I remember cold. Vaguely.
I sort of remember it as an unpleasant feeling – but that’s about it. I can’t really remember the exact physical sensations of what it is like to be cold anymore. Rather, I remember the opposite – how great it feels when it’s cold to snuggle up in the blankets in bed, or to sit right next to or on top of a radiator – or to take a crap on one of those great Japanese toilets with the heated seats on a cold winter morning.
But I don’t actually remember exactly what it feels like to be cold.
Recently, cold has come to mean that it’s not comfortable to walk around shirtless. These days, the closest I come to cold is when I have to put on a singlet, when a sarong or just my underwear or just plain naked is just not quite enough (our apartment in on the 34th floor – no-one can see in, so I do walk around naked a lot – try not to imagine it). Or maybe, cold is when I ride the Skytrain, and the sweat on my back starts to chill a bit from the air-conditioning. Or when I’ve been walking around town and I go into a department store or 7-11. That’s cold to me now.
Hot I know. Hot is all I know these days. Hot is a constant film of sweat all across my body. Hot is searching for the perfect underwear so that the sticky insides of my thighs won’t rub together and give me heat rash. Hot is constant applications of baby powder to my feet. Hot is three showers a day. Hot is owning twenty singlets, eight pairs of rubber flips-flops and no shoes.
I like hot, but recently, I’ve been dreaming of cold.
For New Year, I’m going to England. That should be cold. I’ve been looking forward to it so much, I even got my down jacket and fleece out of the ziplock bag in the cupboard I keep them in, turned the airconditioner down way low, and put then on. Only lasted about five minutes before I was gasping. England will be cold – I’m going to rug up in every piece of clothing I can find so that only my eyes peep out through the wool and fleece, and go for long walks outside to remind myself of what the sensation of cold is. I’m sure though, that the best thing about being really cold for a month over New Year will be coming back here to the heat when it’s over.
Because being here and being hot is knowing, absolutely knowing, 100% for certain, that I can go downstairs to the swimming pool at any time of the day or night any day of the year, and it will feel good. That’s if the pool is actually cool, which it isn’t most of the time. Often, it’s like jumping into a tepid bath. Especially during the daytime.
The hot water heater in one of our bathrooms (we have three – expat life) broke down about two weeks ago – but it doesn’t matter, because the last thing I want is a hot shower anyway. The swimming pool in our apartment is often hotter than the cold baths I take (haven’t been putting ice into the bath yet, but it’s an idea I think will work well).
Being here and being hot is wanting to work out, not so much to get fit, but so as to lose any extra weight that it’s too hot to carry around. To increase my body’s skin:weight ratio so that there is as much skin as possible to sweat heat out of for every kilo I carry. I guess that always being shirtless also helps with wanting to work out – the sight of my big white hairy belly looking back at me from the mirror everyday with no shirtly concealment makes for a good incentive. The fact that Thais are so damn little also makes me feel like a gorilla that just swung out of some cold-climate forest in the high mountains of central Africa who should haul his big ape-like ass to the gym.
Ahhh...Bangkok...
