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I Just Love . . . Summer 2026

Behold her glory. I love her.

This has been a summer of peaks and valleys. Truly the most roller coaster of a summer that a summer could possibly be, if you ask me.

There have certainly been some highs! Mostly with Mike and I and our connection. And Waits is having a peak 16-year-old-summer. Serious “best life” shit. (I’m always happy when he is happy.)

But there have mostly been lows. Scary ones. Like, fearing for my safety kind of lows. Work has been a nightmare of institutional failure and unfortunately I can’t speak more about that. But suffice to say it’s been absolutely exhausting.

And so many of my friends have been in crisis. It’s been a summer of teary emergency phone calls and hours-long process walks. We take turns counseling and consoling each other and although that’s a low, I can’t help but feel like it’s also the highest of highs. Because 5 years ago I didn’t have a single friend in Ventura. I was so alone. And now I have the most wonderful cadre of weirdos to cry with and console and counsel. I’ve found the ones I want to grow old with, and there is no greater gift than that.

Here’s what it’s all looked like, this summer:

On the very first day of summer 2026, Mike turned FIFTY!

This queen also just had a birthday (6 years). She’s in her Golden Girl era and loves nothing more than sneaking into the house to pilfer my houseplants. She’s brave and beautiful and I think she’s the best.

We have become completely obsessed with Mahjong. We play weekly at our local gameroom.

I had an absolute blast taking these 3 to see live music this summer. From backyard mosh pits to gilded balconies at vintage theatres, this trio is always down. Teenagers are so fun!

A long weekend in Ohio, to meet up with Mike’s family (I finally got to see where he grew up!) for a wedding.

Beautiful, sunny-bright, love-where-you-live kinds of beach days. They’ll never get old.

I got to attend my first ever Prop 65 conference, in San Francisco! I flew up super early in the morning and flew back that evening. Zzzz that’s a long day (but fun!)

♥ This photograph is a spell. ♥

And now, a list of all the little things I’ve loved this season:

Midsummer rainstorms! A Southern California rarity, but we’ve had multiple this year. ⛤ Iced cold brew. Summer means giant vats of delicious iced cold brew every morning. ⛤ Annointing myself at night before bed, with the jasmine oil we got from the medina in Tunis. ⛤ SLOMW. ⛤ Rediscovering thrifting as a joyful hobby. ⛤ I think The Moon and Antarctica is pretty much a perfect album. ⛤ Our household going through 4-5 watermelons a week, every week, fuck yes. ⛤ The smell of Carissa hanging heavy in the air in courtyards all over campus. ⛤ Hearing my teenager puttering around the kitchen in the middle of the night. A teen's summer schedule is a truly glorious thing. ⛤ Unexpected houseguests. ⛤ I finally gained some traction on more than one work project this summer, and that's such a great feeling. ⛤ I was walking from my house to the Carnicería for fresh tortillas, and I passed a man strumming the guitar on his front porch. He wasn't bad but he also wasn't great, just somewhere in between, a dude in his learning process enjoying a Friday evening out on the stoop. And his music carried me down the block and I could smell cheap laundry detergent on the breeze, and the “Defensa del Pueblo” posters are stapled to every telephone pole and the passion fruits are falling off all the fences this time of year. And I really love my neighborhood. That's all. I just really love this place. ⛤

Alright, that about does it for Summer 2026. Beautiful to behold and frightening to live through, I must say I’m looking forward to Fall. My nervous system is slowly re-regulating just in time for the cooler, cozier days to come.

A beautiful equinox to all who celebrate. ♥

xoxo
~S

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