Summer has hit me between the eyes. I’m gross from all the sweating because I insist on still being mobile (if you sit super still, sometimes you don’t sweat as much in the heat). The fans are running. The hiding has begun. The great big festival of discomfort also known as MY MOST HATED SEASON has opened up.
(Full disclosure: it hasn’t actually hit 90º yet.)
(Other full disclosure: I think it’s hot when it gets above 70º because I’m an arctic being)
I am sharing my complaints here on my blog because I’m trying really hard (only barely successfully) to refrain from complaining hatefully on Facebook about the warm weather and summer vacations and stupid things like al fresco picnics and basking on hot rocks. I didn’t used to complain so bitterly until I got sick and tired of summer people infecting my every enjoyable winter day with endless complaints about the horrible cold weather, the wet dreary conditions, how cruel and bleak it all is and how damn much they wished the damn sun would fucking come the hell out already because they’re just so damn fucking tired of the cold wet hateful weather.
These rampant attitudes expressed en-mass during my favorite season have had a corrosive effect on me over time. I have become increasingly less gracious about respecting other people’s favorite season which is my least favorite for ALL the same reasons. Yes. The SAME reasons. Summer makes me depressed exactly the same way winter depresses so many of my friends. Too much light makes me angry. Too much warmth makes me uncomfortable physically with heat rashes, headaches, sunburns, nausea, passing out. No lies with that list. It’s 100% literal, right down to passing out from the heat.
(I know it’s hard to believe that a 245 lb woman with big bones and large feet can be such a delicate tissue of a human. You just have to believe it.)
I decided, last summer, to tone down the angry hateful slurs against the majority’s favorite season/weather. I decided to attempt to enjoy the fact that when the sun comes out everyone stops bitching and moaning and gets much happier. There’s a benefit in that for me. If the majority of the community of humans I associate with is happy and dreamy and joyful and full of love when the sun is beating down on them relentlessly:
- They are easier to control so you can take over the world.
- They’re nicer to you in general.
- They are so enriched with sunscreen chemicals they don’t notice when you steal their food.
- They’re much more likely to do you outrageous favors.
- Or give you money.
- Or babysit your kid (that’s a broad hint).
See what I mean? If summer loving people applied this wisdom in winter, I’d be done for. Luckily, they are too busy complaining to take full advantage of people like me who are blissing out in the rainy cold storms. (And you all know who you are, my winter loving friends! I salute you! I also say- take heed to what I say here- it could be very useful!)
I am working on this reform. Naturally I’m not perfect. This “not complaining” thing is super hard. I already let a grouchy comment or two slip and there’s only been about 8 totally uncomfortable days for me so far. Clearly I must work harder. My blog is exempt from this whole not complaining deal because very few people come here anyway, whereas 144 people might be adversely affected by my complaining on Facebook or alternately… 144 people could be potentially milked for all kinds of favors if only I charmed them with my magnanimity about this whole crapload of sunshine settling in the Western Hemisphere.
In an effort to remark on all the things I don’t hate about summer, nay, all the things I actively and actually ENJOY about summer, I will make a list here as a starting point:
- Ice water never tastes so good as when your entire body is disintegrating in the heat.
- Dinners out on the patio with friends and family after the sun is behind the house, making a nice big shadow.
- The abundance of flowers everywhere.
- The summer produce. I’m waiting anxiously for my first summer tomato. I wait many months for this pleasure.
- Summer provides excuses for me to: not do anything, not do much, stay in a supine position, decline to socialize, get better acquainted with the inside of my house, flop onto the floor wherever I go with heat exhaustion.
- Preserving food. I love preserving food!
- Picking food at farms to preserve.
- The vastly amusing fashion show that is thrown by all the town’s people all summer long in the form of tank tops that accentuate triple boob action, ultra short shorts designed to show off both maximum amounts of plummer’s butt as well as butt cheeks, the teeny tiny skirts that show way way too much underwear, the ever popular wife beaters in all levels of cleanliness, the crazy shoes and sort-of shoes worn by ladies and gents alike. Oh the local summer fashion is delicious!
- The smell of barbecuing all over the land. It’s the summer version of fireplace woodsmoke which I also love.
- Riding my scooter through air heavy with the scent of ripe blackberries.
That’s it. I’m tapped.
The honest truth is- I don’t actually truly hate summer and if I want winter haters to try and see the positive about the cold season beyond Christmas, I have to work harder at seeing the positive about the warm weather even though it brings me such discomfort. I have to be willing to appreciate what I can in a difficult season for me because so many of my friends are so happy right now and maybe, just maybe, if I try to celebrate that WITH them, they’ll be more inclined to admit to good things about winter and celebrate it with me.
I completely believe the passing out and heat headaches. I am also thusly afflicted. I am not overly fond of high (read above 78 degree )temperatures either. I do like the sun… as long as it isn’t hot or hitting me directly on the head.
