Several Stranger/Slog writers have lately weighed in on the issue of how to keep cool in Seattle’s current heat wave.

Your current weird, odd, unusual heat wave is your actual regular everyday future given the fact of anthropogenic climate change. And so it occurs to me that I might do Slog and The Stranger and Seattle a service with some advice, based in no small part on my recent visit to your fair city.

First, you all need to get screens for your windows. Windows that you can open for a nice cooling breeze are now giant entry ports for flying insects of various kinds. In the past, when you only opened your windows a day here and a day there, no sweat. But if you’re opening your windows all the time, then you want to keep bugs out. As you try to fall asleep, bathed in your own sweat, that buzzing fly will not be your friend.

Second, regarding sweat: The best option for preventing your home from becoming a sweat-box is to avoid letting the air inside heat up in the first place. Dark shades to keep out direct sunlight are the key. I know that direct sunlight is usually treated by Seattleites as some form of blessing from the Gods, given your nine months a year of cloudy weather, but trust me on this. Your screenless and shadeless windows just make your homes into giant fucking heat sumps when the sun is shining. Wanna sweat? OK, you have that. Want to be able to sleep? Pull the shades.

And deploy fans. Floor fans (those large boxy things) to keep air moving, and a rotating fan that will swivel back and forth across your heated-up flesh as you try to sleep in your sweatbox. Fans don’t reduce the actual air temperature in your space, but they evaporate your sweat, which cools you off.

And let me say right here: I am not speaking from a place of in-home central AC privilege. I do not have AC. I make do (or is it “make due”?) with windows, shades, and fans. But I live in a city where it can get very hot and humid for weeks or months at a time. You all are just getting used to that reality. . . But it will be your reality.

Get some screens. Get some shades (not necessarily blackout shades, though those are the best). Get some fans. And good luck.