In the golden afternoon

And so another summer draws to a close. Long hot days, short stuffy nights, weekends at the pool, grilling, water balloon fights, public nudity; all those things have to end now, which is a shame, because there’s nothing like grilling naked, feeling the breeze blowing through your giblets.
The end of summer is always a drag, isn’t it? You have to cram everything you wanted to do into those last, few precious days. And it can’t be done! You end up too stressed, driving to the beach with all the other poor shlubs trying to get in that last good weather weekend. And sitting in traffic for longer than a Jerry Lewis telethon (which is in its 8 millionth year I believe. Way to go Jerry! So what are you doing with all that money? Even Chris Rock is skeptical of your progress!) is never a good way to spend your dwindling summer.
The part I hate? The shortening of the days. The great thing about summer is having the sun already in the sky by the time you get up. Makes you feel like a regular person, arising when one was intended to. There’s nothing worse than getting up to go to work in the fall or winter and it’s still dark out. It’s like the sun is saying “Screw you, let me get another hour of sleep.” Then you have to stumble around in the gloom, cursing the darkness and wondering where you went wrong with your life and why you aren’t passed out in a big pile of money from your last platinum album like you pictured yourself when you were a kid, (wow, what a long and rambling sentence.)
Fall is okay, I guess, (except for getting up at “oh dark thirty” as we say in the army) the leaves transform beautifully, the air becomes crisp and refreshing and it’s not so hot. But still, the ever approaching darkness. Twilight at 4:30? What nonsense is this? And this year they’re changing daylight savings time, aren’t they? Now, instead of it being at the end of October, (wait, is that when it’s usually done? I need a damn almanac!) it’s going to be at the end of November. Spring forward, fall back. Don’t know how I feel about that yet. And who makes these decisions? How freakin arbitrary is daylight savings time? Why have it at all these days? Wasn’t it invented for farmers back in the days when maize was this country’s number one crop?
I like the sun too much. I want daylight all the time. Other than the fact that I was in a war, I enjoyed being in Iraq. It was always bright and sunny, (except for during the rainy season, when it was gloomy and depressing). Sure it was 200 degrees in the shade, but I didn’t mind, sweating profusely is the lazy man’s work out routine.
I feel sorry for people in Alaska. For almost half the year it’s always daylight, which isn’t too shabby. But that means for the rest of the year it’s always dusk. And I can’t support that action. Of course, I could be entirely wrong here. My vast, almost encyclopedic knowledge of everything could be way off base as to the weather patterns in Alaska. Can I tell you my horrible secret? I can’t find the United States on a map. I thought I was alone out of U.S. Americans that way, but it seems that I’m not. My plan was to go to Iraq and South Africa and such, but I can’t find those places on a map either!
But I digress. Back to the summer. It’s not too late people. The summer is waning, but it’s not gone yet. There’s still time to enjoy and pretend. Unless you have to go back to school, in which case, you’re screwed. When I was younger, I always felt weird the first week or so back at school after the summer. I felt as if I was Huckleberry Finn, captured out in the wild and bundled off to get an education. There I’d be in class, the teacher talking to the students about learning fractions and shit and I’d be lost in my imagination, staring out the window, waiting for the day to end so I could take my shoes and socks off and go down to the creek to try and catch crayfish. But those days are gone. Never to return. Unless I develop some kind of super power that allows me to relieve my past, (wouldn’t that be great? Man, think of all the mistakes that could be corrected! I could tell Brittany to put on some panties for christsake, or tell Lindsay and Paris to take a cab instead of driving. The possibilities are endless!)
Ahh, summer. The lazy mornings, the golden afternoons, the itchy evenings. I guess it’s a good thing summer only comes around once a year; it makes it more appreciated that way. But I know I’m going to miss the hell out of it until next May rolls around. Oh, and people from California? Yeah, I know the weather is perfect over there all the time. But that’s tempered by the fact that California is full of Californians, which means there’s no way in hell I’m moving to that freaked out state! I’d only consider it if the Governator extended me an invitation. And even then, it’s iffy.