A Controversial Take on the Concept of "Summer"

Enough already. Simmer down.

Jack Crosbie

Every year, in spring, the world is born anew. When you live in a place like New York, which very famously has what we refer to as “actual seasons,” you feel these changes deeply. The first warm day after winter is a near-religious experience, and as the thunderstorms of early summer clear and the sun beats down, there is a palpable change in the city. Everything comes alive. The dirtbikes roar through the streets. The block parties pop off. The parks fill up with hot people in minimal clothing. Summer in the city is gorgeous, wonderful, joyous. And god, I hate it so much.

Climate change, urban sprawl—there are a few causes. It is too damn hot. New York is quickly becoming a subtropical biome, which means that it is wet and sticky all of the time, like Florida. But unlike Florida, where the weather is admittedly even more uncomfortable, here in New York we put bags of trash on the street and travel around by going into a series of leaky tubes that tend to break down or flood all of the time. The thing is, all of that is bearable. It’s not so bad. It’s the big city. I love it here. The issue is all of this goes on for too long.

Because of the aforementioned issues, those “real seasons” that New York gets are all starting to sort of blur together. It’s been a somewhat mild summer here, anecdotally speaking. We had some cool weather just last week. It was lovely. But the issue is that the hot weather now starts in very early May sometimes and does not end until like, October. It is the middle of August. I am at my wits end. I ran out of deodorant the other day and I keep passing CVSs and forgetting to go in and buy more, so I am using this strange travel size bottle of spray-on antiperspirant that my wife got for me on vacation at one point, which I don’t really like and smells like cheap laundry detergent. Not unpleasant or anything, just a bit much to be smelling every time you lift your arms.

The typical rebuttal is that winter in New York lasts too long. It gets very dark and depressing in the city sometimes. I hear that complaint, I really do, and were I writing this blog in late January while staring down the barrel of a frigid February when I wasn’t really happy with my main winter coat that year, I might be complaining about winter, too. But today, in my heart, I yearn for the cold.

I enjoy aspects of summer, to be clear. Do not take this as a personal slight. My wife, who is from Florida, will wait until the sun has reached an angle that beams directly onto our front porch and then go and sit out there for hours like a 5’3” lizard in a bucket hat. I will look down upon her from our front window sometimes and think what the hell, man. I have not one but two extremely fair-skinned friends who are absolute freaks for the beach, just like, going all of the time. I have so many friends who love this time of year. Sometimes I smile and nod. Sometimes I deliver some version of this rant, which, if I have not gotten the point across yet, can basically be summed up as “it is too hot for too long.” I love the outdoors. I love that summer is softball season and potentially “go on a small boat” season. I do NOT love that it is “outside is fine!” season at restaurants. Outside is not fine. What is this, a picnic? I do not go to a restaurant to sit outside. I go to sit inside, in a climate controlled environment, so that I can eat a tasty meal in comfort, preferably in a chair that is not one of those horrible metal folding ones with like slats instead of a seat that restaurants inexplicably buy and then place in gravel “backyards” even though they must know that the thin sharp legs will sink into the gravel at uneven heights, making you feel slightly off kilter the entire time. If I must sweat while I eat, let it be from the spicy food, and not the fact that your outdoor area must be covered to stop diners from getting soaked by the summer thunderstorms which inadvertently means that you are sitting in, essentially, a greenhouse. I can see the moss growing on top of your industrial plastic roofing thing that you put up in 2020 and haven’t renovated since. Please give me a table inside.

Now, I would not want to give anyone the impression that I am simply of a weak constitution. I can handle the heat. I handle the heat better than most people, I would wager. I have traveled to very hot places and faced all sorts of trials and tribulations. These predicaments and so many more, I have overcome. The heat cannot break me, it will not. However, I do not wish to encounter it here, in the place I call home. Or at least, not for very long. If our world still operated on a meteorologically-civilized framework, where each season lasted precisely three months, that would be fine. If, even better, the intermediary seasons—spring and fall—extended to cover more of the year, like a solid eight months of it, instead of what feels like approximately 10 days of transition between “very cold” and “very hot,” and vice versa, I would be quite happy. But they do not. We have ruined this planet for the easily-aggrieved lovers of temperate climates and major urban areas.

Often, it is around this point in the rant that one of my friends, perhaps visiting from the west coast, will say “but what about L.A.?” What about it, idiot? You want me to drive a car, something I can do very well but prefer not to? You want me to say “hey let’s meet up for drinks” to a friend and then we both spend 45 minutes in traffic in order to get two beers at an admittedly excellent Mexican restaurant and then go home? Please. We have to be realistic. If I am making an argument for why the universe should be specifically tailored to me, I do not want to hear dissenting opinions that involve the words “actually Silver Lake is very walkable!” I know that it is. It is lovely there. The weather is great. And yet one of the last times I was there I got one parking ticket, which means that the city is dead to me and I can never go back.

Instead, you will find me here. In the heat. Making up excuses to not go to the beach. Refusing to wear socks because the thought of putting them on in these conditions seems laborious, but then regretting it when my sneakers are both too roomy and slightly damp inside. With any luck, there are maybe only six weeks of this left. By October we will be safe, except for those random days when it rockets back up to 80 again, a final indignity to those who have mistakenly picked that day to wear their new chore coat to a meeting in the city. That will be me. I will soldier on. Clad in denim. Defiant in the face of Big Summer, secure in my convictions, waiting for the right time to break out a small slightly rolled beanie. We will get there. I have to believe. This cannot last forever.