Vortexia's Secret

 
 
the bedroom in my apartment (the one i'm leaving in a couple weeks... yay!) is directly above 6 air conditioning units.  the pics above were taken from my bedroom window.  between the 2 pics i captured 4 of the 6 units, but i assure you that there are another 2 down there.  i was only willing to dress enough to open the blinds... not to walk outside and downstairs. 
 
anyway, when i first moved here they kept me up all night.  in case any of you live in areas where AC is not needed or used, they whir and hum quite loudly (well the cheap ones like these do).  and to give you an idea of the extreme heat here, the anchor people laughed with glee yesterday when the weatherman announced that we would have a cold front dropping us into the lower 90s for a day.  yeah, you heard me... cold spell = 90s.  but anyway...  
 
so at first, i couldn't sleep because of this noisy lullaby.  my mom suggested that i try feeling grateful.  some people paid good money for machines that made white noise and i was getting it for free (well, in exchange for paying 1/6 of the electricty of those 6 monstrous machines).  this did not make me happy.  i did not want white noise, thank you very much.  i eventually got to that point of exhaustion where you will fall asleep with any amount of noise as long as a few minimal requirements are met (ie, you aren't standing up). 
 
now that most of the people in my building have moved out, the units are running a little less frequently.  at times i can pick out which one is mine.  i hear it click on outside and know that in about 20 seconds i will feel a cool wind start blowing on my back.  i don't know that i would say that it's nice because i would really just like to fall asleep, but at least when i get to that point where i'm so hot that i'm willing to sacrifice the nice cozy bed to get up and turn up the AC, i can usually hear just in time that it isn't necessary after all.   
 
but even better is knowing that i soon should not have this problem.  i will not have to fall asleep to the lullaby of the AC units.  sounds like the title of a beatnik poem. 
 
that was for you, tony.  you wanted to know a little about where we lived via pictures.  that was as much as i was able to acquire without getting fully dressed.  
 
(oh, and i did warn you that the colors would start changing when i got bored.  hey, at least i stay true to my word.)  
 
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.