Last summer, I was 100% unemployed and having anxiety attacks because I couldn't find a teaching position. This summer will be about the same thing, but I feel like I understand the application process better and I have a night job. Summer is also the time that I consistently convince myself that I am skinny. It might no be an illusion this year, because I've been working so much that only have time for tiny meals. All I really want right now is to be able to walk out of my house in the morning without feeling cold. Summer, for me, is all about sitting out in the sun and reading books. I check out the book sale at every church picnic and black party until I have a stack of books as tall as me, then I read them all before August. Last year, I think I read about 42 books in the three months between the end of one school year and the start of the next. I want to try and break that this year.
Sounds racist. One of my favorite memories was when I was a kid in the summer and I'd spend weeks at a time at my grandma's house. My cousins lived there and she lived near a lake. We used to leave at 8:30 in the morning and not get home until 9 at night. It was awesome. The lake was huge and we used to bike around it, sometimes even walk it. I hate driving it today as it's about 9 miles. I can't believe we walked that sucker. But at the time they still had public beaches, so we'd stop and swim a little, then walk or ride, then there was this small amusement park that we'd decide we'd want to ride. But since it was dying, there wouldn't be anyone there, but we'd decide we'd want to ride the Whip-It, so they'd come out, let the three of us on, then we'd leave as we didn't have money for anything else. Good times. Still a great lake, but all the beaches are private now. Boy that was fun.
You wake up after a night of heavy drinking and eating a variety of suspect foods. Your head hurts but you don't care because you are at the moment focused on whether or not your stomach is gonna explode out of your midsection, out of your asshole, or both. You press your hand against it and can almost feel the bubbling swamp of bad decisions it is keeping inside. And then it hits you, like a swimmer who's 20 feet underwater and realizes he has so completely run out of breath that he might not make it to the surface, that your sole mission in life is to find a toilet lest your pants be damned to the trashcan and your carpet be permanently ruined (you won't call a cleaner; you'll light it on fire with the rest of the house). So you shed articles of clothing in your frantic waddle-sprint to the john, hoping it'll somehow make you faster or the massacre somehow cleaner. It won't. You reach the porcelain seat and jump on top of it like a over-eager police officer on a car's front hood in a 70's cop-buddy sitcom. You pray you don't slide off, but you still kinda do. In your heart though, you don't care. As the warm clay mixture of cheap food, booze, and forgotten decisions flows forth from your ass you are engulfed in a nearly-visible fog that smells heavily of dumpster and public urination and faintly of artificially-flavored "meat product." Warm air is supposed to rise but not here, not now, that humid heat your morning after liqui-shit produced clings to the floor and sticks to you, forming tiny droplets of shame on your skin. That's what summer in South Texas feels like. Fuck the rest of you.
Summer here means rain and a lot of it - we have a higher annual rainfall than England. I'm not even joking - average of 39.7 inches in Durban annually vs. 33.6 inches in England. At a rough guess, about 2/3 of that rainfall is in the spring and summer months (September to March). There is the beach, of course, but most of those are fucked because the Municipality doesn't maintain them properly, so you're just as likely to step on sand as you are on broken glass. Fun times. There is of course braaiing (the rest of the world calls it barbequeing...) but you stand a good chance of being rained on. As for sport, there's only cricket over the summer months - the rugby season starts in February and lasts until October - all the February matches are played in the evening or at night due to the heat. It's hot enough at night that you sweat through at least one shirt. Also not a joke. The humidity is also through the roof in summer and February here is commonly called Suicide Month - the rain and heat are relentless. it was so hot here one day when I was going somewhere with my mom in the car (with the air con on obviously) that I just opened the door and puked out of it. There was no alcohol involvement. It was just so hot that I got sick. You get at least 5 days of this in February if you are stupid enough to have to drive anywhere during the day, like when you have a job or other stuff to do No, summer here is fucked. Winter is much nicer - no snow, no negative temperatures and no rain.
Growing up summer meant hockey camps, it also meant fireworks, it meant baseball and long evenings. In general, Michigan sucks, but around August, when its light out till 10:30 and you're hanging out with your dad and twin brother, its awesome. Summer growing up meant long evenings, grilling with the family, and hanging out with the family. In college summer was the best time in the year. It meant I'd go to one or two classes a day, then go get drunk with my friends later. Summer meant tubing in Boulder creek, it meant car camping in the mountains, it meant I was having the time of life. Post college summer means work, but with some grilling and the occasional kickball game on the side. It also means its hot as balls here in the summer, it also means hanging out in Wash Park with friends. Summer means many things, to me though, it symbolizes fun and relaxation. Shit gets real in the winter, in the summer, its time to hang out, have a beer, and maybe have a nap in a hammock.
I wish we only had 33inches of annual rain fall, I live in a temperate rain forest, annual rain fall of over 100 inches, so suck a dick for people who complain about rain. Summer means, - the days are starting to get nice and long again, as i type this it is 10:07pm and there is still light out and i can walk at 6am in the light - It rains slightly less - My motorcycle is out - I can do outside work - I can wear a t-shirt with no jacket
What seems like ages ago, summer to me was freedom, the shore, scantily clad women, listening to new albums from my favorite bands on the beach, pool parties, and hanging with friends. Summer now represents a slightly altered version of the rest of the year, but nowhere near as dramatic a difference - trees are green instead of brown or gray, I can go outside without freezing my ass off, and I can squeeze in some lake time with the neighbors.