How to Commemorate the End of Summer

1. Give yourself a trick ass manicure, despite your mom's assertions that "you could be doing something more productive with your time."

2. Gingerly grab your laptop. In fact, gingerly do everything for the next 3 hours while the thick layers of paint necessary to complete a "trick ass" manicure dry.

3. Scroll down to the "D's" in your iTunes, until you arrive at Dar Williams.

4. With a very deep and purposeful breath, double click on the song you save for every year at this time. (The time of year when the breeze blowing the curtains around the open window has that smell and chill to it, but the crickets are still a constant refrain coming in from the front yard.)***

5. So yeah, double click on "End of Summer," remembering last week when Andrew told you he was playing it for the first time and how you almost went to, too, but then chickened out because you didn't want to give into it, but your parents closed the pool and you saw your new, 14 year-old neighbor walking home sullenly from the bus stop today.

6. Close your eyes and let the imagery of the song work its magic. Ponder the lyrics:

The summer ends and we wonder where we are

And there you go, my friends, with your boxes in your car
And you both look so young
And last night was hard, you said
You packed up every room
And then you cried and went to bed
But today you closed the door and said
"We have to get a move on.
It's just that time of year when we push ourselves ahead,
We push ourselves ahead.

7. So poignant!

8. Get to the last verse, your favorite:

And the colors are much brighter now
It's like they really want to tell the truth
We give our testimony to the end of the summer
It's the end of the summer,
You can spin the light to gold.

8. Marvel at how dead-on it is, how nostalgic, how beautif---

9. Get punched in the gut by the opening whistle-y laser sounds in the beginning of David Guetta's "Sexy Bitch," which also happens to be one of those songs on your computer that plays ten times louder than any other.

10. Repeat steps 5-10 exactly as before, because you forgot AGAIN that "Sexy Bitch" comes on right after.

For the same effect, just play these two youtube videos right after one another.

*** Really serious and mournful sentences trapped between parenthesis in an otherwise satirical how-to list are okay when it's about as something so important as summer ending.