It’s furnace-stoked and jungle-sticky in Milan, a touch delirious. Reality shimmers, like an oasis you can’t quite be sure is there. Things blur even in the car with the AC cranking. The wavy gravy of 100 + is lurking and looking for any excuse to creep in. It takes will power to drive alert.

Ambulance calls from people swooning are up 20%. Water consumption is up about the same. The megawatt count is soaring. Zap, sputter, fizzle, frazzle and wilt are the verbs of choice. If this were New York, they’d be busting open the fire hydrants, but here there are none.

I head out the door in a nicely ironed linen shirt. An hour later it’s a soggy rag. A friend is so picky, or smart, she refuses to get on a subway car that isn’t air conditioned, no matter how late she is for work. AC or not, the risk exists that the power may wan for some minutes. Packed in and sweltering down under is no fun.

People handle it pretty well. During Christmas  ‘shop ‘til you drop’ mania, fights break out underground. In the summer heat people are just too exhausted to get angry.  So far.

At home I do my best boiled couch potato with the fan blasting, zoning out on TV for relief. Or trying to. Yesterday there was a documentary about polar bears wandering around the Arctic Circle  foraging in rocks, waiting for the sea to ice over to snag some seals. Poor Yogis had been without a three square for six months.

Sleeping is rough (no AC ) and there are mosquitoes. I roam from bed to couch to floor mat in the night and even, half asleep, took a cool bath the other night. It helped.

I  wanted to order an Italian ice the other day but I couldn’t think of the name in Italian (it’s granite, pronounced “grah-nee-tay”). The energy to remember the word just wasn’t there, so with few cylinders clicking I just pointed, and the waiter didn’t need words. Mint is my favorite. It’s like gnawing on a semi-frozen tube of  Colgate.

It’s almost too hot to think about sex. Does that mean I’m over the hill?  I prefer thinking there’s no shade on it. In these temperatures, women send out confusing signals. While most look fried and are toughing out the scorching days, some seem more hot and bothered than hot, my sensation stoked by  their dare-you-not-to-stare, “peek a boobs” clothing. Maybe it says more about the effects of the heat on me than them, but I’d swear some women flaunt an empowered “been there, done that” nonchalance  and a heat-defying,  post-coitus glow.

To cool off, there are swimming pools, outdoor and indoor, and a big park on the city outskirts  called the “Idroscalo.” It’s got a man-made lake a good 3 miles around and lots of shady trees. With the sun beating down on the water, swimming isn’t all that refreshing, but the lake is fed by little underground springs and it’s fun to stand on them and have the icy water stream up through your toes.

The Milan airport is next door and the jumbos take off right above the trees. Their engines growl like thunder, a sound the stuff dreams are made of.  Sooner or later the weather will break and a big storm, hail and all, will sweep town. Streets will flood, trees will crash and trams will slide off their tracks. A chill will fill the air for a few hours. I tell myself so. Every roasting day.