Here's to summer

A Toast (quick go grab a beer):

“Here’s to summer. To barbecues and all that sauce underneath my fingernails. To booty shorts and bikinis and the traffic mishaps I cause when I go out for a stroll in my neighborhood. To the garden I never weed because it is too hot or too rainy or because I am too hungover. Here’s to boys that are 5 years younger, or 10 years older, and to girls who are always “just right”...

"To all the zine festivals happening around the world and to all the friends I now have because I make zines too. To my new nipple piercings and my sudden surge of popularity because of them. To graduations and new beginnings and closure and the end of the “era” and the start of summer school and biostats, internships and work work work. Here’s to birth control pills and free condoms and festivals everywhere and the people who sit at those tables all day telling you about their free clinics because they care about your reproductive health just as much as you do...

"Here’s to drag queens and kings, strippers, my pole dancing teacher, and PRIDE. To new music by all my favorite people, summer tours, the afropunk festival, free shows, and all that damn mud, and oh yeah the pit, especially the women who get right in the middle and are not afraid. To Sasha and Malia Obama, and all the other little black girl princesses. To summer reading clubs at the library and to books, so many beautiful books, and the opportunity to read them all for free. To riot grrrl, womanism, feminists, voodoo priestesses, witches, bitches, and snitches...

"To watermelon and the people who eat it and love it, and don't make racist jokes about my love for it...

"To the nurses who went on strike in Minnesota, to the activists, to the freedom fighters, to the organizers, all of whom are not on vacation, and are still out there putting their life and livelihood on the line, for me, my kid, our future, and the EARTH. To besties and sleepovers and camping and swimming in the lake. To all the black grrrls who don’t know how to swim because cute hair and maintenance is still an issue for us at school, at work, and everywhere we are and that trumps leisure, recreation, and everything else...

"To dancehall music and my attempts to be the queen. To Marcus coming home from Afghanistan in less than 40 days and finally being allowed to leave the Army for good and all the tacos we’re gonna eat on base. To little kids running through sprinklers in the grass, the discovery of caterpillars, baby ducks, and the yumminess of dirt. To pregnant women in bikini tops, to henna tattoos on their bellies, and good safe empowering births...

"To all of summer, to everyone, and to me, who will be a year older and ten times smarter and a million times sexier (hell yeah). CHEERS!!”

Hold up your foamy glass of beer or your margarita class or your bottle of wine (do you drink it straight outta the bottle too?) and toast with me. If you don’t drink alcohol, hold up something equally delicious, like water with cucumber and ginger in it. That is so fuckin delicious by the way, you should seriously try that shit. Feel free to post comments about all the things you love about summer. I can't possibly name them all.