Dear Spring
(Or, The Annual Hate Letter)

Here we are. Again.

You know how I feel about you. And yet, you persist in coming around, like clockwork, every year, totally disregarding my feelings.

I hate you.

It's hard, you know, to hate you. You're the popular kid, the one everyone waits for, and waits for, and waits for. March is like the Casablanca of months. Under their woolen scarves, people mutter and moan, "When, oh when, is spring coming?" "I can't wait for spring." "I love Spring."

Feeble-minded fools, I say! A few daffodils and a ridiculous burst of dogwood blossoms -- is that all it takes? Don't you know that spring takes your energy away? Ancient Koreans knew better. They knew that fall was good for humans -- a time when the earth gave up its harvest, giving it over to humanity for increased energy. But then spring comes around, six months later, and robs it from us, using it to put on manic displays of bloom -- sometimes only for a day or two, mindless of the waste!

A warm breeze against your winter-pale arms, hidden for 5 months under jackets and sweaters -- are you really that easy? Don't you know that spring is false, and will quickly leave you dissipated and ruined, like a rake in a Victorian novel? The comfortable night temperatures, warm enough to walk around without a jacket but cool enough not to inspire perspiration -- they'll leave soon enough, and then what will you have? Uh huh. Hot, humid, punishing summer. (Which, with the frigid air conditioning that Americans love so much, opens the door to sickness and ill health -- but that's for another rant.)

The falseness? Oh, don't tell me you don't know. Fine. Let me tell you once again -- spring is a lying, deceitful silver-tongued charmer. Rebirth? Only to die in six months, kiddies! A false hope, spring brings, casting a spell that lulls the mind into thinking, "Oh, look at the pretty flowers! And the birds chirping! Life is a bowl of genetically engineered seedless cherries! All is well with the world!" when really, the flowers (unless they're perennials, which do spring back into life every year) will die, the birds will fly away, and no genetically engineered seedless cherries, as of yet, exist. Autumn keeps it real, people. Autumn says, "Look, we all die. See all these trees and shrubs and shit? Leaves are shriveling up and dying and dropping to the ground to become that mushy wet mess that smells a little funky. But hey. We can all go out with a bang. Check out the colors of my forests. Blaze o' glory, dudes. Rock hard before the lights go out."

Oh, spring is not your friend, friends. And yet, you persist in welcoming it, greeting it with smiles, pastel colors, and flip-flops. You huddle in your tiny restaurant "patios," seated at which you "get" to breathe the exhaust of passing cars. Bah! Fie on spring and you, with your delusional optimism and hope! Go ahead and be happy! You'll find out soon enough what a fickle pea-brain that spring is!
(207/730)

Stay-cation
Five boroughs in five days -- whee!

Day 1: The Bronx
Pensive baboons and relaxed grizzlies at the Bronx Zoo.


Plus, a peacock sitting on a throne of trash, and a pondering fowl.



The zoo was followed by an hour or two whiled very pleasantly away at the Strand, away from which I found myself carrying the last Harry Potter installment and a 1939 WPA history of New York.

Day 2: Manhattan
Harry Potter. All day. Plus work (ugh).

Day 3: Brooklyn
After some more work-related stress in the morning, I finally made it out to the lesser known but more critically praised work in the Olmsted-Vaux oeuvre: Prospect Park. At first, because there weren't many people around, I was convinced I'd be murdered, wandering around in the woods. A cop car almost ran me over as I approached this bridge:


I wasn't sure whether to be glad to see the police patrolling, or scared. But I pushed on, and eventually wandered into more populated areas of the very large park (585 acres -- Central Park covers 843 acres).

Even with the dogwalkers, runners, and families, it wasn't that populated.


A few minutes after I took this picture, I stopped to watch an old-looking male swan beat his wings, honk and waddle threateningly toward two apparent competitors on his turf. A woman and her little girl were sitting on a bench near the old bird, and when he started defending his territory, the woman screamed, "I'm scared! Laura, come here!" and ran toward me, holding her daughter's hand. (Maybe she thought I would beat them off for her?)

Swans are big birds, I'll grant you that, and so, in a moment of solidarity, I turned toward her and said, "Kinda scary, aren't they?"

"What?" she panted. "Yeah, they are!"

At that moment, the old swan chose to head in our direction, flapping his wings and braying, and the lady freaked out. "Oh my god -- someone help me! Someone help!" she positively shrieked in my ear, and took off when the irascible bird was about two feet away from us. I stood still, figuring it wasn't interested in me (and that I could probably win a throwdown, if it came to it).

The old bird irritably waddled toward the water and swam away. The child, no doubt, will in 20 years wonder where her fear of fowl came from.

I came out of the park at Grand Army Plaza, which features the biggest damn arch ever, and this comely pair behind it.



Woman: Oh darling, isn't it just wonderful that we're standing here for all to admire?

Man: It's flipping freezing out here. And I'm getting carpel tunnel from having my hand in this awkward position.

Woman: But dear, it shows how deliciously manly and veiny your hand is.

Man: What is this flipping thing, any way? Are we supposed to be sitting on it? Why is it here?

