Ah, July in New York, when stepping outside is like shimmying through a warm, wet washcloth.  This, combined with with the wafting stink of subway grime and hot garbage, can cause the average person to stop in his tracks and wonder, "wait, am I a hobo?"

Unfortunately, it doesn't take 90% humidity to make me perspire.  I've been sweating since at least March, and that's if you don't count the multiple times in January and February when I wore a wool cap, and had to face the difficult choice between earcicles and swamphead.

Yes, I'm blessed with the year-round ability to feel the sting of a hard day's work in my eyes without ever legitimately earning it.  I am, therefore I sweat.

I think I'd be happier if I could learn to accept my fate as a sweaty person, and use it to bolster my self-image.  I could re-envisage myself as a manly brute, rather than a poorly-wired, sickly monkey.

But for now, I don't like taking two showers a day, and I don't like doing laundry twice as often.  So, on these warm Summer nights when I should be roaming the streets and nodding my shiny forehead at girls in tank tops, I find myself making a beeline for all places air-conditioned.  Usually, that means apartment to work, and back again.

I could rattle off a list of horrible things about my new apartment, but one of its only redeeming qualities is that I'm able to keep it cool.  My dad, who is steadily transforming into the wise owl from those Tootsie Pop commercials, told me earlier this year that my South-facing abode would be warmer in the Winter and cooler in the Summer.  He was right, of course.

Part of the Winter warmth was a radiator I could never quite shut off, but the sunlight was also blindingly direct.  Now the sun is mercifully high in the sky, thus sparing me the dual indignity of being sweaty and being awake before 9am.

Unfortunately, this doesn't mean I'm using my air conditioner any less.  In my old apartment, I settled for 80 degrees, because that's the best job my AC could do.  Now, the overall temp is probably about 75, and I've placed the unit so that I can blast my head with icy air whenever I'm sitting at the computer, which is...always.

Every once in a while, I'll try to do my environmental duty and turn it off, but about three minutes later I'll feel a nascent bead of sweat, and jump faster than a girl who's just seen a half-mouse, half-spider.  The lights flicker, the compressor roars to life, and my inner hobo slinks away for another evening.

He'll be back in full force when I decide to panhandle to pay my electric bill.