that was then this is now

saturday was about lying in the meadow, burning off any impurities accumulated during the week.

having my sister in town has been fantastic. the meadow is our old stomping grounds. there was a summer in the 90s that we spent every single day in the meadow. we knew the topography - frisbee players over there, burnout hippie kids here, serious tanners to the left. we were friends with all the meadow characters: the one-eyed beer man, cyko, johnjohn. we were there the day shoshonna came over and said she'd met jerry seinfeld over at the food hut. eric nies, the rudolph stoner kids, the guy with the dog named freedom.

that was then, this is now.

soaking up the sun i saw a meadow first - a threesome of twentysomethings quietly and disceetly doing coke.

hi, it's 89° and you're in broad daylight, i wanted to say. but i didn't.

after we'd had all the sun we could take we split up to reconvene at
temple bar for classy gin and tonics and complimentary popcorn. then it was QUICK! SKEDADDLE! to the liquor store before it closed - and we got there as the gates were coming down. "owen nearly rolled underneath indiana jones-style" my sister proclaimed. owen's thing is to pay for things with $2 bills, don't ask.

so we picked up gin, champagne and beer and headed over to hang with shane and his gf. lots of goodies in the apt, including an animatronic chimp whom my sister promptly fell in love with. you can take the girl out of vet school but you can't take the vet school out of the girl.

the situation at shane's deteriorated until we drunkly invaded mcdonald's at about 2am. what happened after that i don't know. but i woke up sunday with only a little time to get ready and bike to a bbq in the west village.

i tried not to drink for the first hour or so, and then decided hair of the dog is where it's at. drank cold-ass budweiser out of the can like what.

bbq convo turned to words that don't really exist but should.

par example:

booze poos (noun) the loose, nasty kind of crap you have after a night of drinking. (contributed by my sister)

marinoia (noun) the irrational suspicion/paranoia brought on by smoking copious amounts of pot. (contributed by owen)

cockstar (noun) a guy who is scorching hot in bed. (contributed in absentia by my girl james)

(for previous girlhattan bon mots, click here)


eventually, the sun was going down and we walked down charles lane past nicole kidman's apartment to the river. there was a salsa class happening, the river was shimmering, and we were quietly happy. owen handed me his iPod and he'd cued up some sweeping beethoven written after the composer'd gone deaf. emotional, epic, dramatic and the perfect fit. goosebumps!

i biked home after dark, budweiser seeping out through my pores. another gorgeous weekend in girlhattan.

and last night, the positive, amazing energy of manu chao in prospect park. hundreds of bodies dripping with sweat jumping up and down to the rockreggae vibes, singing in spanish, english and french - flags from colombia, cuba, morocco... pure happiness and love. about 12 encores. because the no one wanted it to end.

my gift to you:

manu chao - desaparecido

manu chao - clandestino