Sweat-er Weather
We met up at one of many New Yorkian sets of coordinates. Sure. sometimes it was just a restaurant name or a music venue but usually it was a pair of coordinates—“50th and 9th” or “the northeast corner of Lafayette & Houston” or “the southwest corner of Central Park by the statue off of Columbus Circle.” We’d meet up after we both got off of work. It was becoming more and more usual. We had been hanging out for a while and now it was leaning more serious, more often. Our hangouts had started in the early spring and now the weather was leaning more heat, more humidity, as New York tends to do the deeper you plunge into summer.
I stood on that night’s designated corner, fanning my face with that week’s Village Voice. I would say I was “casually fanning my face” but it was more like “desperately fanning my face to try to lower my rising body temperature..but trying to make it look casual.” Once I saw Holly approaching down the sidewalk, I tossed the Village Voice into the garbage. Smiled as our eyes met. We hugged and descended underground to some subway line, which thankfully arrived quickly. The only thing muggier than a muggy New York City street is the non-ventilating, even-stiller air below ground. When people say they’re worried about getting mugged in New York, they don’t know that this is what they’re actually talking about. Getting manhandled by oppressively hot and thick air. A quick-arriving train is a godsend anytime, but exponentially so June through August.
It wasn’t rush hour so there were plenty of seats. We sat down together on the orange plastic, pretending that it wasn’t mysteriously sticky.
I took a deep breath (which she noticed) and went for it:
“Look, I need to tell you something really important.”
Her eyes widened. “OK…” her careful reply. Her reaction was similar to my face-fanning earlier—trying but failing to read as “casual.” She later told me her mind was racing from “Paul has a kid” to “he’s a closet alcoholic” to “he has a terminal disease” and everywhere in between. The solemn look on my face didn’t help.
Another deep breath. Alternating between looking at my shoes and her eyes, “I really like spending time with you, but if we’re going to keep hanging out this summer, there’s something you need to know before this goes any further…”
No longer hiding her worry. “What is it?!?”
“Well…” I paused dramatically, milking the moment a little more than was fair.
“I’m a…I’m a sweater, Holly.”
A beat. “…what?”
”I’m a sweater. I sweat. Like, a lot. Like, really gross and swarthy and swampy. You’re gonna find out one way of the other if we’re going to spend time together this summer…I figured I’d put it out in the open. I get it if you don’t want to hang out anymore.”
She laughed. Told me not to be stupid. Little did she know what she was signing up for. They say love is blind, but, in this moment, it might’ve been anosmic. Sematosensorily deficient too.
Nearly 20 anniversaries later and 2,200 miles away from the summer swarth of Manhattan, I stumbled with laborious footfalls into the air-conditioning of our Salt Lake City home after doing some mild yard work. My shirt was sweat-glued to my torso, and not in the Sexy Firefighter Calendar kind of way. If anything, I was sweating everywhere it’s the least sexy to sweat. I couldn’t cool down. I cursed the sun. I cursed summer. I cursed my fjordian cold weather heritage. I cursed my hyperactive, forever-teenage-melodramatic sweat glands. I cursed the power company for how much they were going to charge us for even just a menial amount of “keeping us cool.” There were very few things I didn’t curse at that moment.
And then I got on Zillow. I rage-scrolled through properties in Oregon, a climate I deemed more suited to my temperament and lineage and mental health.
I was not playing around. So what if we had just finally “finished” our interminable Forever Home remodel? That was before my skin had turned to fetid lava. Everyone knows that fetid lava skin changes things. I don’t make the rules here.
An hour and a cold shower later, my body temperature had returned to something a notch below Hellfire. I was moderately rational again. I closed out all my open Zillow windows.
What is life like for you non-sweaters?
Do you just go outside in summer and it’s hot but not gross? Do you go to a summer activity—a 4th of July parade, a BBQ, a swimming party—without having to strategize optimal non-sweating (or even non-sweat-revealing) clothing and cool-keeping methodology? Do you just…"love the feeling of the sun on your skin1?” Are you more of a “perspire” or “dewy” type?
Must be nice.
I think the combination of über-Scandinavian genetics plus the compounding anxiety of starting to sweat that then makes the sweating worse, plus my innate dread and hate and worry about being gross (and the fact that I, um, might be in the worst shape of my life2)? It’s not a winning combo, is it?
But, guess what? All this sweating also happened, to some degree3, when I was in the best shape of my life. On some high school summer days, I’d wake up early to go to (supposedly optional) Summer Basketball & Weight Lifting. Then my friends and I would play a game of volleyball in the afternoon and follow it up with a couple hours of basketball in the evening. Or ultimate frisbee. Or a hike. Sub in a water ski outing or a day swimming, but you get the point: I was as active as I’ve ever been. Tip top shape. Criminally low body fat.
