Drop it like it's hot

"He so hot, it's ridiculous. I mean, really."

"She's so hot, I can't even think around her."

"That guy thinks you're hot."

These are just a few sound bites from a typical day in my cubicle world. You see, I sit within ten feet of two 20/30-something single people who enjoy hanging out in the bar scene (as is totally age-appropriate, natch). They usually give some kind of informal accounts on Monday mornings of the babe/fox/dreamboat sightings of their weekends. These babes/foxes/dreamboats are usually described using the "H" word.

Due to the resulting overexposure to the word "hot," I'm soooo over it. I never had a problem with "hot" before. Now, I've openly hated "hottie" for years, just because I think that that word sounds idiotic. It's the linguistic equivalent of wearing Daisy Duke denim cut-offs. But "hot" was always fine by me. Until I started hearing it used so often and with such emphasis and emotion. The drawn-out sighs that accompany it. The shaking heads. The eye rolls. The hands slamming into desktops.

It's starting to feel like being hot is all that matters out in the dating circuit--and not just in the dating world, in the world at large. Anyone not hot is off the radar. Anyone of a lower temperature might as well not even exist. At times I find it amusing. At my ripe old age, I can listen to the kids rant and rave about washboard abs or supermodel pouts and realize how little importance those attributes really have in the big picture of life. I can take what those in tailored wool suits call "the long view." But, realistically speaking, while living in L.A., it is impossible to ignore the influence of the heat. The thermostat is stuck--and so are you, if you're not in the high 90s.