Six rules you should live by this summer

By Gina Barreca

Hartford Courant

It’s time to tell the truth: Summer isn’t for sissies, but we forget that every year. Here’s what you need to remember:

1OK, all right, so there is one group looking at middle-age women at the beach: other middle-age women, all of whom are nudging the poor soul sitting next to them and asking “Do I look like her? The one over there with the bad tan line? Do I look like her from the back?” As I’ve said before, we should stop doing that. It would make everybody’s life better.

111111Also, who was the genius deciding we all need to start lighting fires on hot summer nights? A guy with a lot of faux-copper basins to sell, maybe? I’m just asking. If he tells us to start burning old truck tires in our driveways as next year’s new summer tradition, can we exercise some critical thinking before we all say “What a terrific idea! ’’

111Gina Barreca is an English professor at the University of Connecticut who has written eight books and a columnist for the Hartford Courant. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.