stares.

This post is coming to you strait from my living room. And bedroom. And office. It's all the same room! Never before has this happened for you, reader. I am frugal. More out of necessity in this season of my life than principle, but for whatever the reason, I won't pay the thirty or so dollars a month for this wonder that has swept the globe. Some day and nights, on the rare occasion, I catch that gracious person's connection, the one that leaves it unlocked. I covet the blank space next to available signals. I sigh when all I see are locks. Tonight, no lock.

My frugality is not limited to internet usage. It's far reaching, deep into the complexities of life threatening temperatures.  People die every summer from too much exposure to heat. I don't want to be one of those people that die, but I also don't want an astronomical electric bill, one that surpasses my current income. So the goal: Don't turn on my air conditioner all summer. Steadfast would I be. I have shared this hope with a few. I am usually met with looks of bewilderment and responses bearing caution. "In Oklahoma, your AC is a necessity, not an option," one of my customers told me. My mom warned me, kindly and without condescension, that eventually I would not be able to sleep. Yeah yeah yeah. Whatever. Bodies acclimate. We all use and depend on some many things we don't really need. I wasn't worried. 

The worry came at one in the morning last Wednesday. I couldn't sleep. The word necessity entered my mind a time or two. I stared at the ceiling, body encased in sweat, and had a moral argument with myself on the choice that was before me. I tried just telling my body to acclimate. It went something like this: "Damn-it body! Acclimate! Now!" It didn't. I turned on my lamp, stumbled into the kitchen, and fiddled with the switches. The decision became more complicated at this point. Do I turn it on low cool and high air, low cool and low air, or medium cool and low air? Do I open the exhaust switch or leave it closed? What in the hell is the exhaust switch? 

I walked back into my living room/bedroom/office and realized that all of my effort would likely produce only minimal results, as the air conditioner was in the kitchen and my bed was through the doorway and around the corner along the wall settled as far from the kitchen as possible. So I began, at one-thirty in the morning, rearranging my furniture. 

By the time my bed was in the space it would now reside, where the golden chairs used to be, I was comfortably cool, and wide wide wide awake. I laid back down in the same bed on the opposite side of the room, and at a (now) much cooler temperature, continued to stare at the ceiling.