Las Vegas Weekly

June 16, 2008 · 3:45 PM

Summer is not always a pretty picture

By Justice

Illustration: Justice

I stood on the balcony of my friend’s weekly apartment building near the airport on a breezy night last week. The view was of the pervy neighbor through his sheer drapes and the meth addicts scurrying about downstairs at the two story white brick buildings against the neon lights of the Strip. It occurred to me that I’m really impressed by this summer’s weather. I think it’s the mildest I’ve experienced in over eight years of living here. My father’s funeral was about this same time of year, earlier this decade and I remember it being so miserable not just because my dad’s carcass was displayed like a grade school diorama, but because of the heat, my God, the heat. The air was so hot, it felt like breathing was burning my lungs. I cried so much and my tears mixed with icky gushing sweat. My tears kept dripping out day and night like an irreparable leaky faucet. The heat and the dampness gave me something like diaper rash on my face. It didn’t help that I had reactive teenager skin that made me breakout under all the stress of parent death. Now I have a craving for pizza.

I hate the summer. I really do. I avoid the sun like the plague and it seems to be stalking me in the summer. I need to stock up on sleeping pills if I’m going to be serious about avoiding it. Oy vey, it gives me a headache. A girl at the club known as the Peppermint Elephant invited me to a pool party at Tao beach. She said we’d get hooked up. I am not a fan of these crowded pool events. I went to Rehab once and it’s not my thing at all. The water is eerily warm, the sun makes your skin leathery and if I wanted to be hit on by a bunch of douche bags, I would have gone to work.

School is in session again. Summer classes cram four months of school into one fast paced month. I’m in school all week, Monday through Friday and it’s a pain in the ass. Maybe when my reader implied in a comment that I wasn’t a real adult, she was right. I hate having a schedule and if that’s part of adulthood I’m in no rush to join that club. Maybe transitioning into a daily schedule is healthy though. Who knows?

It can be grueling but I actually like school. According to my illustration, when I’m reading in the grass, birds, butterflies and purple snakes assault me because I look like a chalk outline. How exciting. I also enjoy playing a game I like to call “Who’s the Stripper?” You look around the classroom and pick which girl is probably a stripper. I’m a sleeper. I’d never get picked, the way I dress and because I look like a chalk outline. There are so many plastic tits and skimpy outfits at UNLV, I’ll be safe for sure. Sometimes, it can be hard to tell. I ran into one girl who looked familiar when I was in the locker room at the strip club known as Cheeseburger Heaven. It took me a moment to realize it but I figured out that she was the conservatively dressed student in one of my classes. She didn’t recognize me at all until I told her. She said I looked totally different. Its funny how you can’t recognize people with out their clothes on.

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