It’s Wednesday evening, about 9 PM, and as with every night, the excuses have stacked up over the last hour as to why I can’t seem to get anything done in my life.

There are a few that pop up over and over again in my head: my eyesight is slipping some of late, and I am just having a hard time with reading and writing anything. The house is too dirty. I am at home. I cannot get anything done surrounded by all this clutter. It’s too hot.

In reality, I think the last excuse is really valid and in a large way drives all of the others.

It is true- anytime I get off of work and am coming home, I can have the best intentions, but I always know in the back of my mind that I am not going to get anything done that night. The house is just too hot.

And the problem behind that one lies with the rusted out swamp cooler dangling beside the house. With panels crumbling from decay and held together by glues, caulking and spray paint, water just doesn’t circulate enough to cool the air pushed into the house. I turn the cooler on, and a warm breeze begins to push around the house. And the house remains uncomfortable.

In the summer, when it is hanging up around 100 degrees outside, the house repels the heat until late morning. By the time I come home, the house has switched sides, and holds now onto heat. The cats are like limp rags laying across furniture or the wooden floor, fatigued by heat. I feel horrible for them because I cannot leave the house very open- and they cannot leave it. There is a room upstairs with a window open and a fan in it to give them air, but I don’t think it helps enough.

All I know is that when I come home during the summer, I become like them, wanting to do nothing but sit still until it is time to go to bed.

I may just need to eat more ice.

And hope the monsoons start soon.

Sometime I’m gonna have to deal with fixing or replacing that thing.

Until then, I’ll be home sprawled out somewhere on the floor by the cats.