I've never spent a summer in NYC even though I've lived in Brooklyn for over two years. That's two summers, going on three now, that I'll have missed. I'm told they're horrible. Miserable. Hot and sticky, hit your head on the wall, bite your lips wretched. The smell's enough, I'm told, to make grown men gag and gentle ladies swoon for softer times. Arms and legs covered in soot. Eyes yellowed by the smog. All the natural injustices of urban living slammed into three glorious months of angry drinking.
I've been drinking this morning. It's no longer morning but BRUNCH is a magical event that legitimizes cheap champs in the am. It makes the morning longer and the evening stretch into infinitude. Yes, I've come home for a break between goodbyes. I suppose people aren't supposed to admit such things these days.
Aside from Saturday morning sloshing, yes. I do yoga. I jog. I eat well and wise and healthy. My cupboard is full of as many orgasmic organics as I can afford. I thrive on nature. I recycle. I refuse plastic bags when offered. I take mass transit when I donate time to the local animal shelter. I needlepoint and Just Say No to Rickrolling.
But since I've been such a lackluster poster of late, and before a weekend of the tall and darkly handsome ex of no one I know, the National, Ladyhawk and Neva Dinova takes my soul, I'm going to have a go at some good ol' fashioned musing.
Wait? Did I mention turning 30 recently? I know I said the date but did I give the demon a number? No. Of course I didn't. More than turning 21, turning 30 has loomed on my horizon for as long as I can remember. It always seemed like such a magical number. The time when girls loose their girlishness and wrap themselves in womanhood. Not a sapphic allusion, although it could be, but rather the embodiment of an ideal.
Such awkwardness infected my youth that I've always longed for being older, wiser and kinder. A realer person of merit and meaning, you know. No more fake empires of my own making. When all the semi-perfect moments would congeal into my particular brand of sophistication, a wafting, lingering scent to tangle and confuse in the wake of my passing, not into the hereafter, but rather into the now.
A now that should consist of me getting ready for today's GOODBYES round two; but Procrastination, the tempter I succumb to most these days, wins. My den wins. The sweet little home I've made for myself wins.
I'm not looking forward to leaving it in 23 days.
The night winks. A grey sky threatening frizz, and ruined heels, and soaked stockings stares at me through this window here to silky bedsheets a tangle, half made-up and thoroughly unmade by this merry-go-round's mistakes, just in time to catch my busily buzzing phone prattling off tonight's festivities.
"Oh, and don't forget your all white outfit for the 25th!!! xoxo," she texts. The one where the Bloody Mary contest threatens to mass murder all those lovely, dovely pale and pristine pleats. I have Carrie fantasies of dumping a pitcher of bleeding marys on my gasping, upturned vintage Vuarnet-ed face.
No. I'm not looking forward to leaving in 23 days at all.
Save a little dirty, dingy summer for me. I'll be back. Promise.
