6/20

What a rainy, gray day. After all the praise I've been heaping upon the weather, you'd think it'd try and stay sunny for me. But alas, no such luck. The sky is brightening somewhat, and it's supposed to be quite hot by the late afternoon ... however, it's already close to 1pm, so I'm not holding my breath.

I do have to admit that I like New York City in the rain, especially Manhattan. The streets get slick and wet, and all the electric signs and lights reflect off the pavement. Pedestrians move quicker than usual, and I love watching their umbrellas bob over their heads. They always remind me of wet balloons. The sights and colors all blend together and it starts to feel like some sort of crazy carnival. Bright shop signs popping against the dark sky, damp clothes smelling of closets and mothballs, rubber rain boots blurring past in dizzying yellows ... I enjoy it all. There's something satisfying about getting soaked to the skin while walking around the city. It feels nice and natural. And colorful.

Brooklyn is a little more depressing in the rain. There's less people bustling about, so you see fewer umbrellas and rain boots. There aren't many electric signs either, so you miss out on the experience of watching their light flicker across wet streets. Everything is a little damper and grayer in Brooklyn.

Then again, Queens is worse than Brooklyn in dreary weather. Well, this is at least true for the Astoria areas. Things seem very dismal in the rain there for some reason. Queens in general tends to be even more residential than Brooklyn, so perhaps that's why. It feels like any suburban neighborhood getting peed on by the rain gods, instead of some urban wonderland. (Admittedly, I'm not a big fan of Queens in the first place.)

But enough about the weather. Here's an interesting little sight I saw while on a walk yesterday:

It's an old water pump and frying pan that someone turned into art. The person who made it draped metal chains from the pump to the pan to look like water. I loved it. Very creative. It was just sitting there by some one's front stoop.

I took a long walk yesterday. I normally stick to the same streets, but I ventured to a different avenue this time. I walked about 30 blocks and 4 avenues, which isn't a huge distance but enough to get the legs stretched out and blood pumping.

I love to walk, like most New Yorkers. It's what we do best. Everyone walks here, young and old. I always tell potential visitors to bring tennis shoes. "You'll be walking a lot," I tell them. Out-of-towners are always flabbergasted at what New Yorkers consider a short walk. "Oh, it's about a ten block hike," I say, and suddenly my visitors look at me with horror on their faces. But really, ten blocks isn't much. Probably not even a quarter of a mile.

It's the avenues that get you. Walk down the length of an entire avenue and you'll be on the go far longer than you need to. Streets = good, avenues = pain in the rear end. I always tell visitors to avoid walking down avenues when possible. It makes any trip shorter to avoid walking down their length.

In other news, here's what I've been up to in my own life:

Books I'm Currently Reading:

The Air Conditioned Nightmare, by Henry Miller

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers
My two textbooks on African politics and culture

Classes I'm Taking for the Summer:

World Cultures: Sub-Saharan Africa

Intensive Spanish I & II

Bands/Songwriters I'm Liking & Currently Listening To:

Amy Winehouse

Erykah Badu

Q-Tip

A Tribe Called Quest

Waste of Time:

The Sims 2

sleeping

avoiding doing anything productive by writing this blog

I'm terribly unmotivated to do work at the moment, especially musically. I need to plan some concerts or something, because if I don't have anything to work towards, I simply can't practice. Or won't. Whichever. Either way, it sucks.

I need to go figure out some musical plans for myself ...

have a happy day, and more posts to come (very) soon.

Oh, and weather update:

I spy blue skies.