7 Hyper-Specific Ways to Embrace Summer Ennui

Lean into the slow burn of August.

Sylvia Plath photographed by Elizabeth Lameyer Gilmore in 1953.

Summer ennui is that listless, vaguely disappointed feeling that drifts in once the novelty of long days and warm nights wears off. In theory, this is peak joy season—sun, freedom, vacation—and we should feel this, but in practice, the schedule is unmoored, and the hype impossible to live up to.

Why fight it? Why pretend? Liberate yourself from the cult of productivity. Lean into the dog days. Saturate yourself in the slow boredom, because September will be here in less than a month and with it the stampede of back-to-it-ness. The trick isn’t to outrun it, but to sink into it—stretching out the hours, savoring the quiet boredom, and letting the last lazy days of the season wash over you. Here are seven very specific ways to do exactly that.

📽️ Watch Call Me By Your Name

There are plenty of films that bottle summer’s languor—The Virgin Suicides, Stand By Me, Do the Right Thing—but nothing matches the quiet ache of Elio biking home after Oliver leaves in Call Me By Your Name. The late-afternoon light, the emptiness of the road, the sense that the best part of summer has just slipped away.

🌞 Microdose the Sun

Dermatologists now recommend SPF 30 even on cloudy days—yet somehow, tanning is back. Air Mail writer Erin Flaherty suggests it’s “Gen Z trying to feel in control.” Personally, I find that a pretty wild claim—that 70 million people collectively decided the path to empowerment runs through a tan. Still, I have to admit, there’s something addictive about that warm sun on your skin when you know the days are getting shorter.

💿 Listen to Eagles Covers

First Aid Kit floating their way through summer.

This acute sub-genre is a soundtrack to long, hazy afternoons where time feels both infinite and impossible to pin down—like Take it to the Limit, but also, you know, Take it Easy.

Boys of Summer (Don Henley cover) by First Aid Kit

Take It to the Limit by Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings OR Etta James

Desperado by Johnny Cash

Take It Easy by Jackson Browne

Lyin’ Eyes by The Eagles*

*This is obviously not a cover but nobody covers this song well and I didn’t want to leave it off this very important list.

📖 Read A Separate Peace

A Separate Peace portrays summer as a fragile, in-between season—a liminal space that feels like a brief pause before life changes. It grasps the energy of late summer before school starts when you feel the faint ache of what’s to come.

🍅 🍓Eat Your Feelings in Red Produce

This July 2006 Gourmet Magazine angel hair pasta with tomatoes is my holy grail. Eat it outside with friends, then cold from the fridge, barefoot in the kitchen.

Harry’s Berries may be the most famous branded strawberries around—and fair enough, they’re excellent, but they are also selling out and hard to find right now. But don’t worry, most Gaviota strawberry varietals are just as good, so whether it’s Harry’s or Terry’s or Sherri’s, find some some dark-red strawberries and eat until your fingers are stained.

🕘 Hang Out Lazily with Your Neighbors

via 2012 NYT story: Savoring the Illicit Thrill of a Glass of Something, Outside

Don’t try hard, don’t drive far, just sit on a stoop and shoot the shit for hours.

🛋️ Fall Asleep with a Baseball Game On

Nothing is more hypnotic than the soft murmur of announcers describing a mid-season game that has zero consequences. Bonus points if there’s no AC and a fan whirring nearby.