Hot Child In the City

Cole Porter said it best, it’s too darn hot.

It’s actually bordering on oppressive.  Which make me cranky.  And my brain can’t quite compute. 

There’s nothing remotely redeemable about a heat wave.  Maybe if I was a kid, with the summer off, splashing around in the pool with no worries then I’d be fine with it.  (Or, for that matter, if I was playing in my grandparents' backyard holding an unidentifiable toy that I found totally amusing….)  

I don’t remember caring much, when I was little, if my hair was a total fro or if I was red-faced and sweaty.  But now that I’m (ahem) older, I try to pin the curls into submission, to even out the redness and to ignore the sweat that seems to “glisten” (as in drip, pour, pool) all over my skin while I’m standing on a nasty, hot subway platform.  Could I be any grosser?

Maybe it’s just me, but everything seems like that much more of a chore on days like these.  And I feel like just giving up.

Ah, summer.  How I’m hating you right now.  And while I do heart the Heat Miser’s song, I’m even kind of hating him right now too.  (I lie.  I still heart you and your mini-Misers and their attempt at a kickline.  Never stops being funny.)  

I know…bitch, moan, bitch, whine a little, moan.  I'm being a ginormous brat.  I just have zero in the motivation department thanks to crazy work, restless sleep (I'm now resorting to drugs), nasty heat and oh, a little my-mind-is-foggy-because-of-the-my-life-is-at-a-crossroads-crisis.  I keep reminding myself that it’ll get better.  The heat (and the fog) will lift.  Eventually. 

In fact, things are about to get a hell of a lot better.  At least for a little while.

Because in less than three weeks I’ll be back here…

Cascais, Portugal

Drinking lots of this…

Hello, lover!

And while I will care that my hair will be a curly fro (because that's just who I am) I'm going to try to just go with the flow.  (When in Portugal, right?).  And what I'll try really hard not to do is make bad rhymes.  WTF was that?  Did I just go back in time and become one of the guys in LFO singing that horrendous  Abercrombie and Fitch song...

"Like the color purple, macaroni and cheese.  

Ruby red slippers and a bunch of trees.”  

What?  I'm not even kidding.  WHAT?  

  

But I digress...

So until I board my plane, I’m a hot child (brat, crybaby, complainer) in the city.  And since I can’t help but play the soundtrack to my life, in my head, at all times, all I can think of are songs with “hot” in the title.  So I thought what better ode to the heat than a little Billy Idol singing the theme song of one of the best spin-offs EVER, Booker. 

I know there’s at least one other person out there who spent their Sunday nights with the one-two punch of Jump Street and Booker.  And sure, I was (and still am) a Johnny Depp/Tom Hanson devotee, but I’m the first to admit I was seduced by Richard Grieco’s bad boy.  I fell for all his little tricks…the brooding, the charming smile, the general bad-assness.  Johnny and Grieco’s pictures covered my bedroom walls (keeping company with Keanu Reeves and Christian Slater, thank you very much).   

And if there was any doubt that pack-ratting had its privileges, I give you this:

Rip this out from a magazine and save it for almost 20 years? Yeah, I did. 

I think this was from either a People or US Weekly “hottest guys” issue circa 1990.  (Is it bad that I’m proud that I held onto this?  I mean obviously the younger me knew that someday there would be a payoff for a twenty-year old magazine tear out of Mr. Grieco.  Hello, payday.)  I know, I know…the silky pajamas and open robe are so awful.  I mean, seriously? A good pair of jeans and a slightly tight white tee are waaaaay sexier anyday.  Hell, everyday.  But, this pic epitomizes the cheesetasticness perfectly.  (The only thing cheesier is the Billy Idol video…a total *must* watch!  I'm guessing it was all Billy's concept.  A little "Walk This Way" meets "Girls on Film".  Brilliant, Billy.  Just brilliant!)

As for Richard Grieco....well, I’m not quite sure what eventually happened to his face.  (We can’t all age as well as George Clooney.  Or resist the temptation to go all Janice Dickenson, which is kind of what it looks like really happened.) I’m also not sure what happened to his career, but suspect the move from Booker to Lifetime movies with Yasmine Bleeth were a good indicator of where he was headed.  Sorry, dude, we can't all bounce back from Lifetime like Tiffani (sans Amber) Thiessen, either.  (Capital "L" Love her.)   

But no worries.  I still remember you fondly, in your Booker heyday, hot in the city.