The Airconditioners of Chernobyl

The past week or so I've felt just awful. It all started last Thursday or so.
It seems to be nothing more than my biannual fit of allergy-related severe coughing, etc.
At least I hope that's all.
I seem to be just shifting the mucus around my body, from chest to head to ears to head. It's all pretty disgusting.

It's an ugly inheritance from my father (who also gets it the same time), but it's been exacerbated lately by a few other things. One is the ridiculously humid weather around here lately. It's October ferchristsakes! These should be the one and only few weeks that are nice here, and yet they're oppressive. If this is what October has become, there's no hope for us this coming summer.

Book me a room on the sun, please.

The other is that my classroom's AC has given out yet again. It started smoking on May 1 and went out and, except for a few blessed weeks in September, it's been out ever since. This is UNACCEPTABLE! I've told the administration at least 10 times about it and they've half heartedly attempted to fix it, but it never quite sticks. It's been out for a week now this most recent time, and they've yet to follow up on my demands for someone to even investigate.


The last two days, from a combination of the heat and the dizziness caused by being sick, I nearly passed out.
(That'll teach me to lace the corset too tight again, I guess, huh?)

Anyway, I'm not even kidding about the passing out part.

I talked to the assistant principal again today, complaining, and she was sympathetic, but who knows if anything will get done. Our maintenance man can't quite roll himself out of the gutter this week it seems.

Meanwhile, I've been doped up on my father's purloined codeine and any number of other drugs for the past few days. Monday, I'd awakened feeling much better, but since then the combination of stifling heat, overwork and frustration got the better of me.

Anyway, I just got home today to find a welcome movie in my mailbox, one of my favorites, "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg." It's the prettiest most depressing all-French musical ever.
(Or maybe just one of them. Who knows.)

I like to think of it, however, as a movie about wallpaper.

That's what hypnotized me the first time I saw it...fabulous upon fabulous scene of wallpaper.

Oh, and there's the impossibly beautiful Catherine Deneuve, of course....and the equally beautiful Nino Castelnuovo.

It's a lot of pretty.

Sadly, tonight I think I'm too tired to even listen to it.
I might just have to put it on mute.

But that'll work.