Woman: It's art, darling.

Man: I'd rather have my hand on your ass. Another thing: Why am I hanging out in the breeze like this? It's unseemly.

Woman: I don't know, darling, but so am I. Isn't it fun?

Man: This blows.

Day 4: Queens
Little India is in Jackson Heights, so Joiner and I went there to look at the intricate gold jewelry and richly colored saris, and to stuff ourselves with Indian food. And I found some potentials for curtains, which I sorely need.


It's washed out in this picture -- it's actually more gold-colored in real life. I couldn't decide between that and this --


-- so I decided I'd come back next week. Since it's only a 10-minute subway ride away from me, I may actually do it!

After late lunch/early dinner, Joiner and I went to P.S. 1, the contemporary art center in Long Island City, and saw some disturbing feminist art, including a video of Yoko Ono sitting in a chair while people came up to her and cut away her clothes. The funny thing about that? I actually saw it a few years ago, at an Ono retrospective in Seoul, of all places. I still remember my favorite piece from that show; it was a hinged stepladder which, in the original exhibition, included an invitation to visitors to climb it. Upon climbing it to the top, the visitor was able to read the small, typed message taped to the ceiling above. That message: "Yes."

Day 5: Staten Island
Staten Island seems very mysterious and romantic to me, which no doubt Staten Islanders would laugh their heads off about. But it's the least populated borough, the only one that has its own, free ferry, and the only borough with its own Yankees team (the Staten Island Yankees -- a farm team for the other, more famous Yankees), and it just seems very... underrepresented in local lore.

There doesn't seem to be much to do there for tourists, but there is a weird little museum of Tibetan art there, founded in 1947 by a woman named Jacques Marchais --


-- which is situated near a picturesque lighthouse.


The museum was a fine use of an hour, which does not include the 90 minutes each way to the museum from my house. That's far to go for a little one-roomed museum. But with views of the Statue of Liberty,
Manhattan, the Hudson, and three bridges spanning the East River,

not to mention the wonderful piles and industrial grittiness of the ferry and terminals,


who can really complain? The ferry ride itself was a magnificent experience, not just for the views, but for the feeling of being part of an experience that countless New Yorkers and tourists have taken part in since 1905. As we approached Manhattan, the sun broke out in patches, a few minutes at a time, and I could see the patchwork of architecture in Wall Street and Battery Park -- solid, respectable brick, stately marble, sleek, cold glass and mirrors of the modern age, the odd church steeple poking out from between skyscrapers. Looking at those buildings, I felt a rush of respect, awe, and affection for New York, for all the millions of people who had built, lived and worked in, slept and quarreled in, spawned and died in those buildings. It was like riding a wave of history, like coming back from outer space, where you can see just where everything fits in. The grand sweep of existence. All from the Staten Island Ferry.


(189/730)

A Quarter For Your Thoughts

I ended my first six months as a corporate lawyer on Tuesday, April Fool's Day, at a restaurant in the West Village, dining with three other first year associates, raising a couple glasses to the end of the first rotation.

I am one fourth of the way through the plan.

About a month ago, I put in for five days of vacation for this week, thinking that I might go away somewhere and relax. Re-group. For a variety of reasons, I ended up whittling down the days to three and whittling down the plans to an in-town vacation. Yesterday I went to the Bronx Zoo with Joiner and had a grand old time, then browsed the New York section of the Strand bookstore while waiting for Joiner to finish a meeting she had.

Today, because I stayed up until 3 am reading a very irritating and badly written novel, I got up at noon, checked my Blackberry, and worked.

The partner gave me an assignment a while back that no one else is working on, and it of course has all come to a head this week, so my second afternoon of vacation was spent trying unsuccessfully to get my remote office to work on my computer, failing, responding to a dozen emails on my Blackberry, and taking two phone calls.

I felt rather depressed at how the second day of my vacation turned out. This, after having to respond to another work thing yesterday morning.

This is my fault, my inability to switch things off, to turn things over and say, here, I am on vacation, you deal with it. This is going to sound like that stupid thing you say in interviews when asked that stupid question, "What's your greatest fault?" -- "I'd say my greatest fault is my perfectionism, Pat" -- but it marks all us Type As: I don't know how to do a mediocre job. Oh, I'm not saying that I don't turn in crap sometimes. I'm not saying that I try my best, every. Single. Time. No. That's impossible. I'm saying that I feel guilty when I don't try my best. When I turn in crap.

Which is why, really, I can't stay in this job. I've been astonished to find that I at times enjoy working, especially when it involves actually dealing with clients and feeling helpful. But I can't put it away without feeling guilty when something crops up. And something inevitably crops up when I'm supposed to be away from work.

When you can't put it away, you kinda want "it" to be something you enjoy. Something you believe in. Something that you think is worthy of the time and energy. And this just ain't it.

So here I stand, after six months, looking back and marveling at how much better it was than I thought it would be, and looking forward and wondering what the hell comes on Day 731. What I can afford to do. What I owe, to which people. Wondering, as always, how I should lead my life, and what it's all for.
(186/730)