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Window Air Conditioning + Macbeth + Unproductivity
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Window Air Conditioning + Macbeth + Unproductivity

Amy Tector
Aug 15, 2021
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Share this post
Window Air Conditioning + Macbeth + Unproductivity
amytector.substack.com

May I recommend

A window air conditioning unit

I am not a summer person. I do not appreciate the tyranny of a large pulsing mass of space energy beating upon my head; making the sweat trickle down my neck; and causing rashes to erupt as as one sweaty body part rubs against another sweaty body part. I don’t like butter turning into greasy liquid on my counter. I don’t appreciate fruit flies in my compost bin. I don’t like waking up with a sweaty pillow after a hot night. I certainly don’t appreciate the enforced sauna that is entering a hot car.

As a thin-skinned, enfreckled redhead with a tendency to sunburn to a shade similar to a freshly boiled lobster, summer is distasteful. I come by this distaste honestly. My ancestors were a Northern European people, a mix of ancient, berserking Scandinavians, generic weak-chinned English and dull-eyed, over-awed Irish peasants. We are a people of low skies, biting North Atlantic squalls and grim, potato-related drudgery enlivened only by the occasional Viking raid. Not for us the joyful twirls through Provencal fields of sunflowers; we gravitate to a rainy day, a thick knit Aran sweater, a cup of hot tea and the uneasy knowledge that our ancestors, and their years of frankly inexplicable world dominance, are to blame for much of the earth’s current problems.

Ottawa, though the second coldest world capital in the world (after Ulan Bator, Mongolia) is also surprisingly, disgustingly hot. There is always a ten day stretch in the summer when the heat comes, and with it the kind of sweaty, revolting humidity that reminds you about underboob sweat and makes swimming at a high faecal count beach seem like a risk worth taking.

We live in a house without central air conditioning. It is an old house (nearing 100 years). It is made of brick and its floors are creaky and it is filled with awkward corners and occasionally one of those fucking terrifying millipedes. For many years I have advocated for get central air, but my husband always said that that we’d only need it for two weeks - four weeks tops - of the summer.

He argued that the one air conditioning unit we had in our bedroom window, with a few strategically placed fans, would be sufficient to cool our whole house. I scoffed at this idea for ten years. One AC unit in the window could do that? What nonsense! What poppycock. What BALDERDASH (yeah, I dropped the B word).

Inevitably, every summer we would have the above conversation and I’d decide to get central air installed but then by the time I got around to looking at contractors, the heat wave would have passed and I figured I could put it off until next year.

My husband’s resistance came mostly from environmental concerns, but also because he is the most stoical person I’ve ever met. He could be getting slapped in the face by poison ivy while a failed American Idol scream-sang Feliz Navidad into his ear, and he wouldn’t utter a peep. You could nail each of his fingers to the dinner table while whacking him with a two by four and he might complain of a slight unpleasantness. The heat doesn’t affect him, is what I’m saying.

Well, this year, the second summer of Working from Home, I was determined to get central air. The husband slowed me down. Let’s try his frankly RIDICULOUS idea before calling in the contractors. Fine, I said, but this year we ARE getting central air.

Friends, I am not afraid to admit I was wrong. That one little air conditioning unit in our bedroom, combined with a ceiling fan and another fan, has kept our house coolish throughout a solid week of truly revolting 40C/104F humidity. We slept under duvets! We didn’t stick to our wooden dining chairs when we tried to stand! The butter remained firm! Nothing chafed!

I loved this article

How Data Science Pinpointed the Creepiest Word In Macbeth.

It appealed to my English degree nerd AND it has a highly unexpected twist because the word will not be the word you expect.

But fans of Macbeth often say its freaky qualities are deeper than just the plot devices and characters. For centuries, people been unsettled by the very language of the play.

Actors and critics have long remarked that when you read Macbeth out loud, it feels like your voice and mouth and brain are doing something ever so slightly wrong. There’s something subconsciously off about the sound of the play, and it spooks people. It’s as if Shakespeare somehow wove a tiny bit of creepiness into every single line. The literary scholar George Walton Williams described the “continuous sense of menace” and “horror” that pervades even seemingly innocuous scenes.

Not maximizing work time

In praise of (un) productivity

I hate the pursuit of perceived busy

ness that exists in many work cultures. This article spoke to me.

