The boys of summer

It's been a few months so I figured I'd do something novel and actually use the blog I spent several months building and designing.

What has kept me away so long? The last time I was here I chimed in about my liberation from credit card debt. That development has been so wonderful. It hasn't solved all my problems, but it's made it a lot easier to plan for future expenses. In the past few months I've embraced frugality like I never have before. It's paid some wonderful dividends and had a few surprising consequences. More on that later, if I care to share.

But what I want to write about today is the summer we are watching drift away. I want to take a moment and celebrate this summer. What a great summer it was!

No one can deny that the weather this summer was amazing. Granted, we had a couple unbearable heat waves, but weighing that against everything else, on the whole it was very pleasant. August especially was probably the best summer month I've ever experienced in D.C.

There were a lot of things I did this summer but, perhaps surprising to my forward-looking self last spring, there was a lot of things I didn't do that I thought I would. I never got to go to the beach. That was a bummer, but I never could do it as cheap as I would have liked to and I made up for it with several trips to the public pool, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

There was Screen on the Green, of course. This year I had to skip two screenings, though. Sometimes life gets in the way of summer fun (just don't forget to check your car battery every six or seven years!) The nights I did make it down to the Mall were spectacular. The best night, by far, was the night they played Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. I've seen it before, but what an amazing film to rewatch. Marilyn Monroe is so at home on the silver screen.

One of my favorite summer traditions is watching True Blood every Sunday night. It's silly and, sure, the series is jumping a few sharks. But it's still a ridiculous vampire melodrama and it's fun to put your hair back and watch a blood orgy. I watched most of the episodes at my friend Katy's house, out in Virginia, and when I wasn't driving anyone with me, I was biking out from Columbia Heights. It took about a half hour, but it was so thrilling to take a long summer evening bike ride through D.C., across the river into Virginia. Spectacular!

And there was, of course, some fun summer nights. I fell in love with the 90s dance night that sprouts up around D.C. every month. I always considered myself a huge fan of 80s music, but there's something about 90s music that really ignites my energy on the dance floor. I mean, I lived through the decade, it's like the soundtrack of my adolescence. Also, the surprising thing about 90s night that I noticed last spring, it's super gay! You can't swing a cat in that cramped bar without hitting seven gay guys. And it's definitely fun to get out and meet people and have fun!

So that was my summer. Hopefully I can keep getting out this fall. I'm dreading the winter, but I'll have the warm memories of the summer to help me get through. And there's always next summer...it's closer than you think.