The Sex And The City movie is grabbing attention all over town because of its flair for fashion, its “we don’t need you, men” attitude and its “all we need is you, men” sub-plot. Nothing can stop it. Not Iron Man. Not Indiana Jones and his little hood-rat gone greaser side-kick Shia. No, nothing can stop the movie…except for the heat.

Weather reports claim Saturday and Sunday will hover in the insufferable mid-nineties. For those of you not familiar with New York City, this would be like hearing your weather person in Anytown, USA say “tomorrow we’ll see a high of 347 degrees Fahrenheit.”

Honestly, that’s not much of an exaggeration. The heat sticks to you. It crawls up your fire escape and sets fortifications in your apartment. It’s unmovable and unavoidable. Any day over 90 degrees will involve at least one moment where you tell yourself to, “just keep breathing.”

Sure, there are places in the US that get hotter. Someone in Phoenix watching the barometer push upwards of 120 before noon thinks 95 sounds like a chilly evening. There is no denying that 120 is more than 95 (I looked it up. If you don’t believe me, you can wikipedia numbers after you’re finished reading). However, the difference in how they affect you is drastic.

Phoenix was built recently by people who said, “Look, no one should live in weather this hot during the summer. If we’re going to live here, we’re going to live like burn victims and keep the elements as far away from us as possible. This means central air in every home, store and office with a 85000 zip-code.”

People in New York aren’t that honest. For some reason, New Yorkers’ solution to unbearable heat has been to open a window, put on a fan or turn on a machine the size of a microwave that leaks cold air. It’s almost as if everyone in New York thinks hot days are like hurricanes and only come once every few years. Last summer there were 20 days over 90 degrees. The year before that, 33. If 33 hurricanes came ripping through your town, don’t you think you’d start to consider yourself hurricane prone?

So how does one escape the heat in New York? Well, if you’ve got the money to spend then the obvious solution is to buy mini-air conditioner units and slap them into every window you have. This will work, but I don’t know anyone who doesn’t raise an eyebrow when they get a $350 bill from Con Ed. Besides, isn’t it absolutely silly this is the best solution? Would you ever move into an apartment where the landlord said, “Sorry, we don’t have heat, but you can put an electric space heater in all the rooms”?

Most people fall into the category of “Survive and Suffer.” This means that no matter what scientific or creative solution you come up with, you’re going to spend at least one night wondering why they haven’t invented air conditioned mattresses.

Some scientific and creative ways work. Opening certain windows to create a draft flow can work. Drinking iced coffee and abusively cold beer can work too. Roofs are genius.

However, not every idea works. For instance, turning on the cold water in your shower won’t cool your apartment down. I know it seems like it should, but I’ve tried it a billion times and felt no affect. Being in the shower is nice, but it’s almost not worth the comfort to experience that “grandmother’s hands” feeling when you’re drying and sweating at the same time.

The best thing to do is to be honest about the heat. How many times have you gone to a mid-day BBQ and seen someone sweating through a long sleeve shirt? I know I’ve seen it a million times – and been that guy a thousand times. If someone asks you to go somewhere in the middle of the day you’re first question shouldn’t be “what should I bring,” but “where is my bathing suit.” If it hasn’t been said in major publications like GQ and VOGUE then let me be the first to say it – bathing suits are cool.

Most of the times there is really nothing to do but accept feeling hot and sweating more than you’re comfortable admitting. If anything, you’re better off going to see a movie. I heard the new Sex in the City movie is Totes Fabs.