atlantic city « With Care

It seems like just yesterday I was complaining about the cold and now, suddenly, I am complaining about the heat.

My friends from hotter climes tell me that a key to living with elevated temperatures is to start “moving slllllllllllllow”. But that is part of my problem. I am of a greatly impatient nature and I can’t abide the way that summer heat distorts my perception of time. I wish I could tell you about my busy past week but, in retrospect, nothing really time consuming happened. I worked. I worked out. I ate some frozen yogurt. I talked about eating some frozen yogurt. I made over $1000 of “sweetheart earrings” in one day. One of my oldest and best friends ushered his first child into the world. I went to Western Massachusetts only to find myself sick and puking- a thing that kind of heightened the surrealism of waking up in an age-old farmhouse surrounded by a whole lot of rural nothing and plenty of scenic views (as well as a 1700s grave yard, complete with headstones that just have a finger pointing upwards). Could a visit to the Chesterfield Gorge have been any more magical- there were tons of yellow butterflies flopping lazily over the riverbed that, swear to goodness, shone gold from tiny flecks of metal in its sand- if I didn’t spend most of it feeling like I was about to turn my insides into outsides at any moment?

So, maybe it isn’t the summer to blame, but my reaction to it. There are things I love that are summer specific, like swimming in natural bodies of water, growing a big old garden, and hanging around the boardwalk with an orange and vanilla ice cream cone in each hand. What New England has in natural beauty, it lacks in trashy, greasy, airbrushed-t-shirt-stand fun. But thanks to the internet, I can watch the latest season of “MTV’s Jersey Shore” and wax faux-nostalgic about summer shore fun of bygone eras. Like diving horses at the Atlantic City Steel Pier.