you're feeling all sexy, there's only one good way to spend this morning...Icy Summer Sexcapades. Oh yeah, it's business time. Go to the kitchen and get a tray of ice. Bring said tray back into the bedroom. Unload tray on top of said possibly dead girlfriend. She'll be so shocked by the cold ice, she'll confuse her shock with horniness and rip off your clothes. Ta da! Then you can spend the morning having sweaty, grimy porno sex. I mean your sheets are already wet...might as well get as much out of them as possible before they have to be washed, right? Please note: If you don't have any ice, a bag of frozen peas will do... but I can't be held responsible for the scattering of said peas beneath the bed or stuck in your butt- or how you will explain that schmear of green to the people doing their laundry next to you tonight.
3. Slip and Slide Water balloon Twister.
This is a fantastic game. I recommend you play outside, but if you have no rooftop access, you can play in a large bathroom, or a friends really shitty apartment. You've already got an ice rink in your kitchen, so don't volunteer for everything right away. You're going to need one Twister game, one pack of water balloons, Dixie Cups, like 15 or so gallons of water and about 3 bottles of grey goose (or Gerogi..you know whatever's on hand) Fill the waterballoons with frigid water and an ice cube. Pour vodka into dixie cups and place on every colored dot of the twister game. Line up your friends. Four people get to play, one person spins and one person is the sniper. Please note: All your dude friends will think they will make the best sniper, because they had a dream about serving on Seal Team 6 when they were 5, so just go ahead and designate whoever you think will suck the most. Spin the spinner. Whenever someone goes to put a hand or foot on a color, two things need to happen simultaneously. They need to do the shot of the color they land on and the sniper needs to rapid-fire ice balloons at them. This will eventually (and by eventually, I mean like turn 3) lead to a mixture of water and vodka and sweat and possibly blood all over the twister game, which is where the slip and slide comes in. Whoa! Don't get too tangled! The person who doesn't fall off the roof, loose any teeth or end up in the hospital for liver damage is the winner!
4. City Swims Entrepreneur
This one is good for all you teachers who need to make a little more cash over the summer. Go to Walmart...maybe you should bring a gun with you, just in case. And buy one of those kid plastic pools. Bring the pool back to your apartment and place it on the sidewalk outside. Steal your neighbors hose to fill it up and add some ice cubes, then set up a payment booth....it might help if you have some of those fake palm trees or a red shirt and a whistle. Charge people $5 to strip to their skivvies and sit in the pool! This is totally legal by the way. Please note: There's a 5 minute limit in the pool... and the great part is when the water gets brown and gritty from everyones sweat and grime you can just add some jell-o mix! I'm partial to Strawberry Kiwi by the way. Ta da! Now the pool is filled with tasty gritty sweat jell-o! Now it's a cocktail party! The chicks will be lining up down the block.
5. Rock Those Cut-Off Shorts from 1997
If you want to feel really good about yourself go to Disney World...seriously, ugliest people in the world- where do they come from?! Ugh, no wonder Europe hates us so much- we're awful looking as a nation. Well, the same general principle applies to NYC in the summertime. For some ungodly reason, chicks deem it complete proper to wear belly shirts when they're 300 pounds just because it's hot out. So now I get to sit next to the sweaty bulge, leaking out of her tank top in many directions, covered in a sticky glaze on the subway. It's so appealing. Or the gentleman in short shorts...like really very short, I think-that-may-be-your-ballsac-sir shorts. I like to throw out my fashion code during the summer, under the general principle that no matter what I wear, or how I ignore my hair, there will always be at least one ogre on the subway with hobbit feet, to make me appear better looking. In fact, I suggest sitting close to these people to enhance your better qualities. Next to a hobbit, you go from a 6 to a 9 instantaneously! All the better if they've got a butt that's eating their shorts, or a large boob sweat stain, or toenails that need a hedge clipper to go through them. I find that bright colors enhance this process so I tend to lean towards my clothes from the early 90's for this one... Cut-off shirts with the denim fringe, and maybe some neon tights with polka dots, side shoulder t shirt with rock emblem and a gigantic side ponytail held up with a scrunchie. Ultimate summer look.
And that my friends is how you survive a Summer in the City. Although I am open to your suggestions and comments, I will not be held responsible for any injury attained in the process of my guidelines. If you can't celebrate summer safely, you should move to the midwest with all the boring people. So go have some sexy, icy, slutty summer fun :)
And seriously, stop bitching about the heat. No really, it's annoying. Seriously? Seriously.
