Yesterday was an odd mix of crap and awesome.
A few days ago the air conditioner for the entire back half of the house broke. Which is particularly inconvenient since the entire front half of the house is currently unlivable. So there's currently no habitable place in the house that has air conditioning, and sleeping with no air conditioning in Puerto Rico is not pleasant. It's the fitful, sweaty sleep that makes you mad.
Yesterday morning I got home from work and was watching stuff on Tivo when suddenly around noon I remembered that the Béla Fleck, Jean-Luc Ponty, and Stanley Clarke concert I had paid $70 for was that night at 8pm. That meant I had about six hours to get some sleep before the concert (and after the concert I'd have to go straight to work, so that was all the sleep I was getting for the day).
I figured I'd be clever though — my grandparents own a new apartment near my house. It has no furniture yet, but it does have air conditioning. it's noticeably lacking in beds, but I once slept on the floor for a year when I was a kid, so I figured that'd be no problem. In any case, sleeping on the floor in air conditioning would surely be better than sleeping on a bed in the heat, I reasoned. So I loaded some comforters and pillows in the car and drove over there.
When I arrived, though I realized something else the apartment didn't have — blinds. Every room was glaringly bright except for the walk-in closet, which of course had no air conditioner. I figured I'd try and make the best of it, so I spread out my blankets and tried to sleep.
What then ensued was interminable hours of tossing and turning, trying frustratedly to get to sleep. The floor was more uncomfortable than I remembered (perhaps my skeleton was still made of soft cartilage when I was 13) and the brightness was oppressive. And as if to add insult to injury, the air conditioner was pretty much useless too. After five sweaty, restless hours, I finally gave up and drove back home and got ready for the concert.
The show, however, was incredible. I wasn't very familiar with anyone other than Béla Fleck (I had only heard a little bit of Jean-Luc Ponty and had no idea who Stanley Clarke was), but the performance was awesome. It also helped that my coworker had got us seats in the very middle of the first row. They're all incredible musicians, but I was most impressed by Béla Fleck's playing. It made me want to look for cheap banjos on Ebay :) I also love the sound of an acoustic bass. Perhaps I should encourage Andrés to set aside the puny cello and step up to the big leagues.
After the show, the goodness meter dipped back into the negative as I stifled yawns on my way to work. I won't bore you with details of the ten hours spent fighting off sleepiness, as the rest of the evening was quite uneventful. Man, that's not a very good way to end a story.