Feeling gray? Like all you want to do is stay inside and never leave the comfort of your weighted blanket while you watch Simone Biles win medals and French pole-vaulters fail but also win? The good news is you’re not alone. Thousands of residents are experiencing the same symptoms, and the diagnosis is in: It’s Fogust, the best month of the year in San Francisco.
After several months of occasionally hanging out, I make my grand finale in August. And, news flash, it’s been like this for a long time. Like, tens of thousands of years. I used to chill with woolly mammoths, and now you post videos of me on TikTok and add Chappell Roan’s “Hot to Go!” but in an ironic way. What a journey it’s been.
That said, I do hear your complaints. You miss “warmth” and “wearing T-shirts” and “for the love of all things holy, can I just have one summer night where I eat outside and don’t need a puffer jacket.”
Instead of staying mad, how about we shift our perspective a little. Think of it this way: I protect you from four months of heat waves. I keep our electric grid working as it should. I make your wardrobe choices easy (sweaters, year-round). I keep the economy strong thanks to tourists buying those fleeces at Fisherman’s Wharf. And I improve every photo of the Golden Gate Bridge, making it look all mysterious.
There are so many pros to me being around, which is why I’m asking everyone to embrace the Gloom Loop. This is our thing, and we do this every summer. It’s what we’re known for across the world. You’ll soon have your sunny days for a Giants playoff run, Blue Angels rooftop parties and weird tan lines after Folsom Street Fair. But for now, enjoy the cool days, cooler nights and bundling up to go for a walk, then unbundling after the first hill when you start sweating, then tying your sweater around your neck because you’re kind of cold again.
I leave you with this quote from one of the final scenes of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”:
Clementine: This is it, Joel. It’s going to be gone soon. … What do we do?
Joel: Enjoy it.
Enjoy Fogust, and stay chill, my friends.
Karl the Fog is an anonymous force of nature who can be contacted on X, and found everywhere in SF, all summer long.