I tried to find a picture that sums up summer in NYC. I took the one to the right last week. The fire hydrants really are open and spraying water, as seen on tv. Trash is at its most conspicuous. In my observation, Chelsea is currently the stankiest area in Manhattan, though I haven't ventured above 122nd Street. The heavy man walking around like his dog just died is the Everyman. It's hot, though not as hot as it was during last week's heat wave. Everybody walks around looking at least mildly miserable, minus the girls attempting to teeter with panache in short skirts and wedges. I went to Harlem last night for some soul food. Monday night looked like a block party! Everyone was outside sitting on stoops, riding bikes up and down the sidewalks, or selling incense.

I have a Brighton Beach memoir to write tomorrow, but that's tomorrow. I'm in my now air conditioned apartment musing at how quiet this place is. I cock my head, trying to hear sirens or some reggaeton noise pollution, and fail. Today was very long somehow, though not tedious. Having whole days to myself may not be the best for me. I know I have things to do, but I also recognize I should hoard some chores. Otherwise, I won't have anything to accomplish off a list. So to successfully procrastinate I start thinking...overanalyzing everything until I want to crawl in a hole. I think about these things:

1) Why are socially awkward and glib people still going on reality and game shows? They must know how awkward they look. I watched Room Raiders today, the dating-type show where a guy or girl gets a detective kit and raids the rooms of three potential dates. It's painful to watch a girl murmur trite things while some guy goes through her underwear drawer with a black light, which a guy does in every episode. "Oh my gawd! Whaaaat is he dooooinn'?!" It's almost as painful as watching the bitchy interactions among girls watching a guy go through their underwear drawers with a black light.

2) There's a subway ad on the Upper West Side I've passed a few times. It's on the space near the entrance to a subway station. It's street level, so I see it and am always baffled. It's an ad for a prescription drug for HIV positive individuals. These drug ads always have people doing healthy things. For instance, Viagra ads always have some older, albeit sexy, man dancing. It's a metaphor for sex. That's why Baptists don't dance. Anyhow, this ad has a presumably HIV positive man working on an airplane. It's not a commercial airliner, but rather a small private craft. Advertising which is glaring and obvious the more you study its hackneyed subtlety, would generally fit one of the stereotypes of a population, so you'd expect the healthy dude taking the prescription to be say, redecorating a living room or walking his French bulldog in some fetching sleeveless tank. Hmmm... Are they trying to show the broader spectrum of the HIV positive community? Or appealing to minority men with HIV? He was of the tall, dark, and handsome variety and a mechanic. Why is a man in the picture? Women are statistically more likely to contract HIV nowadays.

3) An old friend of mine contacted me recently. She and I were good friends back in junior high and the first half of high school. My issue with her was that she was "born again" towards the end of our friendship. The trouble with so many "born again" people in that they make you start wishing they weren't born in the first place. She became a completely different person. I don't mean she no longer wanted to share needles or kill puppies together - she was never a horrible person. She just wasn't fun anymore. In fact, she became close-minded and started listening to really lame music.

So this former friend contacted me, and I found out that she's married and has kids and everything. She seems mature and more mellow, which is great. I'm conflicted about contacting her. I want to reconnect to ask questions I would want to ask the girl who used to be my friend, like, "How much did childbirth hurt? How did you know you wanted to get married? What are your fears? How do you define yourself?" I have a feeling these are too personal, though. She's not one to pour out her soul and sound crazy, I think. Nor does she drink. Blast!

She wrote something like, "Wow, you're in New York! The city you loved!" Still, it doesn't seem to compare to having kids and getting married and becoming a bonafide adult. Not on paper anyway. Why am I thinking this? I don't want kids or a husband right now. I'm a feminist, and I've done plenty since my friend found Jesus and lost my number. Is it because I know most of my old acquaintances from Hicktown, USA don't value what I value, and I can't shake that painful twitch that is longing for approval and admiration?

I think that's it. And that makes me realize I still have a lot of growing up to do.