The summer of...

I’ve been marinating about how to write my end-of-the-summer post in which I announce that I’m now in merry olde Cambridge. Most of that thinking happened mornings in the shower in Brooklyn. That was while I was mostly just doing nothing. The plan was to blog about the apartment search and write a journal about the more private things that were pissing me off. I did neither. It was fabulous. Doing nothing is highly underrated.

It is however frustrating to do good thinking and then never really get around to it. The good news is that now that I’m about to start school I’ll have many the opportunity (perhaps too many) to write and funnel creativity into tangible products. Reflecting on my summer of shower thinking, I decided to create a gallery of summer pictures, and still post the pictures herein that made me laugh at the time.

 

It was the summer of the surprise party I threw for my mother’s 60^th at Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan, the summer when newborn babies entered my social milieu (one to my cousin [pictured above when 2 days old] and one to friends, both named Leo, both in greater Park Slope, both couples with an NYC-native and a Bay Area-native parent), the summer when I left NYC politics and my cousin entered it, the summer of 3 trips to Chicago (to go to my 5^th college reunion, to my brother’s college graduation, and to Brett and Emilie’s wedding), the summer that Aaron and I left our Park Slope brownstone of 3 years and I moved to an immense loft overlooking the Long Island Rail Road Vanderbilt Yards in a block of bought-out and mostly empty converted factory-lofts headed for eminent domain while he traveled from Riga to Hong Kong on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, the summer I somehow talked my way into a free summer at said loft rooming with the ever-cool Megan, the summer when I threw 3 loft parties in said loft, the summer I made 3 trips to Cambridge to look for an apartment (and got one at Inman Square), the summer when I got my first gig as a paid photographer, the summer when I vacationed very locally (Philadelphia, New Milford CT, Cherry Grove NY) intentionally staying around the City and hanging out at coffee shops and seeing museums before leaving, the summer when I read the full canon of Augusten Burroughs for shits and giggles, the summer that lots of friends visited me (Dan from London, Alison from Chicago, Cathy from Ithaca, Galeet and Erica from Philly, and Erica F returning from 2 years of Peace Corps in Kiribatis ["near Fiji"]), and lots of friends just stayed over since I had that much space, the summer that I made new friends (Ayuko, Ginny, Annika, Jason B), the summer when many friends dispersed from NYC for school programs near and far (Tamar and Radhika to Berkeley, Meghan and Josh to Evanston, Aaron to Newark, Pam to Taipei), and others came to New York anew (Rachel from Ottawa, Ginny from Chicago, Arleigh and Neil from San Francisco), and the summer when my brother came to NYC, and after 4 great years there I left it for an educational interlude.

Departing is such sweet sorrow. Below’s a picture I took on my first trip to Cambridge at the CVS in Porter Square. I was thinking of entitling it “Boston’s gonna be fine.”

… and the wedgie that probably made Rafael Nadal lose to Mikhail Youzhny (a then relatively unknown player) in the Quarterfinal of the US Open.

 
This is a reflection of the sky over the Hudson and the west side highway from beneath the High Line.

I’ve now left Eminent Domain Land/Prospect Heights and UHaul’d my way to Inman Square/Cambridge in order to start a (2-year) Masters of Urban Planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Cambridge seems a lot like Berkeley so far. Tonight I meet my new classmates.