Summer in Brooklyn

I am developing the romantic eyes that immanent departure often gives... With less than three week's time before I leave NY for quite some time, i see everything through this lens--"this is new york, appreciate this or that thing, since although it seems very ordinary, soon you will look back with longing for this or that little thing".

As I sit here writing, there is the sound of gushing water on the street below--nearly every day somebody opens up the fire hydrant under my window and neighborhood kids and teens play happily in the street--providing free car washes for the neighborhood, carrying female victims into the intense spray, i even saw them trying to surf the street with a boogie board...

At first, a couple months ago, this bothered me, all the wasted water, and what if there's a fire? The first time I saw it, I even tried to report it, calling the local police station and firehouse, neither of which answered my calls... Walking around my Bushwick neighborhood, I quickly saw that every few blocks there was another open hydrant, this is just how things are in Brooklyn in the summer.

Ice cream trucks' tinny songs, endlessly repeating, become an unheard backdrop over which hot people live out their hot evenings. Sometimes one song will call from one direction, and another from a different direction, creating an unintended but well-appreciated avant-garde duet. An unrehearsed urban Charles Ives composition.

In this time of immanent departure, Basketball-Man, the Union Square superhero who created a short one-man street act out of goofy antics, impressive ball-handling skills, a silly costume, and witty improvised banter, is all the more charming--could anybody as entertaining be performing in the streets of Cotonou? Is there an audience ready to fill a basketball with bills to encourage that sort of thing? I hope so...

New York, I can't live with ya, can't live without ya... will I find another place which stimulates me and sets me at sets me at ease, all at once? Another place with enough diversity to make me feel among my own?

New Do

My roommate Risa recently gave me a brand new hair-do for my trip to Africa. I'm lucky to live with a girl who actually studied hair-dressing. So what if she only learned to style older ladies' hair...In my book, a nice hair-do is a nice hair-do, regardless of who is carrying the thing around.


I mustn't get addicted to weekly wash-n-sets though, that could get pricey, even in Benin...