so remember when you were younger and you'd start back at school in the fall and everyone would have all these stories of how amazing their summer was and all the things that they did and all you really had to say was that you watched a lot of tv and maybe went down to the community pool once or twice? or that your brother maybe put you into a garbage bag or locked you in the basement for a while? nothing exciting.
well, i think i finally was one of those people that had the amazing summer story. or maybe i just figured out a way to look at things in an "amazing summer" kinda way. either way, as it's now settling into the autumn season here in chicago, i figured it was finally time to sit down and share my little summer story.
unlike most students, I didn't have the summer off from classes. oh no, i had made the decision to spend the next two and a half solid years of my life in school. it was summer! time for the beach and drinking profuse amounts of alcohol. not time for books and tests. additionally, school was already becoming a pain in my ass. i was starting to wonder who the hell decides to go to art school when he's never had an art class in his life? i started to believe that people were just being nice when they told me i had a decent amount of skill. like when you ask people if they can tell you've put on fifteen pounds and they say, "of course not," even though it's written all over their faces. i wasn't feeling artistic at all.
the funny thing about this summer was that it never really felt like it started. chicago usually has three solid months of great weather. june, july and august. june kinda just appeared without any warning. there wasn't a time when the clouds opened up and let everyone know that it was summatime. it stayed pretty mild the whole thing through. i would've been fine with the mild weather had it also been sunny. but it wasn't really sunny that often either. but we kept on truckin'. making out barbeque plans and our holigay weekend plans. school didn't really put all that big a hinderance on things since i only had class three nights a week and it didn't seem like homework was that heavy. perhaps that added to me not really feeling all that much like a student. at the end of the quarter in july i had made plans to head south for my one week of vacation a year to spend it with the kentucky krush.
worst. plan. ever.
i have no idea who i went to see in kentucky, but he sure as hell wasn't the kentucky krush that was in chicago in january. i felt like an emotionally neglected wife from the moment i got there. perhaps i can be a bit needy sometimes. and these neediness is often accelerated when alcohol is added the the mix, but this was just a disaster. he was danny zuko and i was sandy, and this was definitely not summer lovin'. i can't say that i went to kentucky with any big expectations of what was going to happen, but i was hoping that he'd at least be excited to see me. and i'd like to say that it even exploded into something, but really i was the only one yelling and he just couldn't be bothered to even show anything at all. he couldn't even phone it in. on the day that i cut my planned eight-day trip short to four, i think he said a few sentences to me total and that was it. i haven't talked to him since.
i came back from kentucky and my friend picked me up at the train station and we ascended upon my apartment with two bottles of wine and sex and the city on the mind. the heartache reminded me of my early twenties so we indulged in the behavior of our early twenties. and i was glad that the kentucky krush was six and a half hours away. it made it a lot easier to get over it without having to worry that he could be lurking around any corner in the city. my friends were very supportive too. although even now it seems silly that i got so worked up over some kid that wasn't ever a huge part of my life anyway.
my birthday came and i spent the weekend ringing in twenty-nine by dancing it out like old times. there was a time when i could go out and dance from eleven to four in the morning on a saturday night. but in gay years, twenty nine is when doing things like that isn't really possible. or if it is, shouldn't be undertaken for fear of a straight-up shit show. and with everyone and their mother having a digital camera these days? it just gets scary.
the birthday weekend lead to meeting what i've fondly looked back upon as "the biggest mistake of the summer." and by fondly, i mean not fondly at all. if the kentucky krush debacle wasn't enough, i decided to pour some salt on the wounds and accept a date with a friend of friends. i ignored the fact that he was four years older than me and still had no aspirations beyond the bar manager job he had had for years. i ignored the fact that even all his friends told me it was a bad idea. and i ignored the fact that everything in my head was telling me no no no. but when had i ever listened to my head? and it was summer! i was dying for that summer fling.
and a fling it was. it didn't last more than a solid week and it, unsurprisingly, ended just as everyone had predicted it would. those butterflies in my stomach quickly took flight and left me with this feeling of contempt. i wasn't surprised. everything had always ended up like this. i also wasn't surprised that i left myself get sucked into the dramatics of it all. i was bound and determined to have that summer fling and if i wasn't going to get it, then i was for sure going to set fire to it. this little mishap partnered with the kentucky krush disaster still so fresh proved to be a little too much and so i drank. and drank. and drank some more.
all the love bumps and all the holigay weekends of pride and fourth of july and market days were turning me into a drunk. and what was worse, i had already realized it long before i figured out that it might be a problem. and i was a sloppy drunk at that. it's funny how a realization can hit you the minute you wake up in a bush.
a funny thing also happened during the last month or so of summer. i was starting to feel like an honest-to-god art student. i was getting the hang of the whole digital art thing and i was actually liking the whole process. and i finally knew that i was an artist when i got the whole can't breathe feeling when putting something up for a critique hoping that someone, anyone, would be able to tell that i had ripped out my heart and slapped it up there on the board for everyone to see.
it almost sounds like this summer sucked. it didn't. it was great, actually. i had a blast. i'm not always the best at relaying the stuff that didn't suck, but i'm working on that.
01 angels & airwaves - adventure
02 kid cudi f/ mgmt & ratatat - pursuit of happiness
03 little boots - new in town
04 kesha - tik tok
05 simian mobile disco f/ beth ditto - cruel intentions
06 la roux - bulletproof
07 yeah yeah yeahs - heads will roll
08 cobra starship - wet hot american summer
09 love grenades - genius of fun
10 gossip - heavy cross
11 ladyhawke - my delirium
12 dragonette - pick up the phone (richard x remix)
13 basement jaxx - raindrops
14 cute is what we aim for - time
15 stars of track and field - end of all time
16 quiet drive - into the ocean
17 switchfoot - mess of me
18 hayley williams - teenagers
19 brakesbrakesbrakes - oh! forever
20 the noisettes - never forget you
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