When it's 100 degrees outside, and nearly that in two of your apartment's three rooms, everything you do is in relationship to the heat. You shut yourself in the air-conditioned room all day long. You watch two movies, clean your desk out, and try to fix your computer because there's not much else to do in that one, cool room. And you drink a champagne toast to Independence Day.

When you leave that room, your city looks like a ghost town.