Hot and it's monotonous

It is hot today. When I got in my car after work, the radio cheerfully told me it was 93 degrees and then promptly melted. Kizzy and I only walked about a block before his tongue was dragging on the ground. (Granted, not hard when he's only thirteen inches tall, but still.) Today made me glad that I shaved under my arms on Sunday because I could go home and rock a tank-top without having to groom first.

But with the heat comes other annoyances. First there is the fact that I am breaking out like a thirteen year old--again--and also the fact that things keep melting and/or spontaneously combusting. Then there are the Mexicans. Yes, this is racist, but remember I am trying to be a good person and stay with me here. I do not actually know where they are from, but the people who live underneath me do not speak English and, when the weather is good, will set their stereos in the window, crank up Spanish hip hop and smoke outside, occasionally playing futbol and shouting at their buddies still inside to bring out more beer. It is annoying. First there was only one apartmentful of people--young, twentysomething men--then they apparently told their friends about this great deal, because now there are at least two more apartments rented out below me and another one above me, all to people who know each other. One of the apartments contains women and children, which is probably why the noise past eleven o'clock on a worknight has gone down, but this also means toddlers running around at all hours, freaking Kismet out.

We do not get along, the Mexicans and I, for a variety of reasons. I do not like walking through clouds of cigarette smoke on my way home. I do not appreciate the finer points of Spanish hip hop. I do not like calling the police at eleven o'clock on a work night for the third night in a row and asking them to come over and calmly explain to my neighbors that some of us have to work tomorrow. For their part, they probably don't like the uppity white woman living above them letting her dog pee all over "their" front yard. I don't appreciate them throwing fried chicken bones all over said lawn which I have to then fish out of my dog's throat. It's a little tense.

I can understand why people now feel the need to just go. Just leave, to not fight for your neighborhood, if people are moving in you don't like. If you can afford it, just go. Me, with all my liberal tendencies (see below), all my moral high horses about learning other languages and appreciating cultures, cannot wait for this lease to be over. I have no desire to get to know my neighbors better, or better appreciate their culture. I am ready to move out of this apartment which is fast starting to feel like a siege state. And why? Because I also do not appreciate being oogled everytime I step out my front door. Wearing stays and petticoats, bundled up to here? Then they can point at my posterior and hoot. Baggy sweatshirt, a lame attempt to disguise the fact I am braless? Sure to garner a few raised eyebrows and some excited chatter.

And God forbid I appear in a tank top, on a day where we topped out at 93 degrees. I may not speak Spanish, but I can certainly recognise eyes pointing ten inches lower than they should be, can certainly hear wolf whistles, even if I am halfway to the laundry room. It's not acceptable, it's not even funny. I've made it clear to my landlord that this treatment--having to run the gauntlet everytime I come home--is the reason I will not be renewing in July. Why I am white-flighting, I guess. I never thought I would...now I can't wait to. Feeling the way I do is not something I'm proud of. It's not to my credit that I feel this mean and spiteful and downright hatey. But I can't help feeling feelings.