How To Survive the NYC Summer Without Air Conditioning

In the famous words of Gob Bluth, “I’ve made a huge mistake.” Those words haunt my thoughts to this very day. Hi, I’m Alee Kwong and I willingly chose to live through my first New York summer without an air conditioner.

I don’t even know how I got to be where I am now. Early mornings were confusingly muggy and nights were still just as muggy but also painfully sleepless. Emotions ran wild and few words between my boyfriend and I were spoken in order to conserve body energy. Hand were thrown (into the air out of utter frustration). It is all just a huge blur. If I focus and really think back, I believe the root of this was my ignorant underscoring of the summer’s strength. For some reason, I thought I could outplay the sun.

I moved to Brooklyn from San Francisco a little less than a year ago. Upon my arrival, I was thrown into a rough winter (which people here said was “mild” but OK whatever) and was looking forward to the warmer months. I had forgotten that the last time I visited New York in the summer was awful. I was young and cranky. All I remember was that I was young, my grandma was driving in Long Island traffic and her car’s air conditioning was busted. I don’t have vivid memories but I do remember being miserable. San Francisco summers, as you can imagine, are more forgiving. No one opts for air conditioning in San Francisco because you might use it during the one month Indian Summer we have. You might. My entire wardrobe has me covered flawlessly throughout the entire year. Layering was always an option. The Indian Summer can get intense, but it doesn’t have squat on a standard New York summer.

Now back to me challenging the power of the sun.

How does one survive New York’s blistering hot and disgustingly humid summer without air conditioning? Simple. You don’t. It’s a lot of sweat and tears. Sometimes, I confuse the tears for sweat. My boyfriend is a huge fan of exercising your body and mind’s limitations (shout out to the productivity psychopaths and body optimization nerds) and was willing to tough out the summer without an AC in order to strengthen himself. Despite what my family and friends warning me, I decided to try it too. I figured it couldn’t be that bad and had total pride in our collective strength.

Here’s a list of five phases and inner monologues during what feels like my sentence in hell itself. A story told by Selina Meyer of VEEP, my spirit animal and guiding light for when shit hits the fan and I am emotionally compromised.

1. Pride and Content

“We’ll be fine. We don’t need an air conditioner. It’s been 80 degrees and super bearable. I just need to buy more real summer clothes and remember to drink tons of water! ”

2. Shakiness, Doubt and Compromise (without breaking)

“Wait, it’s going to be 90 degrees tomorrow? OK, well that is kind of high. Maybe we should get a room fan to hold us over. No biggie. We probably won’t even use it that often. *chugs ice water like a monster*”

3. Immediate Regret

“The room fan’s power is weak like me. I am sitting extremely still and sweating nonstop. I can’t handle this. I wear black every day. I’m not cut out for this. Maybe we should just get an air conditioner. Everyone said we are crazy for waiting this long. No, we can’t. We can do this! But we should get a second room fan to cover more of the apartment. Change starts small.”

4. Complete Denial / Misreading of the Situation

“It’s raining and getting cooler. We definitely don’t need that second fan. What were we thinking? We’re totally OK right now. Our room fan is doing just fine. The summer is almost over, right?”

5. Logical Reasoning and Loss of Emotion

“It gets hotter, you say? August is the hottest and grossest month? Well then, we’ve come this far so there’s no point in breaking now. This is the home stretch. We just have to get through this hot as as fuck month and be done. We ARE NOT getting an air conditioner under any circumstances. This is a game of pride now. Drink ice water, put the room fan 2-inches from our faces when we sleep and get through this like a champ.”

There is no way for you to be comfortable here in New York during the summer without a sweet air conditioner to keep you breezy. However, living without one these past few months has hardened my soul and made me resilient. Also, my skin looks fantastic, so there’s that. Would I do it again? Hell no. Next year we are getting an air conditioner. I’m strong but not stupid. Bring on the winter, New York. Fight me.