To me, this is about wanting to be perceived as essential. The pandemic showed many of us, non-essential, knowledge workers who told ourselves we were changing the world, that we weren’t. Some of us began to worry and this took a variety of forms. Some googled how to make bread and baked while doing all the other things the news said to do, which stupidly included leaving your groceries outdoors for hours. Others, armed with the privileges of the media, took to the op-ed machine and started to spin narratives of productivity, the “new normal”, and the like as reassurance that their place in this new world was not as precarious as it seemed. Seeing how the use of technology has changed the way companies and organizations work, we will never return to a workplace environment that rewards hours worked in the same way that it used to prior to the pandemic

This one made me cry

A small kindness I’ll never forget

When placing your life in someone’s hands, you want to know that they are particularly skilled hands. You want the best surgeon that exists in the universe. But beyond skill, beyond technology, medicine and state-of-the-art equipment, the thing you remember long after you’ve healed is human compassion. 

A low key decluttering strategy

120 Things To Remove From Your Life

Getting rid of the mugs and the books spoke to me.

Set aside a little time to let go of the following 120 items. The faster the better so you don’t overthink and convince yourself to hold on. Fun music will help. Challenging a friend to join will make it more fun.

Do it to make space. Do it for more light. Do it to smile. Do it because things are too heavy and too much right now. When excuses pop up, turn up the music.

Twitter

Twitter avatar for @CSMFHTClassical Studies Memes for Hellenistic Teens @CSMFHT
Image

August 6th 2021

3,721 Retweets42,310 Likes
Twitter avatar for @yajisselleyari @yajisselle
Pictures I take of my boyfriend vs pictures he takes of me
Image
Image

August 4th 2021

33,006 Retweets369,464 Likes
Twitter avatar for @TylerHuckabeehuck norris @TylerHuckabee
Image

August 5th 2021

1,491 Retweets9,222 Likes
Twitter avatar for @sarahndipity18sarah thee tonin 💫 @sarahndipity18
two teen girls asked me to take a pic of them & i said sure. then they handed me a disposable camera & then tried to show me how to use it. do not cite the deep magic to me witch. i was there when it was written

August 7th 2021

62,702 Retweets718,760 Likes
Twitter avatar for @KatyGilroyBlogkaty 🌙 @KatyGilroyBlog
How my hair looks from the back is really none of my business x

August 8th 2021

10 Retweets98 Likes
Twitter avatar for @Hardywolf359Mothra P.I. @Hardywolf359
How many occurrences of cows falling on cars must there have been to warrant a sign…???
Image

August 7th 2021

37 Retweets145 Likes
Twitter avatar for @ambernoelleAmber Sparks @ambernoelle
In her early twenties, Princess Alexandra Amalie of Bavaria developed a delusion that as a child she had swallowed a grand piano made of glass, and that if she moved too quickly, she would shatter it and die

August 8th 2021

43 Retweets336 Likes
Twitter avatar for @ItsAndyRyanAndy Ryan @ItsAndyRyan
Her: Who's your favourite literary vampire? Me: The one in Sesame Street Her: He doesn't count Me: I can assure you that he does

August 6th 2021

33,134 Retweets202,713 Likes
Twitter avatar for @ItsAndyRyanAndy Ryan @ItsAndyRyan
Thanks, I do other jokes if you feel like following

Andy Ryan @ItsAndyRyan

Two elderly British ladies greeting each other https://t.co/4SKjRhLj6j

August 6th 2021

38 Retweets1,523 Likes
Twitter avatar for @lauraeweymouthLaura E. Weymouth @lauraeweymouth
I'd like to read a novel that starts out as a horror but the main character sensibly just LEAVES the haunted house/person/town, never to return, and has a cozy romance elsewhere while the horror plot carries on w a new victim and we only catch glimpses of it via news clips/gossip

August 11th 2021

594 Retweets6,174 Likes
Twitter avatar for @Carlos_FilmCarlos Aguilar @Carlos_Film
My fall plans The Delta variant
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Image

August 12th 2021

70,984 Retweets516,540 Likes
Twitter avatar for @michellelegroMichelle Legro @michellelegro
Deeply relate to Kevin, the poorly organized tropical storm.

NHC Eastern Pacific @NHC_Pacific

Tropical Storm #Kevin Advisory 10: Poorly Organized Kevin Continues to Struggle. https://t.co/mbw53QNBXE

August 12th 2021

440 Retweets2,534 Likes

TikTok

This was quite helpful

Snarl

Another cute dog one

Best use of this sound clip?

Not a teddy bear

Whomst amongst us could withstand this?

Creepy child

The most important story

This was fun

Very good giggling

I guffawed

Unexpected

Love you

Molly

Jeff

Croissant

Emmerson

The pause is what sells it


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Amy Tector, The Honeybee Emeralds (March 2022)

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Window Air Conditioning + Macbeth + Unproductivity
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