My favorite summertime blues involve cerulean skies and azure water, lit by a feed-my-inner-lizard blazing sun that makes me think reminiscently of time spent in Greece. Hmm, when was the last time I made zucchini with skordalia or garides me feta? Anyway, I'm not really a believer in astrology, but no question I was born under a sun sign.
And then there are the other kind. Which include the sort of thing that at this moment has given me a deeper appreciation of Francis Scott Key's pain when trying to compose just a few words in some sort of reasonable order while dealing with a brain rattling bombardment of sound that would seem to indicate the sky is falling. Bombs bursting in air just doesn't begin to describe it...
When you live in a city with a college population on the order of 1/3 million, summertime is both a blessing and a cause for the blues. Blessing for the universal celebrate the summer reasons, but also because so many of that third of a million go away, leaving in their place a refreshing relative peace, despite an offsetting influx of tourists. The tourists tend to stay in tourist places and this is about the neighborhoods where people like me live. Less crowding on streets and subways and in the best places to indulge that inner lizard; fewer cell phone conversations insistently blared to all in the same area code, while smartphone music is more apt to be restricted to earbuds and headsets (and why is it that the people most eager to share their music instead always seem to be the ones with the worst taste); a chance to renew acquaintance with some old favorite bars and restaurants where the demographics have undergone a radical shift past the legal drinking age; and just a general feeling that most of those around you are adults and capable of acting like it. Obviously there are very nice, quiet college students around here too... at least I assume there are. But being quiet and considerate, they've never forced themselves on my attention, so I can't say for sure.
The blues come in because not all of that third of a million go away for the summer. The ones who stay seem to be determined to make up in one type of volume for their lack of the other sort. They've actually been relatively decent up until tonight, with just some of the normal schoolyear level of party noise. But on top of cranking up the volume tonight, one of the joys of summer is windows wide open, circulating lots of fresh air (actually, after growing up in a 200 year old house without insulation, I tend to be uncomfortable indoors if I don't feel some sort of a draft year round). That means it's no longer just a matter of the buzz of vibrating walls and ceilings and windows over the pounding music they more or less muffle. Nope, it's as if that muscle car whose mega-speakers' wall of sound literally rocked you as it passed had decided to take up permanent residence in your passenger seat.
Creating even more summertime blues in the little blue cloud over my head created by my response to it all as I try to focus enough to finish this. How did Francis Scott Key manage under all those bombs bursting in air?
