by Maggie Miller

Created on: August 27, 2009   Last Updated: August 29, 2009

The end of summer isn't the end of the world. One of the best things about summer is that it happens every year, and unless global warming steps in and steals it from us, we'll always have summer. It's a fabulous time of year that never seems to change. The air is warm and muggy and sleep-inducing at times, crickets patrol the grass in droves, junebugs fly blindly into screen doors, and summer flings spring up at the shore, in tattered backyard hammocks, under fireworks.

Unfortunately for me, I have a nasty habit of comparing each day of my life with the same day last year. I'll enter the summer thinking, "Who was I dating last summer?" or "What was I doing last summer?" This summer started off with me getting dumped and discovering that I didn't get my dream job. I really didn't have high expectations for it. After all, what fun is a summer spent alone?

But as it turned out, a plethora of exciting adventures stirred up my summer and kept me from bemoaning my longlost relationship of summers past.

FLING

To my surprise, I did end up having a summer fling that lasted the first half of the summer. The guy was a friend of mine who had recently become single (although his status is debateable). It started out with a warm kiss in someone's basement on a warm June night, and while I was initially resistant, I loosened up after I drove him home and got an even better goodnight kiss in front of his house at five in the morning. His texts grew more frequent and we spent more time together. He was fun, funny, incredibly attractive, sinful with his shirt off, and thoughtful. At first we kept our kisses a secret, but that lasted all of two weeks. He was around both times I dogsat and spent a few stormy, summer nights in bed with me after sipping sangria or hitting up the dollar menu at 2am. Things grew pretty complicated around mid-July, and by my birthday it was clear that he had lost interest. He's the first guy that I can look at and think, "He's totally missing out on me."

DOGSITTING

I scored an extra couple hundred by dogsitting/housesitting this summer. The first dog was a boxer named Mickey, and I thought he was a perfect little man. He'd never drag me down the street, his poop was easy to pick up, and he wasn't that demanding. As days went by, his desire to play became overwhelming. He'd pick up slobbery, half-devoured toys and shove them in my crotch. When I didn't want to play, he'd nose up my friends' crotches and lick their pants. He stopped listening when I

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