xerophobia
noun
1. An abnormal fear of dryness and dry places, as deserts. – The Free Dictionary1
2. Oh look, an outdoor sauna. Pass. – The Nut
A couple of years ago, my parents deliberately bought a vacation home in the desert.
I’m not exactly sure why they did this, because nine months out of the year the place is too hot for their liking, and also because I just don’t understand why anybody would want to hang out in the desert for fun in the first place. The desert is too hot for my liking all twelve months of the year.
I was brought up around water. I grew up in a house with a pool in a coastal city that is one of the rainiest in Canada. Even when I moved away for a year, there was a lake a stone’s throw from my front door. Not a lake you’d ever want to swim in, but a lake nonetheless.
You’ll forgive me if I’ve gotten a just little attached to that good ol’ H2O.
I get nervous when I’m not around water. I think deserts are gorgeous and photogenic and nice to visit for maybe a day or so, but if you don’t find me an oasis after that, then Nutty starts to go nuttier.
(Mirages are pretty, but they don’t count.)
I know I’m something of an enigma. Most people I know complain about any kind of humidity, while I crave it like a sponge. It took me years to learn to like saunas, and I think the only reason I finally managed it was that I associate the aroma of cedar wood with the cool damp of our local forests.
That’s right, I have to use psychological tricks on myself to enjoy a goddamn sauna.
I was not quite so successful at finding my happy place during a trip to Edmonton for a friend’s May wedding one year. I vividly remember taking my first walk around town and seeing a street sweeper go by, which I found odd because there appeared to be nothing to sweep up. With the exception of a thick layer of dust, apparently, which was momentarily kicked up into the air by the sweeper…only to drift right back down onto the road as though it had never been disturbed in the first place.
So, I thought. This is what hell is like.
I was sneezing out Alberta dust for about a week after I got home, cursing the prairies with every achoo.
My mother keeps hinting to me about how the new vacation home has a guest house, trying to convince my husband and I to fly down with them one of these winters.
After 32 years, you’d think she’d have figured out that Nutty don’t do dry.
Today’s blog post was brought to you by the letter X, the number 194°F, and the I’llBeInThePool Challenge, AKA the Blogging A to Z Challenge.
1 “xerophobia.” TheFreeDictionary.com. The Free Dictionary, 2015. Web. 28 April 2015.
Spoken Like A True Nut 
As a Finn, I have to say Bravo!
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Half my family are Finns, and we have a sauna in our house. Crazy when we live in hot Australia 😀😁
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We lived in Melbourne for 3 years and I wish we had had a sauna!
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They like the heat as they age. All this proves is we’re still young 😃😅
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Quite right. Although I must confess, I have developed the typical old person’s predilection for cruises. Mainly because they keep me near water.
Also for the food. Dear god, the food.
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A few years ago I went to a conference in Palm Springs, California. All my life I’ve heard people say, “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.” For the first time I understood what that meant. The outside areas around the hotels had tiny jets that would occasionally spray mist. The bus stops had those too. The bus stops!
The desert was beautiful and I was glad to experience it, but I also kept thinking, we are not meant to live here.
By the way I was almost expecting your word for X to be “xenium”, which is a Greek word for gifts, especially a meal, offered to strangers. It seemed like a fitting word for a blog like yours.
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We spent a couple of Christmases in Palm Springs when I was a kid. I spent every possible waking moment in the pool. I did enjoy the fact that we could eat fresh grapefruit off the tree every morning for breakfast, but then I also ate what I thought was a tasty looking bell pepper from the resort’s garden that actually turned out to be a surprisingly hot pepper, an experience which did not endear the place to me any further.
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I’ve never been in a desert, so I don’t know how I’d react. I don’t like hot weather… but I think a desert would be different.
I tried a sauna once, but I had to go out after five minutes.
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The temperature does drop dramatically at night in the desert, which is a plus. But the heat during the daytime definitely feels sauna-ish to me. It’s omnipresent and there’s no escape. Even the breezes are hot.
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I hate to sweat, so I would not be one to enjoy the desert – or any hot place – either.
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I hate sweating as well. Which is why I prefer living in colder climates where I can dress in layers, and then add or remove layers as needed throughout the day to keep maintain a comfortable body temperature.
In an environment that’s constantly hot…well, there’s only so much you can remove without getting arrested.
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You’d love Kyoto in summer, then. Hahahaha. It’s going to be so, so humid this year.
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