It takes some getting used to, after weeks of sweltering heat.

At night, from my window, twenty-four floors up the ground, the streets are glistening. It looks just a little more romantic. There was otherwise no change in the mix. The street lights are still there. The vehicles are still there, still stuck in traffic, a trail of red tail lights leading towards the new bridge. But it's raining, and that changes everything, if not a lot of things.

In theory, this means you can choose to turn on the air conditioning later, but then, in my specific case, I can't really take full advantage of the cooler weather. The benefit of cooler temperatures don't necessarily translate to cooler temperatures inside the flat. You feel less sticky, sure, but there's no rush-of-air-to-your-face kind of refreshing. Open windows mean nothing because the wind - if it is windy - is coming from the other side of the house, which means taking a shower in the middle of a thunderstorm can sound creepy.

Oh, and of course, I do have a cat, and I can't really open the window fully, because I am just paranoid that he will go out of the window and leave me forever. Yes, that last bit is dramatic license, but you get the idea.

It does make the idea of cuddling with your cat a little more appealing. Bonkey, a Persian, is a hairy thing, and you know how it feels, having something fuzzy to hold on a really cold night. He wouldn't smell as good, though, because it's cold and that means I'm giving him less baths, and drying a Persian is an afternoon-long affair. (He'd most probably like the idea.) And then he wriggles his out, runs towards the door, meows, and swipes that one alcohol dispenser off the side table and to the floor.

It takes some getting used to, after weeks of sweltering heat and bright - way too bright - skies. I'm entering the busiest season of my year - as if that makes a difference; I am already quite busy, and you, my one reader, could probably ascertain - and the dark skies mean I feel like slowing down more often than I should. Yes, I should, but the folks paying me demand I should not, so, what else can I do? Die, I suppose. Slowly. But at least I can have the air conditioning on and not feel guilty about it. Mine is a hand-me-down - a unit not used much in another flat, and is working fine, so was transported here. Not an inverter model, so I've always been iffy about operating it unless absolutely necessary; it costs a lot of money to turn it on and keep it on. It has to work harder on really sunny days because it's extra hot outside, and my electricity hits two hundred bucks a day. I do the same thing these days, and my electricity is just half that.

Every summer there's always this discussion about this sort of Sophie's choice. Keep the AC off to save on your energy bill, and melt in the heat? Turn the AC on to be comfortable, and watch your wallet's content wither? "Don't risk getting sick," they almost always say. "Just turn it on." But surely you've noticed how every year it gets warmer, and every year we turn on our ACs for longer, and every year our energy bills creep slightly higher, and every year we have stronger thunderstorms, and worse floods, and for some reason, less items on the news about it, because you know our government's priorities, especially the last one... you just know we're spiraling to some sort of abyss. We will all be a puddle of organic matter soon. That's how much hotter it will be.