today the ambient temperature in the town in which i was working, digging fucking footing holes for a deck, was 99 degrees. ninety-nine degrees. dewpoint? somewhere in the mid-eighties.

what this feels like is something like if you were walking through jello. while this might upon the surface appear interesting and perhaps a tad bit erotic, trust me when i say it is a complete nightmare.

deep inside each and everyone's brain is a little gland called the hypothalamus. it is one of the last areas of the brain to be affected by brain damage and was one of the first to develop during the process of evolution. this area, coupled with the medulla oblongata, regulates the temperature of your body and the amount of sweat emitted in order to facilitate cooling when you become overheated. the evaporation of sweat is absolutely necessary to keep the overheating human body cooled enough to be able to function.

when you stop sweating, it is not a good sign at all.

at one point today i noticed that i had stopped sweating, which i had been doing consistently since about 7:45am. this symptom is one of the first signs of the onset of heat stroke.

...i was working by myself and the homeowners were at work.

the house was locked up, but the garage was open. i lumbered into the garage and quickly removed my shirt and soaked it in paint thinner, which was the first solvent i could lay my hands on. i half-collapsed and half laid myself down on the relatively cool garage floor and put the shirt on my chest and allowed the thinner to evaporate.

long story short, i started to sweat minutes later and started back in with the digging.

see, some stories really do have a wonderfully happy ending.

*sigh*