Summer Lovin'

It is not my intention to brag.  Bragging, after all, is an ugly habit that makes other people hate you.  Heck, even a booger-eating moron (who, by definition, has at least one ugly habit) gets more pity than a braggart.  So, how do I write about my love affair with summer without making people choke on their own vomit?

I guess I don't.   So, here we go.

First, a disclaimer.  I am an aficionado of all four seasons, which is one reason I don't live in Phoenix.  The fact that I've never been offered a job there is maybe another reason.  Oh, and then there's the fact that I don't play golf.  Anyway, I need four seasons, the way a flower needs the rain.  And I need them each and every year.

Ah, but this blog is about summer, that glorious, glaring season without edges or purpose.  And, while there are many years of my youth that I don't care to repeat--eighteen, to be exact--summer  truly is the season of my youth.  It is the season of Saturday swim meets, dipping my chlorinated finger into a box of jello between heats.  It is the season of bike rides and beers--two things that don't always go so well together, but they seem like a really good idea at the time.

Summer is when my fashion devil flexes its middle finger at the world, defiantly shouting "I don't CARE if I wore this t-shirt yesterday.  It STILL smells okay! And, besides, it just makes sense to sleep in tomorrow's outfit!"

For me, summer is the season that suspends time, not that I own a watch anyway.  In fact, as I type this, I have no idea what day of the week it is, more or less what a calendar might tell me.  Quite frankly, time doesn't really matter to me right now.  I'm more focused on Fritos.

Summer is both indulgent and forgiving, active and lazy.  It is too much and not quite enough.  Summer is a bookends season, better at the extremes than the in-betweens.  It is long bike rides and languorous Scrabble games, "Frasier" reruns and piles of books by the bed.  It is the best of both worlds--movement and stasis--and too much of everything.

Summer is the reason I can show up each August and pretend to be a professional again.  This ninety-day amateur hour keeps me happily employed the other three seasons of the year.  Ah, but enough about work.  This is a blog about play. 

 Lots and lots of play. . . .