Summer is here, and honestly, I couldn’t be more relieved to have an excuse.
I have always been a homebody. Given a free Saturday, I am not the person itching to be out in the middle of it all. I am the person on the couch or behind a computer, perfectly content, wondering why anyone would voluntarily stand in the sun when there is a perfectly good indoors available. But for most of the year, that preference comes with a certain amount of social guilt. You feel like you should be out there doing something.
Then summer arrives, and suddenly I’m not a homebody. I’m just being sensible.
The heat gives me everything I need to justify staying inside guilt-free. It’s too hot to do anything out there. The truck is a furnace. The sidewalk is actively hostile. Staying indoors isn’t a personality trait anymore; it’s a survival strategy, and I am thriving.
And since I’m already inside, already comfortable, already completely unbothered, I might as well read.
Right now I’m working through Operation Bounce House by Matt Dinniman, and it is exactly the kind of book that makes a hot afternoon disappear. Dinniman has this rare ability to mix humor and heart in a way that feels effortless, which anyone who has tried to actually do that knows is anything but. He’s a writer I genuinely admire, and this book is a reminder of why.
So yes, summer is here. And yes, I will be inside for most of it. Not because I’m antisocial. Not because I lack ambition.
It’s just really hot out there.