i bullied myself into liking summer

alternatively: doom-prepping for august

Whenever I meet new people and they ask what I do for a living, I usually cringe inwardly for 2.5 seconds before waving my hand somewhat dismissively and say I run a culture newsletter, that I write about literature, film, sports, current events … and then, almost as an afterthought, almost under my breath, I add: the occasional personal essay, too.

There used to be more personal essays on Hmm, I think. For obvious reasons, it feels more vulnerable and insane to publish them now than when the newsletter went out to a couple thousand inboxes. Now it’s akin to screaming into a megaphone. Don’t love that. But here we are. This is what happens when I don’t have a World Cup or a Widow’s Bay or a Weird Wedding to write about. I have to write about myself. Jesus.

Unrelated to literally anything, I just haven’t developed new photos in a while.

This week finds me in the pre-trenches: preparing to survive my well-documented least favorite month, August. Strengthening my mental and emotional reserves, if you will, which has not been easy, what with the absolute fuckery of the last couple weeks. I normally hehe-haha at the Mercury retrograde of it all, especially as it seems to happen multiple times a year and well I can’t be regularly blaming the stars for my troubles like some sort of Homeric¹ side plot, but this time … this time … I am nodding in fervent agreement with every single esoteric astrology page my algorithm brings forth, I am emphasizing every text making even the barest reference to the Planets That Be, and whenever the light pollution clears up enough for me to catch a glimpse of a star, I am frowning and shaking my head at it so that it knows I’m mad.

things are happening in august

we need to talk about august

what if outrage were a finite resource?

But anyway, we’re August-prepping.

Summer has always felt like a prelude to autumn. A period to grit my teeth and Get Through™ to reach crisp October mornings and cozy sweaters and the feeling of not being drenched in sweat the second I dip a toe outside my apartment.

Yes, like most girls who at some point in their lives had an Audrey Hepburn poster hanging in their dorm room, I do favor autumn. Sue me. It’s a classic for a reason. But in the last few years, I’ve come to resent having a favorite season. It means when it inevitably ends, I’ll feel maudlin, the way you do as a child when January hits and you have to wait a whole year for the holidays to start again.

Impossible to capture this and wish for November, I fear.

(Forgive me, for I’m about to come frighteningly close to self-improvement language. But do not worry. The below approaches Kant more than it does Robbins.)

What I’m trying to tell you is that for some time now, I’ve been training myself to enjoy the summer. I used to hate it. So much. Probably by virtue of growing up in Miami, a place where summer abounds to the exclusion of any other season. Apparently I require a sense of scarcity to find pleasure in something. We will not be digging any deeper into that.

I’ve been really into shallots recently. I caramelize them along with onions and add them to my pasta. Unrelated to summer.

It’s taken me a few years and a good amount of insufferable introspection, but I did eventually figure that I’d rather find a way to like something than continue abhorring it just to stick to precedent. Better to conserve my ire for more deserving subjects: multiple heads of state, J. K. Rowling, men in salmon-colored shorts, groups of friends on crowded sidewalks who insist on doing the Sex and the City walk instead of simply separating and walking in twos. What happened to sharing the road?

Slowly, then, upon realizing this was a bit of a beat ‘em/join ‘em situation, I bullied myself into not just surviving, but looking forward to summer.