Every summer, LA has at least 1 heatwave. Lately, it’s been a heatwave that also is muggy weather. We don’t have humidity like a lot of the country does, but it gets a lot muggier than normal (for example, the past week or so has been 70% humidity). It’s not comfortable weather to be outside in. Fortunately, right now I’m not doing a lot outside. I’m staying home as much as I can and only leaving on a rare occasion. Most of those times going out of my house is to run an errand (like this week I need to get a prescription at the hospital that can’t be mailed). I’ve only had a few fun outings in the past 5 or so months.
I am glad I’m not outside working or doing anything too crazy. I know this weather makes me pretty miserable. My body hates it a lot too. I’m going back and forth on if I’m happy that I’m pretty much stuck at home and going out isn’t really an option. I do wish that I could go out to do some things because in a normal heatwave I usually go to a few places that have a/c. Like going to the studio to do my workouts. I miss that so much, and I miss it more and more as time passes. They have a/c during the workouts so going out to do that is always easy. Same with going out to dinner at a restaurant. Even sitting outside is sometimes not as hot as the normal weather because you have some of the a/c from inside coming out to a patio.
I’m lucky while dealing with this weather. For a long time, I didn’t have a/c in my house. I only got it a few years ago. And that was a game-changer for me. My house likes to hold in heat, and even when it was cool (and not muggy) outside in the summer, my house didn’t like to cool down. There were so many nights I went to bed and inside my house, it was 90 degrees. And working from home during the summer was miserable. I had a lot of fans going, I would be sitting on ice packs, and I still would feel sick from how hot it was. There were days where I know it was over 100 degrees inside, and one time I remember it was about 110 while I was working inside my house.
My a/c doesn’t work as well as central air would or if I had a/c in more rooms. It does make a huge difference but there are still several nights I go to bed and my bedroom is 85 degrees. But I know it would be so much worse without it. And even when it’s not super hot, with the mugginess the a/c does an amazing job with make things more comfortable inside. I know I could get a dehumidifier, but I also don’t need to get a new thing in my house. 75 degrees with 70 humidity feels a lot worse than 77 degrees with significantly less humidity. So I will run my a/c to get the mugginess out of the house.
Even though I normally am home a lot, I have never run my a/c quite this much. I am a little worried about how my electricity bill will look next time, but I also know that I’m not doing this for silly reasons. I do try to turn it off when I can. I have started to sleep with the a/c on (which is something I used to never do) because I was waking up and it would be almost 90 degrees in my house. My house just has the weirdest insulation that makes it retain heat like no other place I have lived.
But I am grateful for the little a/c unit. I can’t imagine being stuck at home without a/c. I don’t know how my neighbors do it. Maybe they aren’t as sensitive to the heat as I am. But I feel like if I’m going to be stuck at home, I at least want to be comfortable. And that’s exactly what I’m doing.
I hope that we aren’t still struggling to overcome this pandemic as much when it’s winter, but I do know I can deal with the cold a lot more than I can deal with the heat. But I hope that when the weather cools down and it’s nicer to be outside that I can be outside a bit more and do some things outside of the walls of my home.
