Want to leave, want to leave

It's boiling motherfucking hot in DOU-Town now.  It always is in summertime, but this year is especially awful.  Over 100 degrees every day.  Walking around in daylight is like walking into a ceramics kiln.  The obvious solution would be to remain indoors until the weather breaks, but it's hard to reconcile that goal to packing up/throwing away my possessions and moving house.

My apartment is now rather inhospitable, since my bed is the only thing left above the floor on which I can sit.  It's not at all pleasant, I have found, to try to get work done while propping myself up on the headboard and the pillows.  It's hell on my back and neck, and it's probably not fabulous for my computer, either, since my lap and the bedclothes are hardly conducive to maintaining a cool workspace.  I find myself slipping out to cafés with more than my usual frequency, so that I can enjoy the comfort of an actual chair while maintaining internet access and air conditioning.

I tried to do just this a bit earlier this evening, and in a tragic irony, found that the café I walked into had a busted AC system, and was relying on the combination of two weak-ass fans and the weak-ass breeze blowing in from the propped-open back door.  (Of course, I'd already ordered my coffee before this became apparent.)  Dudes, it's about 98 degrees right now; call the motherfucking AC repairperson!  I was bathed in sweat just trying to type this blog entry; I had to flee the oppressive heat and the almost-as-oppressive shrieks of the hipster douchebags who had colonized the back patio.  I seriously hate those narcissistic, tattoo-covered, attention-whoring shitbags.  They are steadily poisoning what used to be a really fun part of town.  I may develop a physical allergy to tattoos any day now.

Compounding my sour mood at the moment is my first foray into arranging for overnight accommodations on my upcoming road trip.  Maybe the instinctive snobbery of my Hometown upbringing is expressing itself, but I find it hard to understand why the roadside motels in Bumblefuck and East Boondock — my two appointed stopover points, you understand — are demanding over $60 (at minimum!) for a reservation, even if it's a weekend night.  $64 for a shitty room in a goddamn Super 8?  WTF?  Could it be that I would get a better rate just walking in, when I'm vulnerable and obviously need the room more than they need the money?  I'm sure I didn't pay anything like that on my last road trip to DOU-Town, but I don't know if that's because walk-ins are cheaper, because rates have gone up significantly, or because I stopped for the night in really shitty small towns, rather than the shitty large towns I've planned for this time.  (Sincere apologies to all my readers who are in fact natives of either Bumblefuck or East Boondock.)

Altogether, I guess, I'm emotionally ready to get the hell out of here.  I often find myself detaching from a location before I move away: I start getting annoyed easily by this or that, I feel alienated from the place, I start looking forward to my next destination.  I haven't actually felt this much in that mode since I left Hometown for DOU-Town lo these many years ago.  Of course, I've maintained a certain baseline level of alienation from Hometown since then, but I think I may have internalized that attitude permanently.  I can't locate the quotation at present, but I once came across some long-dead person's observation that there are three kinds of travelers: parochially minded ones who feel at home only in their own village, more worldly ones who feel at home everywhere, and the most worldly ones who feel at home nowhere.  (Who said this, anyway?  I'm sure it was some sort of religious thinker whose point was that sophisticated people should recognize the temporality of their earthly lives in comparison to divine eternity.)  I think I'm approaching that latter extreme, if only because I never feel rooted anywhere anymore like I did when I was a kid.  At this point, I can't imagine feeling rooted anywhere in which I haven't acquired tenure.  And that's without even taking into account the reality that even people with settled middle-class lives can be uprooted by natural disasters, wars, etc.  (Although I admit that these latter possibilities are long shots for me, thank goodness.)

I'm rambling, I know.  My point is that I'm sick of knocking around my half-empty and never-very-homey apartment, and impatient to get out of town.  I'm also annoyed that I can't find cheaper motel rooms so far.  But the night is young, and I have coffee in my system now.  Sigh.