Fahrenheit's Fountain of Ambient Understanding
Skin can tell time but it can also tell the weather. Mine is telling me it’s winter. Skin is like the sky, idiosyncratic of its season; a spring sky can never be confused with a winter one, and winter skin will never be mistaken for spring skin. Tho this seems mainly a fact of four-season climes like the Great Plains where I live. However in Seattle the sky looked the same to me whether it was January or July.
At 8 am it was 11 degrees Fahrenheit and the windchill made it feel like 3 below zero.
While the US should adopt the metric system, I’m opposed to the adoption of Celsius when it comes to ambient temperature because Fahrenheit is the flesh-focused method of temperature telling.
68° F = 20° C
69° F = 20.5° C
70° F = 21.1° C
71° F = 21.NumberOfTheBeast7° C
72° F = 22.2222° C
Fahrenheit, with its greater range of temperatures, is more precise. It is the better measure of temperature when it comes to the subjectivity of sensation over the objectivity of water.
Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (that’s a lyrical lilt for the lips) also invented the mercury thermometer. I cannot hear the word mercury without thinking of Alexander Calder’s quicksilver fountain in the lispy city of Barcelona?
If it were’t for the poison, wouldn’t you want to be coated in that silvern liquid? Imagine if our salvia was made of mercury. . . how deep tongue kissing would turn our chins sterling with each excessive muscle thrust.
Or what if men ejaculated mercury instead of semen, and women seeped a shimmery silvery slick instead of the egg white that illuminates our thighs? We would all be cold gloss metal, an ecstatic version of the Bad Guy from the Terminator movies that I’ve never seen.
My exterior tells me it’s winter because my skin is now an orchard of apple-blossom eczema. The worst bouts of it occurring on my breasts. The itch originates deep inside my flesh, akin to an orgasm or hot flash, tho I’ve only experienced the former. I stay away from peanut butter, take my vitamin D, and coat my tits in coconut oil. Twice now Jim has walked into the kitchen while I’m topless and covered in coconut. I should probably just move the oil to the bathroom but I’m wary of having glass in a room with a tile floor because I’m clumsy, and now also greasy.
I went overboard with the humidifier last night in an inadequate attempt to hydrate my skin but woke up to sweaty windows instead. Now I’ve moved the portable exhale to our art room where many of our houseplants live. The furnace is turned down but the warm-mist humidifier is turned up and I’m creating a tropical paradise where my eczema breasts can be concealed by leaf while erect from mercury dreams.