It’s 4 a.m. last call, and my dress smells like dirt and sunscreen. Summer microwaved the city into a steamy dream of melting skylines, tanned legs and purple skies. I can feel a thin layer of moisture on my fingertips and I’m a self-proclaimed mad woman. The heat is getting to me like an itch, and I forget about the boring things like laundry, iron pills or the last time I painted my nails. Without a purse or obligation to time, I jaywalk through the city like a dog off-leash, running between dinners, birthday parties and bars with DJs nobody’s ever heard of. I don’t need therapy, it’s summer in Toronto and I want to party.

We drink cheap wine and smoke cigarettes like bad mothers in 1971

While summer shines its truest colours of blue, purple and green, there’s a level of unpredictability that comes with every bottle of cheap wine and pack of cigarettes I buy. I like that. Munching on leftover salt and vinegar chips in Alyssa’s backyard, the hours blend into a montage of acquaintances and empty wine glasses. There’s never a plan, like ever. The plan is a notion of gathering; an addy and time-frame that extends from 6:30(ish)-10:30(ish) where the night will press play. There aren’t any expectations, we don’t need any. The party will time travel. Tim is eating late brunch at The Lakeview. Kaitlin is in Little Italy for a birthday party that has a piñata. Adam is sunburned on Hemmingway’s patio while Ryan is three beers down at The Local, eating tacos with colleagues we’ve never met before. Nobody ever makes a decision on where we should go, but that’s okay, we don’t need to make any. Refilling our wine glasses with Palm Bay (why are we drinking Palm Bay?), the boys make a second trip to The Beer Store, and I smoke a Camel cigarettes, just because. And there’s a warm fuzzy feeling in my stomach as we sit around the table with mosquitos and dangling spiders, laughing about broken ACs, stolen bikes and Brodie’s nail polish that looks like glitter vomit.

We obsess over sunburns that will eventually turn into tans

Lounging, sleeping and napping, we smother ourselves in sunscreen and lather on aloe into the evening after dinner. In the candle-lit backyard, we laugh at each other’s sunburns. Later on, we smile in red lipstick at one another in the pitch black of Red Light. Exchanging hair compliments in the bathroom of Churchill. Re-applying makeup in the doozy last call at Wrong Bar. As the night winds on, we obsessively re-examine our sunburns and touch the peeling skin in the gold lamplight of the street. “Is it getting any better?” “See, I told you, it’s already turning into a tan.” Lights and cheap beer glaze the sting of our badly burned shoulders and noses. Drinking adds an extra thick level of heat to the burn, like an invisible jacket that hugs tightly.

We visit twenty different locations in the period of three hours, just because

Lineups blow out cigarette and blunt smoke in clusters of leather jackets and high heels. In groups of three and five, we stare at everyone passing by in a drunk stupor that feels like a heat stroke. Do I know that person? Of course. It’s Toronto; everyone knows everyone. There are still another two hours until last call, and that’s enough of a reason to keep going. So we do. And we find another place to go. In and out, we listen for Drake or Biggie Smalls, a music mix that hints to a sloppy dance party where nobody will recognize us. When we find it, we dance. In the circle, we wave our hands in the air like we’re swimming in rhythm, dropping it low, and giggling in between lazy air humps (which totally count as dance moves). Slurping rum and coke through skinny straws, we text intermittently into the blue lights of our phones, smirking at a dirty message or an emoji story that hints to the next location in a night that doesn’t seem to be ending. I’m buzzing. We can’t hear anything beside the speaker system. Kanye is ka-kawing like a God, so we scream at the top of our lungs: DO YOU WANT ANOTHER DRINK? WHAT ARE YOU DRINKING? DO YOU FEEL DRUNK? OMG HAHA. Clusters of other women have the exact conversation nearby. Is everyone here on MDMA? I’m going to say yes.

We take money out of the ATM like it’s nobody’s business

I can’t remember how much cash I got out at the ATM downstairs. But it’s Saturday night, and on Saturday night, the ATM holds no true association to my chequing account so whatever, who cares. I’ll deal with it tomorrow when I wake up and remember the deadlines, projects and whatever email I forgot to respond to last Friday. Until then, I’ll take out more money, order another drink, only to forget about it ten minutes later. I don’t care about anything right now and that’s perfectly fine.

We refuse to let the night end, so we walk to Trinity Bellwoods and meet strangers

It’s past last call, my level of drunk has stumbled into a hazy shade of sober, and for the purposes of extending our Saturday night into Sunday morning, we wander into Trinity Bellwoods where the rest of Toronto lingers for intriguingly stupid conversation. Near the dog bowl, we review the night in detail. Analysing different crowds at different bars. The drinks we shouldn’t have ordered and the shot that absolutely was not necessary. We swap stories about the stomach pain from all the beer, wine, salt and vinegar chips and assorted snacks we ate and drank over the past 24 hours. Will so-and-so stay together? Does everyone have anxiety? Do you want kids? Are divorces expensive? Are we going through the same things our parents went through at our age? The conversation never ends. We keep going. And in the purple light of the morning, other strangers approach us to talk nonsense over mutual acquaintances and life mantras. Oh, Toronto. You kill me sometimes.

We wake up in the morning with strange bruises and FB friend requests from total strangers we met in the park

What I find most therapeutic about partying in the summertime is tracing the pieces back together in my downtime. With very little memory of anything beyond the salt and vinegar chips, it’s a puzzle I strive to solve by the end of Sunday afternoon. My body hurts a little, but so what? It was worth every last minute of it. The summer is finally here, and I’d much rather spend my weekend abusing my body, bonding with strangers and looking at the sky to think about the bigger picture. I’ll go to therapy in the winter, but for now, I’ll party like a basket case with very big pupils and tangled hair. It doesn’t get much better than this.