It’s the middle of June as I write this sentence. It’ll probably be the end of June when the words show up on my best-selling blog. And by best-selling, I mean worst-selling. In last week’s edition of this best-selling blog, I wrote an ode to lazy summers. Endless months of May. And now, before I’ve had a moment to blink, the summer is racing by.
“Stop!” I shout out my window like a crazy person.
The squirrel that torments Meowalicious looks back at me as though I’m taking to them.
“Not you, squirrel,” I howl with all the madness I can summon, “I’m talking to the month of June. To summer break. To my time away from work!”
The squirrel shrugs. Then it sees Meowalicious over my shoulder. Starts to dance. Strats to tease. Antonio Brown doing a touchdown celebration.
You think I’m crazy? You should see Meowalicious when the squirrel taunts her. That poor cat is sent into a fury. She unleashes her claws and leaps at the window. Attaches herself to the screen.
In the one year since Meowalicious moved into my house, she has shredded damn near every screen in the house. And don’t get me started on the claw marks on our window ledges. It’s like the Blair Witch house around here.
“Stop!” I yell at Meowalicious and the passing of time simultaneously.
They both ignore me.
***
I used the phrase “damn near” a few paragraphs ago. I imagine this is the kind of phrase an elderly farmer uses when talking to a stranger about their farming.
“Corn is damn near up to my ears,” or “That pig is damn near the size of a Chrysler.”
You can tell I’ve never farmed. Or been an elderly person. Still.
I like the idea of shouting at clouds as I contemplate drifting into the body of an elderly person.
“You damn kids keep it down,” or “It’s too damn bright in here” or “June is going by too damn fast.”
I don’t know. It seems like old men use the word “damn” more than any other demographic, though I’m sure that is a stereotype. And stereotypes tend to reveal the inner world of the person casting them. The subject of the dream is the dreamer and all that.
In my most cantankerous of moods, the word damn comes out. But only in my writing. It’s not part of my oral lexicon. Oral is a funny word. Poor Orel Hersheisher.
Cantankerous is another funny word. Another word an elderly farmer might use.
***
Look, if it seems like I don’t have anything to write about, it is because I don’t. There’s not much going on around here, other than my cantankerous feelings about the summer being damn near gone.
It’s actually a Saturday as I write this. Not that I’d have known that without checking. The time melts together as I brace for June to melt into July and then, God forbid, the summer to melt in the fall.
I’m afraid there is no stopping the passage of time. Rage against the dying of the light. Or make your peace with it. Whatever gets you through the day.
I guess writing a blog about the phrase “damn near” gets me through the day. And screaming out my window at squirrels. It could be worst. At least I don’t try to climb the screens like Meowalicious, even if I sometimes feel like climbing the walls.
And here I’ll admit I just looked up the lyrics to Climbing up the Walls by Radiohead. Beautiful, dark song. I have time to listen to it because, as I type this last sentence of this silly blog, it is still (thankfully) the middle of June.
Samuel Jaye Tanner 