Ode To Summer

Good riddance, summer. Fuck you.

OK, that might be a little aggressive, but there are a variety of reasons that I'm as excited as a welfare kid on Christmas that fall is upon us.

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, and because she clearly doesn't know me at all is a courteous person, she asked, "I'm devastated that summer is over, aren't you?" Not. One. Bit.  The thing is, I haven't liked summer since I moved out of my mother's house back in '04.  It's not that she was some demigod that single-handedly perfected summer for 18 years of my life.  If anything, her air conditioning rules haunt my dreams and often I break into a sweat just thinking about it. Summers before 2004 were carefree.  If there were jobs, they revolved around maintaining a solid tan.  There was so little responsibility, I'm surprised I even made it out of bed in the afternoon morning.  Those days are long gone.  Now summers consist of the same responsibilities of spring, fall, and winter, but summer brings one element the other seasons do not: sweating like a 16 year old before the morning after pill could be purchased over-the-counter. 

I sweat worse than anyone I know, and many of my friends can attest to this.  It's uncomfortable, embarrassing at times, and sours my mood to rival that of a native New Yorker.  I get it - I choose to live in a city that boasts "seasons," and often time those seasons come with certain elements.  Summer's being humidity, of course. 



(Source)

Growing up in Vegas, we didn't even have "weather" let alone "seasons." So, perhaps I might be able to blame my body's reaction on my upbringing; hell, I blame everything else on it, why not this too. I was reared in dry heat, dry scorching heat (I remember having to wear oven mitts to handle the steering wheel and still have remnants of scarring from a seat belt burn or two). Now, I'm plagued with humidity. 

Humidity is the more uncomfortable than inserting a tampon incorrectly, and both remind you of how torturous movement can be. I can't walk to the subway at 8:00am without breaking into a full sweat, much like the man in this picture. No exaggeration.  My morning shower is immediately null and void as I leave my apartment, and I yearn to arrive at the office, open my top drawer, and re-shower with baby wipes like a prostitute. Not to mention, it's hard to navigate being hit on in the summer.  When a guy tells me I'm hot, I'm not sure if it's a compliment or he wants to offer me a towel. Ugh, I hate summer.



Worse yet, apart from the sweating, summer reminds me that I'm poor.  I really dislike poor people (who doesn't), and having to dislike myself more than usual for an entire season is beyond tiring and surely detrimental to the longevity of my mental stability. My reaction to Hamptons status updates clogging my newsfeed is to immediately turn up the A/C fan speed.  A/C is my Hamptons pool, and Coors Light is my Prosecco. Not only am I a broke version of Hamptons partying alone in my apartment, I'm creating a wider monetary gap between myself and the "summering" assholes with the amount I'm spending on power to keep that A/C going.  It's a lose-lose season for me. 

The only time I have been able to use "summer" as a verb was while vacationing in Nantucket in 2007. If that wasn't a prediction for my future "summering," I don't know what was. I was surrounded by Vineyard Vines and pearls while I searched for beach volleyball tournaments and keg parties (you can take the girl out of Manhattan Beach, CA, but you can't take the alcoholic tendencies out of the girl - I think that's the saying). I could tell my social inappropriateness was never going to mesh with the east coast summer style. Should've weighed that reality a bit more when deciding on my cross-country move. I'll just have to chalk that up as one more bad decision, that, in turn, has created wonderful stories.

In summation, I cannot wait to sit on fall's face and bid summer adieu, Coors Light in hand.