July 31st

In regards to July, it happened.

I did work. I did skate. I did swim. I did spend the night sleeping under a dome of stars. Well, inside a tent, under the stars. But that night we took off the rainfly because of the heat, you could peer straight out into the black above.

I wasn't very sad very often, and I didn't think too seriously about too much.

Mainly, I tried to water my garden enough and apply enough sunscreen.

My (Short) Life As A Skate Coach

As mentioned elsewhere, I helped coach a session of Commonwealth skate camp. This was the week after the 4th of July, AKA last week, AKA the "hot week." I was on the fence about doing it. I'm no skate coach—never claimed to be! But this was special, an all-girls camp week, and those little ladies needed me.

Young girls are mysterious. Fun and funny. Their theories on the world, what they deem to be cool, and the strange hierarchies they develop within hours of meeting each other. I hope I hyped some of them up. Made some sort of impact—even if miniscule. Probs not, but one can hope.

Anyway, I was ruggedly sore and tired by the end of the week—leathered, if you will. But it felt great to come home dead tired at the end of the night, to have been out sweating and doing in the deepness of summer, rather than peering into my computer in the midst of air conditioning.

Plus, it made me fall in love with skating all-damn day again, a love affair that can get you into trouble when you're a freelancer with a procrastination streak but one that nevertheless shouldn't be neglected.

Water Management

Like little leaves atop the current, we floated down the river on Saturday. It took the entire afternoon. It was hot as eff. Sunscreen was applied liberally but in general was not enough. Many of us turned a peculiar lobster red.

I forged the river face down on an inflatable inner tube, flipping from time to time in the interest of sun-burn management. For the most part, things were peaceful and the water was glassy smooth. Once or twice, though, our floating friend barge encountered "rapids," which, although they were class like minus 2 or whatever, still wrought pandemonium. There was no point in fighting it. When you're on the water with nothing but your two hands for oars—well, then you go where the river takes you. In such situations, you do what you can to keep your head above water and your sun spectacles in check, and in the end, you forgive your beer for being, now, part river water. It's all okay. It's summer!

I don't have the energy to float the river all the time—the giant float is more of a once-in-a-summer deal for me. It involves shuttling cars and and inflatable-orientated air pumps and dry bags for your keys and the like. But that one time I do motivate, it's always worth it—a deeply lazy, deeply summer moment that I immediately stick in my cap of fine, pure moments from the year.

Sorry About Your Beer

Oh hi. I've been busy this week coaching Commonwealth Summer Skate Camp, breaking in my bottle of sunscreen, sweating my way through my ankle sock collection, and wearing myself out so well that I'm asleep almost before the light falls.

Now, it's deep summer, as you know, and I thought I'd tell you that I've had a kind of epiphany about beer recently after reading this article about insidious ingredients in stuff like Coors Light and Pabst. We're talking high-fructose corn syrup and genetically modified corn and—get this—fish bladder. Among other things. In the cold beer. That's in my fridge. Right now. Waiting for me. On this hot evening. After I've sweated all day........

I'm scandalized! I think we've all been pretending beer is something it isn't—something pristine and genuine and crisp; something full of good taste and good will. But I don't think we'd love it as deeply if we thought much about what goes into it (at least these big-name brands). We may realize that the aforementioned beers are just okay, maybe even worse than okay (fucking gross, even!) and that in fact we don't need them at all on a hot evening like this one. Just a thought. I dunno. Happy summer!

Coors/Molson statement on GMOs: "Our suppliers cannot guarantee that the corn (maize) products that we also use in brewing are GMO free. A wide variety of foods and beverages in North America contain these same corn (maize) ingredients."

The Huffington Post description of the fish bladder called isinglass that Guinness uses as a clarifying agent: "A form of collagen culled from a dried swim bladder, an internal fish organ that helps regulate buoyancy in water."

Nice!

Stuff To Do When It's 98

Go to the fruit stand on Hawthorne, where everyone will be in a panic trying to "save the raspberries." The heat will billow in shimmering waves over the tender fruits of summer, causing them melt into piles of mush right before your eyes. The guy behind the counter will force two cantaloupes for the price of one upon you and several extra peaches, screaming, "Take them before they rot!"

Wait as long as you can—say, 3:30 or 4 (remember how the hottest arm-pit of day is always like 5 in the afternoon?), and then go to the Sandy River with intentions to swim. Swim.

Eat potato chips.

More swim.

Walk back to your car in the cool shade of trees, where the air is damp and smells like sap, and the forest feels very much like a jungle.

Take Stolichnaya out of the freezer, and make the cold cocktail described here with intentions to drink it. Drink it.