1. What can be said about August? The garden is in the doldrums. It's hot and humid. There are mosquitoes everywhere. The birch tree is shedding. Television is a wasteland. It is -- as my friend Scott likes to say -- the apex of 'whateverness,' a state of existence in which the passage of time and our emotional investment in the same are marked primarily by ambivalence. Things are not necessarily horrible -- we can cope and we can sweep and we can watch old episodes of Terrace House -- but they're not filling us with pleasure and excitement, either. New York City's recent attempt to alleviate congestion by capping the number of licenses they issue to Uber et al is a good example. Any rational person understands that traffic will not be reduced without congestion pricing (and fixing the subway and creating a useable network of bike lanes and eliminating subsidized storage for private cars aka 'street parking'), so we see the preening politicians and think 'whatever.' It's not bad to limit Uber, but it's not good, either: whateverness.
2. The best place to be in August is the beach, but even if you can get there, you're probably filled with dread about the idea of everything you have to do in September. The inability to 'live in the moment' (via dread of the future) is another defining element of whateverness.
3. There are a few good things about August this year, however, and it is these things on which we must rely to pierce the veil of whateverness. For example: is it me, or have plums been exceptionally good this year? The world is literally on fire but plums are good. It's something to consider. Blueberries (the best fruit) are not quite so remarkable (relative to past years), but at least they're in season. Blueberries are such a small but perfect pleasure that there's no possibility of invoking a corresponding dread regarding the end of the blueberry experience. Even an average blueberry is better than 93 percent of all other fruit, which is something to be thankful for when we're slogging through time and space.
4. We can look forward to the midterm elections, when Democrats retake the House, the Senate, and every office at the local and state level, installing Donald Trump and his antiquated cohorts in the political equivalent of a tiny terrarium where they can scream but not be heard. (Daydreams can be an effective antidote to whateverness.)
5. We can look forward to the end of Twitter. (Prayers can be effective, too.)
6. And we can go to the parks. "Can you believe it's free?" is something I overheard someone telling a friend last week as I jogged past them on the path.
7. Well, I thought, that's not exactly true, but whatever gets you here.
