Summer Daze

It’s summer in New York, and I’m officially over it. All spring I counted the days until Memorial Day weekend, but once that’s over and the next three-day weekend is months away, what have you really got? If you’re me, you’ve got sweat-coated, seemingly endless waits on a stifling subway platform and a neighborhood that smells like sour milk. As if it isn’t bad enough that it already smells like poop and stale beer virtually every day of the year. Don’t get me wrong: I love where I live. It’s just, when you’re walking down the street and you step a track from someone’s weave TWICE IN ONE DAY, it’s pretty safe to say that you’re not in the Hamptons.

And really, that’s what most people think New Yorkers do on summer weekends, right? (Go to the Hamptons, not step on pieces of hair, I mean). Even I have outdated fantasies of sleepy little beach towns with sun-bleached crab shacks and bait ‘n’ tackle shops, but from what I’ve been told it’s just like the Meatpacking District, only with Burberry bikinis. Even if you are a part of the junior hedgefunder set, you’d still be crammed into a house with 32 other people, most of who are probably boffing each other. But what do I know about such things? My idea of a great summer night includes a cold bottle of $5.99 champers and my 12,000 BTU air conditioner. And God help me if that ever changes.

I wish I had a beach house. I wish I had a pontoon boat and a wind chime and a hammock tied to two trees in the yard. While I’m at it, I also wish I had the ability to tan. But for now I guess I’ll just head down to Warehouse Wines and Liquors and start planning another summer weekend.