I spent it on bike. First to Central Park where I did the loop twice trying to ignore the mad, geared out cyclists. They wear racing colors, shave their skin smooth and have muscles that grow at sharp angles. They pass me with ease.
I read a short story by Ian McEwan. It seemed like an exercise in writing a follow-up to Orwell's1984. I very much enjoy reading unimpressive short stories by impressive writers. It gives me hope.
A black teenager walked through the park singing "We are the assholes that make the world a fucked up place" to the tune of "We are the World." I saw him later sitting on a rock and chatting with a chubby white girl. She had blonde curly hair held back in a headband and laid on her stomach with her book face down marking the page. He wore long baggy jeans and red sneakers and leaned on one arm.
Biked up and down the west side along the water. People danced polka at the uptown boat basin. It made me happy to live in New York. Somewhere in the 60's, tangled strands of iron rose out of the water, like a giant lump of seaweed dried by the sun. Next to it stood a skeleton of a building, the same deep rust color, part of its face collapsing towards the water too.
I sat in front of the trapeze school and watched two girls in tank tops and tight shorts sitting under a canopy in folding chairs. Two other girls in tank tops and tight shorts walked up to the canopy. The girls in the folding chairs handed them each a clipboard and a pen. The trapeze swing was tied up. The water was dark and glittered with flecks of bright light.
Now in my apartment, scrubbed and cool, I can hear music and the hum of air conditioners through my open windows. A piece of paper on my bulletin boards lifts a little in the breeze of the fan and then falls back, as if it's not quite sure of how far it can go.
Tomorrow the fall begins, a season that makes it easy to be happy. Blue skies, dry days, chilly nights. That much is certain.