The weather I hate the most ( and my body agrees with me) is damp. Hot and damp or cold and damp suck equally in my opinion. I”d rather have warm and dry or super cold and dry. Rain is okay as long as it doesn’t hang around too long permeating my bones.
Oh dear, you’d go into a decline in our climate!!! Very damp except during July and August. We get humid warmth and humid cold. I am so fascinated by what different conditions we all thrive under. I don’t mind a dry climate when it’s cold but hot and dry makes my nose bleed and dries out my skin. I’m a rainforest type creature- thriving on the damp. I admit that humidity and heat is not happy- but that’s only because I dislike the heat!
How’s the weather where you are? Are you having some good bicycling weather or is it already too hot for comfortable riding?
So if you come visit me someday you much come in September because it is usually easing up heat wise but the rains (usually) haven’t settled in yet. Septembers are really nice here.
I’m not thriving here either. haha!
If the weather isn’t agreeable, I get up before the heat and ride then. Usually, it isn’t agreeable. This morning was perfectly agreeable, but when I went out to get my bike it started to rain. Blug.
It would be great to visit sometime. I have a friend that lives in Corvallis. Two birds, so to speak. Of course, we never go anywhere and we’re not fliers. Hmmm…
Fall is my favorite time of year. It’s usually dry, warmish days and cool nights. Ah, me.
Yes Angelina,
It’s sweating time again; and two things that bother me most about living here in the God forsaken Hole-y-land is: living in a tough neighborhood (Mid-East), and our atrocious summers.
Our summer begins in early June and winds down after September, with a grueling 30-35 degrees celsious and 70-80% huimidity. There’s no air circulation and we find ourselves suspended in a perpetual hothouse of pollution for the entire interim. I’ve dubbed it the season of death and cockroaches, since the sun kills everything, and brings on, not only the insect itself, but the cockroach in people as well. During the Passover meal I’m already sweating, knowing perfectly well that the 10 plagues weren’t about Egypt at all, but about what’s rapidly approaching our very own shores: the black flies, the roaches, the frogs, the locusts, rivers of blood (car accidents)–you name it! One summer we even had a plague of mice (35 in all), that scurried down my leg when I put on my drawers. But worse of all, in the wake of these wee mousies come the deadly VIPERS! Yes, I can unequivocally state that I hate the summer; and unlike your 10 redeeming elements, I came up with only one: For those of you into the salubrious benefits of the SAUNA, spend your summers in Tel-Aviv, and receive 24/7, a 4 month sauna completely free of charge!
As to publishing your book: About 20 yrs ago there was a dearth of publishable material, so I wrote a book focused on the 60’s; but before finding an agent, I lent it out to 3 American friends for proofreading. The irst one (an X hippie from Arizona) read it and promptly dropped dead (the salacious parts were to steamy, I wondered); the second one, a rich and influential client from New Jersey, completely disappeared from my life (the communal bit, perhaps?); the 3rd one told me it was a bunch of crap, and how could I expect to get published when I wasn’t even famous–which led me to consider stalking the Queen Mother for publicity. The only positive response was from Robert Altman (famed 60’s photographer) who wrote: “Great stuff…thank you for sharing! Brings it all back.” This encouraged me to do some rewrites–now, for that mysterious AGENT since the Queen Mother’s already gone!
Stay healthy and high, Love/Adam
PS: Publishers are in it for the money, and to get published would certainly be encouraging; but the main thing is that you have an ongoing passion in life (“God bless the child that’s got it’s own”). Your blog is great! But what about a gig for some celebrated newspaper or magazine, as a stepping stone to notoriety? You certainly have the talent, but you also need CHUTZPAH and a little luck too! One way or the other you get there!
I am not especially afraid of snakes but if I lived where vipers do I’d probably develop a much more pronounced fear of them. Mice I like in theory but never in one’s own house!! Yikes! We had a mini plague of them in our walls and have since caught most of them. We didn’t even visit you during the hottest season but I can say that the heat was stupifying. Except for up in the Golan heights. I feel very fortunate that I don’t have to live with the heat you do.
It’s pretty amazing to have had Robert Altman ready your book and liked it! But your experience goes to show that books are as highly subjective as all other art-forms. Everyone has a different opinion, the trick to get published is to find an agent that likes your work and can sell it. That can take a lot of queries and a lot of rejection. I’m prepared for both. I still haven’t heard back from the agent who I queried who asked for the full manuscript. I’m not very patient- so it’s hard to sit around not knowing whether she’ll like it or not. Although I will always write whether or not I get published, I want a career from it myself so I think you could say I’m in it for money too. But your point is well taken. As to magazines or newspapers, I have thought of that but it’s a really tough gig to get now that magazines and newspapers are tightening their belts all across the country- and folding completely. I want to be writing fiction so there’s less opportunity with those outlets anyway.