It's Still Summer

Thank you to all my informative and helpful readers who have been advising me on the cockroach situation. I am glad to say that things are much, much better on that front.

Let's see, what other news? Summer feels like it's hurtling to a close, but I managed to get in some seasonal pleasures this weekend. Friday night I made my second visit in a week to the rooftop of Major New York Museum to see the amazing bamboo installation that is growing up there. The previous time I had gone by myself; this time I was with a friend from work and her husband. It was fun to act as tour guide, showing them around a little bit. When I went last weekend, it was on a Saturday and the vibe was more relaxed--lots of families and people in casual clothes--and people were just sort of parking themselves on the ground to talk and have their drinks, making little nests for themselves among the mesh of bamboo poles. On Friday, there was more of a cocktail-hour vibe--as my friend's husband said, "The beautiful people are here"--and less floor-sitting. Still, it was interesting both times to see how people living in (or visiting) this most urban of settings made this forest-like structure their habitat. I will try to remember to post some photos.

Last night I went out with two women friends, to a local bar that has a garden out back. One of my friends had said she would love to go out and have a couple of beers but had to be careful about money and couldn't really afford to eat out at a restaurant. So I thought of this place--I said that we could sit in the garden and order takeout food, which is what lots of people do there. It had been a sunny, clear day, and the evening was cool and delicious, no mosquitoes, no humidity. It was fun to be out there, to hear the rise and fall of voices at the other tables, but also to be able to talk to and hear each other without shouting, which is not always the case in crowded night spots on Saturday night.

We talked about--what else?--love and work. In the love arena, I told them my latest ups and downs and got wise comments, reassurance, and support. I felt taken care of, and grateful to be out with my friends having a good time and not moping around at home over, well, whoever. I made sure to tell them that. At one point, as we were pondering the question (the eternal question) of what makes a person get into relationships with difficult or emotionally unavailable objects, my friend W. noted, "Well, there's this," gesturing around the table. "There's something we get out of this." "You mean the narrative?" I asked. "Yes, the narrative," W. said. "And then there's the question of making the narrative be about something else, or putting that energy into a different narrative."

So then we moved on to talking about work and ideas and books. My friend N., whom I have known for almost 20 years, is an academic, as am I, although she is a full-time academic while I am part-time. We study and teach and write about the same area--in fact, that's how we became friends, in grad school. N. was talking about her latest writing project, and then W., who is not an academic but is a writer, said, "I wonder if you guys know my cousin--he's a professor at X University [actually I don't remember what she said, not even trying for a pseudonym here] and he wrote his thesis on a writer who might be in your period, maybe eighteenth century or nineteenth century, he wrote a lot about art and painting."

That was a little too vague for me, but then N. suddenly said, "Ruskin?" W. said, "Yes, that's it." N. shook her head: "No, he's nineteenth century, we do eighteenth century." "Oh, okay, never mind," W. said.

We moved onto novels. W. said she was reading a novel that centered on the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918. I piped up, interrupting her, "Oh, I recently read a novel that took place in the same period and was also about the flu epidemic." Then I blanked on both the name of the book and the author. "It's by that guy, you know the one who writes novels about Boston and they made a couple of them into movies?" They both looked at me, shaking their heads, and then N. said "Dennis Lehane?" "Yes!" I shouted. W. said to her, admiringly, "Boy, N., you're really doing good with the trivia tonight."

Then we let W. get back to talking about the novel she had just read.

Another highlight of the evening was when one of the bartenders came over to us at our table outside, asked me to grab the glass of water he was bringing for me, and then said, "I guess no one here is interested in sex on the beach?"

Oddly, none of us could come up with a witty rejoinder. Sometimes the set-up is just too much. Gesturing toward the two bright orange-shading-into-red drinks in his hand, the (very young) bartender said, "A guy ordered them but then his friends couldn't produce ID." I thought, and wanted to say, "Oh, I guess you don't think we need to show ID?" but then I thought, "Okay, let it go, . . ." N. said, finally, kind of impatiently, "Oh, just leave them here, someone will drink them." He decided to leave us only one--I guess he didn't think we were enthusiastic enough.

At ten to twelve, one of the bartenders came out and said the garden would be closing at twelve (but don't worry, the bar will be open until four), and people should start moving inside. "If you're smoking a cigarette, you can finish it," he added, "but don't you dare start another one!"

This seemed like the right moment for three middle-aged ladies to call it a night, so we obediently moved inside and then out to the street in front, where we said our good nights, it was great, love you, thank you for coming out here (that was me--because they took the subway to my neighborhood), and yes, let's do that three-way membership to Cosco.

And, finally, today, although the sky was overcast and there was the threat of rain, we had enough people to play volleyball in the park for a couple of hours. You know how happy that makes me.