Get Out of Town

The past year has been a real nose-to-the-grindstone, all-work-and-no-play sort of year. I started a new job, Ben had professional exams (a lot of them!), and we had some debts to pay. So all our money and all our time was spent on things we had to do and not things we wanted to do.

Suddenly, it feels like the clouds have parted and the year-and-then-some of no fun has come to an end. I have antsy energy and a desire to start a million new projects all at once. The one I am starting right away is leaving town - I am leaving the city every weekend from now until it snows. I don't even know where I'm going!

Anywhere but here. I'll keep you posted...

What I think about on the Subway

Two days of subway observations.

I sit on the train facing backwards. The lights slide by the windows like a sci-fi movie warp speed. The train is full and for the first time in weeks I look at the faces of people on the train with me. The absurdity of the whole situation strikes me and I have to suppress my giggles. The car is full, I can see I to the car behind us and that car is full too. We are all silent. No one even sees me looking the full in the face because we have trained ours selves to look through people. We are hurtling at top speed - no seat belts! -  towards very important jobs. In all likelihood we are all heading to grab a cup of coffee and to see what's happening on the internet since we left it yesterday. But we all take it so seriously.

Another subway morning, this time contemplating death. I'm not religious, I don't believe in an afterlife. If you ask me, this is it. The only thing we leave behind is traces and objects, and those slowly fade and break and then it's truly over. I miss my grandparents. I try to call up very particular details about them. Butterscotch pudding and lotto tickets and wearing the sweatshirt that said "Nana" in puff paint that I made when I was four until she died. I like to print pictures and use film so there is an object. That one day someone will look at them and say "Look how young they were. They look so happy." When I'm at flea markets I love to look through the pictures for sale and imagine their lives. I have a file folder full of the ones I can't resist, other peoples long ago vacations and little happinesses.

Queens, the forgotten burough

Today we took a giant bike ride in Queens. The purported purpose was to go to the Queens Museum, which is in the middle of Flushing Meadows Corona Park*.

We ended up finding a previously-unknown wetland preserve (Turtles! Nature!), a Colombian Independence Day parade and dance party (Stilt-walkers! Children in costume!), and a really nice, newly-reopened museum (Art! A GIANT model of the entire city!).

*This must be the worst name for a park in the history of the world. It sounds like a euphemism for the sewage treatment plant of  New York City. 

Eating While Hot

Once, Ben had an intern at work who was from Korea. It was his first summer in NYC and he was miserable. So one day Ben said to Intern "I always thought Korea was really hot in the summer, too." To which intern replied, in a line that has lived in infamy ever since, "Yeah, but in Korea even poor people have air conditioning." Ha!

An undiscussed secret of New York is that summers are miserable. It's hot, it's muggy, the subway is like a garbage dump sauna, and when the wind blows from the west the whole place smells like the Hudson River. Plus the normal joys of living on top of 8 million other people. And of course, no apartments have central air.

Last year Ben and I broke down and bought a little portable air conditioner. I hate air conditioning, but finally conceded that it was too hot to sleep so something needed to be done. It half cools one room of our apartment, but it is better than nothing. My goal is to never break it out before July, and so far we've been successful.

But today we pretty much had popsicles in our underwear for dinner.

Here's hoping we can make it 12 more days.