my geriatric weekend

I spent the Fourth of July on an alien planet of total relaxation. Eat, sleep, read. Repeat.

Morning coffee, the New York Times and berries on the porch overlooking the river, afternoons by the pool, farm stand suppers, evening ice cream cones, old movies, and long nights reading in bed as the midgies and moths hurled themselves at the window screens.

I slept more in two nights than in the previous two weeks combined. I also saw family I hadn't seen in decades, which was nice for continuity's sake and a connection to something other than the three-man caravan of my nomadic childhood. But mostly I just shut my mouth and slowed my brain, retreating into a sort of monk-like quiet and turning the Rubik's cube by cube.

Monday it was back on the road and back to business as usual. I hit the ground running in a city besieged by an ungodly heat wave: book shopping, milkshakes in Madison Square park and dancing, oh, dancing. Now here it is Wednesday-that-feels-like-Tuesday, and I'm back to square zero on the Sleep Dep scale, cursing the life choices that bring me to this Soviet-era gulag every day between the hours of 9 and 5.

But I met a boy. Or—should I say—a boy I already knew (but not well) took a bit of an interest. Contrary to established tradition, I'm withholding analysis for future developments. For now, it was nice. That's all I'm gonna say.

the days can't be like the nights

After tango night, Midsummer Nights Swing, Lincoln Center.

there's gonna be a revolution

New York has become a much harder place of late.

More sad than scary really, but not easy to miss. The warmer air is sharp with stale sweat and the smell of the rank unwashed. Grocery carts laden with covered mounds and bubbled plastic bags are pushed up against buildings everywhere. Men, women and dogs stretch out over vents on every side street and thoroughfare, covered in cardboard.

Subway stations after 10pm have become convention centers for the ruined, hunched to sleep on benches, piles and carts beside them, swollen ankles, swollen feet bulging out of wasted shoes. There is no overlooking this underworld, no passing through from dance hall to overpriced apartment. It has become too pathetic, too prevalent, to ignore.

Even my neighborhood has its share, the sidewalk full of sad, sad drunks outside the OTB, shouting their pain from milk crate couches. And the lone man, long-haired and dignified, who washes his feet every morning with a bottle of Poland Spring. He has wild eyes and a gentle gait, and I would totally crouch beside his mailboxes for a sandwich and a story if it weren't for my paranoia of connecting to drifters who watch me come off the subway most nights at 2am and could very easily trail me home.

I work for a non-profit—run by middle-minded management jerks and wannabe bureaucrats—but the mission is a solid one. Rehabilitate the recovering homeless. Help them get and keep a job. Stay in touch as long as they do to negotiate lay-offs and relapses and, well, share the journey. Parts of my job inspire me daily, as dysfunctional and toxic an office environment as it has proven to be.

One of my superiors has been known to say that, particularly in this city, most of us are just a paycheck or two away. One ill-timed bender, one maladjustment made to the anti-depressants, one bad break too many, and how close do we come? I, for one, live paycheck to paycheck, and if it weren't for some solid support and a few lucky breaks, I'd be up a creek myself.

A lot of factors contribute to the cycle of homelessness: incarceration, lack of education or opportunity, mental illness, addiction . . . And watching this particular economic tailspin take its toll is getting harder and harder to watch.

That said, how easily and often do I hide in my book on the train as person after person sings, shouts, recites the standard N train speeches to fill their hat full of change. I avert my eyes because I find it overwhelming, each day sadder than the next. But if I gave the dollar I used to (without fail, feeling guilty if I ran out of cash), I'd be out a sandwich and a coffee by the time I got home from work. I've been saturated, made callous by a city of abuse. I can care all I want, but suddenly I'm overwhelmed by how little I can do. Programs like mine are out there, but how many people never make it that far? How many crazies slip through the cracks? And who's to blame? I find myself continually balancing compassion and contempt, and hating myself for it. Because—bottom line—there is a threshold of heartbreak and this place sacrifices your best instincts in the name of survival.

