Too Darn Hot

The hot weather has sent me into a peevish rage. This weekend, some of my dearest friends visited from out of town. And although she is pregnant and it was in the 90s, she was as patient and game and good-tempered as can be. I, on the other hand, was furious. First, it should be said that due to some roofing activity there has been a pervasive stench of tar in the apartment. But that's really no excuse. Everything's been infuriating me: blowhards at the restaurant soliloquizing inaccurately about "the Great schism," Tom Lehrer and Henry VIII; morons at the Met screaming about the hilarity of old-fashioned bathing-suits; know-it-alls in the gift shop misidentifying Babe Paley; our hippie neighbors; the woman on-line ahead of me at Whole Foods; the guy who starts talking on the street at 6 am; and 1/3 of the people on the Internet. I only lost my temper and yelled at two: teenagers taunting a dwarf near Union Square, and a guy playing a handheld video game on the J Train. Also, I smashed some crockery last night, which wasn't that cathartic.