Maybe I should change my name to "Simone"
It's only August, but I feel the slipping away of summer very keenly, perhaps because I'm British.
We are a people of a somewhat gloomier disposition, used to a somewhat... accelerated summer season. Lazy summer days are a dime a dozen in this new place, not snatched moments in the local park, half-naked and resolutely baking sun-deprived skin. I come from a land where summer is often one week in June, I have said to American friends more than once. They laugh, and because they are laughing, do not always see the mild panic in my eyes. I like this weather, but must it be this hot and smelly? my eyes are asking. Outside of the perpetual winter of the office air con, my skin feels like it could melt right off me. I have Leaned In to the sweatiness. It's a part of me now, as fundamental to my person as my small wrists, or my sparse eyebrows.
I co-compiled a playlist for the rest of summer. It's here. And you can listen to (almost all) the songs on Spotify, here.
I have cried a lot while watching the gymnastics at the Olympics.
I cried when Simone Biles completed her floor routine. I wept when Gabrielle Douglas came into view, hair pulled back, a deep and beautiful purple stain on her lips. I cried when the British sisters Elissa and Rebecca Downie killed it on the beam and the vault, and cried a little more when I saw their disappointed faces when they were done. I cried when Brazilian gymnast Rebeca Andrade stepped out and smiled at her home crowd and they cheered wildly back. But I haven't only cried when the brown girls have done their job beautifully: I cried when Alexandra Raisman held back tears after finishing her barnstorming floor routine and I cried when I saw the red-rimmed eyes of the Chinese and Russian gymnasts. There is something about women and girls crying that flips a switch in me. And I love gymnasts (like much of the culture, I am borderline obsessed with them). Also, PMS. But mostly when I cried it was the "often-tiny-and-always-terrifyingly-powerful-women-doing-fucking-amazing-feats" thing.
How are gymnasts even real. How, Sway?
I never cry at the swimming. Not even when black girls named Simone win. Swimmers might be awesome, but with their absurd bodies, they more often than not make me grimace gently, or laugh.
I would like to go on holiday again. Where do Americans go on short breaks? Tulum? Montreal? Cancun? Punta Cana? Tell me where I can go that will not completely kill my wallet. Cheers, mate.