But it is hard. There's something unsafe happening, like a pasta pot with the lid on. Sooner or later, something starchy and hot is going to come boiling out and burning down the sides. Too many people are having too hard a time. Plus, it smells. The whole city smells. Bus exhaust and summer sewage are bad enough without exploring the spectrum of human stenches.

And then the drunks. The ones so drunk, so used to being drunk, they hardly notice their own shouting.

It feels like danger. Like Oran when all the rats start dying. A city poised on the knife blade between melting pot and mayhem.

more than enough

Yesterday was one of those truly perfect New York days. HCB at the MoMa, lunch roseé, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson at the Public, stracciatella pizza, champagne and fondue at the Bourgeois Pig, then three humid hours of dancing in a bedazzled basement. With all those chandeliers, I half expected someone to start playing the voice over from the Haunted Mansion. "There are no windows . . . and no doors . . ."

Of course, I had to watch the G.I.Q. sulk in a corner all night in a tasteless shirt with some leggy blonde, but there are worse things to cope with—who wants his attention without the sweater vest anyway? Summer comes and Mr. Wet Wool and Book Smell is just another clammy man in khaki.

I danced and it was wonderful.

One by one, other tangueros paired off with other leggy blondes and left the station for beds in outer boroughs while I got passed back and forth between the Champion and the Tall Guy, who caught me with one strap dangling and actually reattached my shoe for a second tanda. We were all but chased out of the milonga by the cleaning crew.

Good nights are what we make of them and I ended this one staying out til nearly six making diner conversation with new friends. I rattled home in a minivan handicab in the luge lane on the verymost vertigo edge of the bridge, just as the weekend world was getting ready for work.

Off to dance some more.

who knew summer came in color?

Goodness. I hardly know what to say.

It appears the lovely Phoenix has given me my very first blogger award. I shudder involuntarily at having even typed that word, but c'est la guerre, non? When in Rome. Nomenclature be damned, I am honored to be included among people who brighten or have once brightened her day, though I can't imagine how she managed to find any sunshine round here lately. I was actually tempted to post this thing in black and white (because dear god, that thing is colorful), but then I caught myself. We could all use a little sunshine and I, for one, endeavor to let that little light shine right out of my lily-white Irish (oh wait, why am I talking about my butt two posts in a row?) . . .

Apparently these awards are like a mate gourd, meant to be passed along. And so, without further ado, I bequeath the Res Ipsa Loquitur "ray of sunshine" award to my favorite day brightening (ugh) . . . blogger.

Kathleen, this is for you. Ladies and gentlemen, this woman is a diamond in the mommy blogs. So please, enjoy her shiny green layout, her darling boys, and her insightful take on the trials of wifery and motherhood in rural New Hampshire. She can also help you clean up yer act because, in between raising three children, she enjoys doing thorough environmentalist research so the rest of us plebes don't have to.

And for honorable mention, Jane of the Virgin Diaries. Because mama tells the truth.

front sky

Woke up this morning with a sore throat. But, you know, it's a sore throat. Hardly a tragedy. Certainly I am capable of getting through today in my desk chair. No one else cares how much it hurts to swallow—or that I'm rolling with the raspy whisper of a supervillain in the first round of her death throes. Anyway, I pulled up my big girl pants, juiced myself a vitamin cocktail with a butt-ton of ginger, grabbed a box of Throat Comfort and commuted.

First thing, my boss comes into my cubby—face contorted into all sorts of snotty—and says,

"What is WRONG with you? I feel like you're always getting sick. Clearly you need to start taking better care of yourself."

Okay, She-Beast.

First of all, aside from a run-in with some unfortunate felafel, my last sick day was in January.

Second of all, I juice kale for breakfast every morning.

So you can kiss my lily-white Irish you know what.

in flora veritas

Who needs the male half of the species when your best friend sends you stealth flowers at the office?