The Top 10 Problems of Summer

For teachers and college professors, summer lasts for about 3 1/2 months, begins when you turn in the final grades in May, and ends when you stand in front of that first class in August.

I hate it.  3 1/2 long, hot, boring, miserable months of nothing.

But I've survived it before.  Here are my solutions to the top 10 problems of summer.

1. There's nothing to do during the daytime.

I envy those people with office jobs that stay the same all year round, so they can keep their same structure and routine through the summer.  I have no appointments, no obligations, nothing to do, no one to see.

At least when I was a kid, there were summer enrichment classes, summer camps, Vacation Bible School, and the weekly visit of the bookmobile, but as an adult, it's sitting around the house for three months waiting for fall classes to begin.

Solution: Pursue a new hobby, like BDSM or hooking on Grinder.



2. There's nothing to do in the evening.

TV is all reruns, and the theater, opera, and ballet seasons are over.

Solution: Host a M4M party.  Advertise on Craigslist, and invite 20 gay and bi-curious guys over.  Nudity optional; prizes for the biggest and smallest endowments.











3. There is no nighttime.

The sun doesn't go down until 9:00 pm.  Then it's an eerie twilight until 10:00 pm.

It should be dark before dinner.  Eating dinner in broad daylight is just creepy. I especially hated it when I was a kid, and my parents sent me to bed while the sun was blazing.

Solution: spend 6 pm -10 pm in a bathhouse, where it's always dark.









4. You gain weight.

When classes are in session, you walk from your car to the parking lot, from your office to class, to the student union, to the library, to various committee meetings, plus pacing around while teaching, so you cover 5 or more miles a day easily on top of your daily run.  In the summer, your daily run is all the cardio you get, 3 miles.

But you're within arm's reach of snacks all day, so you take in more than 5 miles worth of calories.  Between May and August, you could gain 20 pounds.

Solution: Spend more time at the gym, particularly if it's a gay gym where you can do more than work out.









5. You're forced to "enjoy the outdoors."

Come on, "the outdoors" is what you go through to get places.  What is there to "enjoy" there?  It's like enjoying a train station, or standing in line for a movie.  

Yet your friends get upset when you "waste" a day indoors, and drag you off for swimming, boating, canoeing, or just wandering about.

Solution: when you are forced to "enjoy the outdoors," insist that everyone take their shirts off.  Concentrate on the muscles, and it will soon be over.

More after the break.












6. You're even forced to eat outside.

I challenge you to find anyone who actually enjoys eating on hard wooden benches, with the wind blowing napkins and paper plates around, and leaves and twigs and bugs falling all over the food.  We put our dining rooms inside the house for a reason.

Yet summertime is a mess of barbecues, picnics, festivals, and baseball games with food being chomped done on outside, and your friends even want to serve you dinner on the back yard patio.

Solution: Again, shirts off.



7. It's ungodly hot outside.

In the winter you can bundle up, but there's nothing you can do about getting drenched with sweat after walking half a block,

Solution: I had this problem all the time in Los Angeles and Florida.  Hot weather means clothes off, so there lots of opportunities for guy-watching.

8. It's ungodly cold inside.

After getting drenched with sweat, you walk into a building in a tank top and shorts, and face an Artic wind -- air conditioners are blasting away, and it's 60 degrees!

Solution: Carry a warm sweater with you, and every time you walk into a building, put it on and pretend that it's December.  This will help alleviate your summer depression, too.


9. There are no good holidays.

Fall has Halloween and Thanksgiving, winter has Christmas and Valentine's Day, spring has Easter and St. Patrick's Day.

What does summer have?  In the U.S., Independence Day, the 4th of July, a holiday of jingoistic patriotism, noisy fireworks, and eating outside.

Solution: there are Gay Pride Festivals in hundreds of cities, mostly in June, some in July and August.  Go to as many as you can.







10. There's no escape.

If you don't like cold winters, for some crazy reason, you can fly south to balmy Los Angeles, Fort Lauderdale, or Phoenix.

But there's no place in North America that's cold during the summertime -- even Fairbanks, Alaska can hit 80 degrees.  You'd have to summer in Australia.

Solution: Only 88 more days until fall.

See also: Playing Outside; 34 Reasons to Like Summer