Some summer nights, we’d all hang out at Barrett’s or Mo’s house. With real life girls! And I’d see the basketball hoops in those places as my way of peacocking (or thinking I was peacocking). The truth I understand now is that girls were probably unimpressed (if they were watching at all4) by a bona fide dunk on a standard-height hoop, much less the ones I was (ably, athletically, balletically) performing on a lowered hoop. Having “peacocked”, I would then spend the rest of the evening flushed and swarthy, while my competition/teammates/co-players seemed just fine, sweat-free.
What would it be like to not sweat all the time?
It seems like the rest of you don’t. Why else would I get INSANE emails for stuff like this?
I can’t even remotely imagine needing (much less wanting) a Summer Jacket, to say nothing of putting the jacket over the top of a DENIM LONG SLEEVE SHIRT. OUTDOORS?!?! ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME? I am only passably human in short sleeves and shorts, and even then I am fighting a swamp-dogged slipperiness at every turn. And they’re trying to sell me jackets?
The only reasonable conclusion is that none of you have pores.
Or you are this guy.
In my hunt for Less Gross-ness, I found myself a near-perfect shirt a couple years ago before we traveled to Mexico with some friends5. I knew I needed something that wouldn’t look or feel gross in the humidity. Tall order. So what makes it near-perfect?
-The shirt doesn’t show sweat. Not too much. You know, like when someone’s “pitting out”6 or, in my case, when someone’s chest and belly are sweating disgustingly through the shirt7. It’s not a good look. I’m well aware, thank you. So, this shirt, between the material and the color (dark navy), it veils the swamp remarkably well. It may not fool everybody. But it keeps it on the down-low.
-The shirt wicks. Wicking is a thing I didn’t ever think would become a priority in my daily wardrobe. Maybe for hiking or other outdoorsy ventures but not really my day-to-day choice. The shirt in question was made by Prana (note the N, not a D) and sold at REI.
-Which is maybe why it’s NEAR perfect but not entirely so. It’s a style that I probably wouldn’t normally gravitate towards, leaning crunchy granola, but it’s fine.
It became my go-to shirt for public situations where I knew I was going to get gross and sweaty. Ogden Twilight Concert in August? Yep. Lagoon on the hottest day of July? Check. Playing and MC’ing an Fork Fest in the heat of mid-June? No question.
Then the shirt mysteriously disappeared. And, worse, Prana stopped making it. Suddenly I understood those old guys that go out and buy, like, 4 pairs of the same shoes8. I muddled through for awhile with makeshift solutions but then had a standout gross moment. A turning point, if you will.
I played Fort Desolation last month and wore a dark (thinking maybe the dark would do a similar thing to the dark blue Prana shirt) cotton pearl snap shirt and, sure enough, within minutes of starting my set, the putrescence of my frontal sweat soaked through for all to see; women fainted and men fainted too. To make matters worse, after our set, my friend (and fellow Man of the Sweat) Ryan Innes mentioned that he owned the same shirt and thought about wearing it but was afraid he’d sweat through it. I then had to ashamedly lift my folded arms, which were unsuccessfully attempting to shroud my unsightly sweat spots. They’re like having a neon arrow pointing to an already showing-off rotund belly.
Did you know that Wimbledon’s rule about wearing all white for their tennis tournament is actually rooted in sweat-related issues? It’s true. It was considered improper9 to be all sweaty in public way back in 1877 when Wimbledon started10, so they chose all-white to minimize that, I guess.
Maybe I’ll try all-white next. For now, I’ll stick with my latest dark blue Prana shirt. That’s right: like any rational human being, I dug up the no-longer-produced shirt on eBay. It’s summer, so I wear it all the time. I almost ordered two. Maybe I should order one for Ryan Innes.
And this is to say nothing of my propensity to burn. I don’t know that I’ve been tan in my entire life. The closest state I have been to tan is probably Post Sunburn Fade.
If I was sweating more often on purpose, would I sweat less often NOT on purpose? These are the questions.
pun mostly intended
Insecurity is believing that all eyes are on you.
Holly knew what she signed up for after our “I’m a sweater” discussion on the NYC subway, but I’m still trying to maintain the ruse with my other friends that I’m not utterly repulsive.
There was a teacher in the sixth grade at Uintah who was notorious for pitting out. Some of my self-loathing in this case may trace back to how my peers and I talked about said teacher’s pits.
Not pictured, you’re welcome.
This is a real thing. My brother-in-law, who is younger than me actually, just told me about how he bought 5 pairs of the same Nike shoes because he was sick of finding a shoe he loved and then Nike moving on to other styles.
Wimbledon is also the only Grand Slam with a curfew. Those British love their rules.
Oops. Just looked it up and the all-white (or nearly all-white) dress code didn’t start until 1963. Still…
Just another thing I didn't know about a boy I raised (your aversion heat we share). I remember doing tons of laundry as a mom - maybe you were responsible for more of it than I realized. And, sure, buy ten shirts that work, then Holly won't have to keep your favorite laundered so often. :)