Yesterday, I sat outside with my laptop and worked. I was cocky and foolish and younger in my mind, heart, body, and soul. I ignored the impending humidex and the fact that my building had yet to turn off its heat. I sat amongst the thousands of gnats existing in small dark clouds around me, and pretended I was getting a cold — that it wasn’t allergies, and never was.
And then, in vain, I tried to sleep.
Summer came for us quick and now we all must suffer.
For the record, I hate summer much less than I did last year. This winter was cruel, terrible, and long, so long, eons long, longer than any movie you’ve been to and wished the whole time that it would end so you could finally be free. So to condemn summer in 2018 would be a disgrace; a slap in the face of anyone else who found themselves trapped in one location three weekends ago when the entire province was covered in ice. We have seen the real shit. And summer is our reward.
But now it’s too much, too soon, again. It is humid, there is no air movement, there is an abundance of gnats. Frankly, I didn’t know so many gnats existed in the world, let around my immediate person. Our spring has been devoured by gnats. Also, it is too hot and I am not prepared. So I will help prepare you. It is spring, we can do this. Here’s how not to lose your shit.
Remember: it is spring, and our world is an inferno that is going to get hotter
Enjoy! We are going to be so warm in two months, and it’s going to be terrible. You will, at all times, feel like you are wearing a large, wet, wool blanket and breathing will feel like trying to be comfortable in line at the DMV. You will pine for this, a day that is humid, but not totally bad. So for the love of all that is good, save your summer clothes for when you need them. They can’t help you now, they’ll become your enemies. You will be hot in pants today, but you will burn them tomorrow.
Remember: it is not summer, I can’t repeat this enough
The world is cruel in many ways, but at its cruellest, it jumps from freezing to hot to somehow-colder-than-freezing in a matter of hours, and the last of which will inevitably come for us all. Everything you see is a lie. It could still snow. It will probably snow. Right now, the sky looks like what typically happens before a massive weather event, and I’m not even sure if that means we’re talking hail or tornadoes or the sideways snow that morphs us all into that Jon Snow gif. Prepare for our dreams to die, for your patio furniture to accumulate snowflakes, and for your boots to become sentient and begin laughing in the closet. They know we’ve got miles to go.
Remember: to stay hydrated
I mean, I just like to remind everybody to do this. Stay hydrated! Drink plenty of water! You’ll feel better, like, in life! You will 100% have to pee all the time, but you’ll also have an excuse to get out of bad conversations, so win/win, you precious buttercup.
Remember: never, under any circumstances, wear cargo shorts
I don’t like to judge, but I judge the manufacturers of cargo shorts. They know what they’re doing, and yet they continue, targeting those just looking for a short pant that straddles fashion and function. Spoiler: no short pant exists. Buy a bag. Wear the bag. Embrace the bag. Unlike Joey in Friends, the world is absolutely ready for you and your bag. The only thing hiding in the pockets of cargo shorts are the broken dreams of the young who never thought they’d grow up to wear cargo pants.
Remember: do not use your ice cream cone as a drumstick when you are driving
Every spring-summer, it is up to me to remind all of you: Mitch Leery (aka Dawson’s Dad) died when he used his ice cream cone to drum along to a terrible song, and when the ice cream fell on the floor, he hit a truck and died because he bent over to pick it up. Don’t pick up your dropped ice cream. (What was he going to do? Eat it?) Don’t use your cone to drum along to a bad song. (I think it was “Drift Away.”) Don’t take your eyes off the road. Don’t be, in any way, like Mitch Leery..
See you at the beach. (JK, never.)
