Summer

I've never really gotten much enjoyment from Summer. I feel like it should be the season that one should have the best memories of, but I just don't.

I mean we never really took family vacations and the few we took kind of sucked. When I was very young we used to go to either Cedar Point or King's Island almost every year, but that stopped before I was old enough to really remember it. Then the summer between 8th and 9th grade, we took two vacations and they both sucked. We went to Myrtle Beach. Trips to the beach aren't really my idea of a great vacation anyway, but it was basically my Mom and I being stranded with my Father.

That summer we also went to visit my Sister in Connecticut. This trip was almost doomed to suck, due to its brevity, but got worse. It was the first time and only time I've ridden on a plane. We took a ridiculously early flight out of Columbus with a layover in Chicago. This was the height of the first real intolerably manic period of my Father. The worst bit was that he was obsessed with taking pictures and was a total asshole about. It was just a miserable time and then we flew back on another ridiculously early flight with a lay-over in Chicago.

Summer also meant being largely alone. I mean where we used to live could be, metaphorically, called "the other side of the tracks" relative to the School District we lived, so I wouldn't get many visitors (not that I was all that popular anyways.) By the time I was in High School pretty much all the kids that I was friends with in the neighborhood had moved away and I didn't get my license until after High School, so I basically spent summer alone in my room (at least until my friend Nick got his license.)

I'm ending the downer section now. Sorry.

This summer, however, has been fantastic. I've been to several concerts and done awesome things with my friends and on my own. I know I've bitched a lot about how bad things are at home, but really I'm doing well. It sucks here, but this summer I've gotten away to do lots of fun things.

Thanks for reading

-Michael