As usual, July unfolded slowly and not without some fear. It began with the dentist, which wasn't too dreadful, before I moved into jury duty -- always a source of obsessive dread -- before landing in the present heat wave from hell. I tried to distract myself with small pleasures and observations to support the idea that despite the staggering denial in which we collectively exist, the end of world was not imminent; for example, I spent time watching the local spiders and admiring their intricate, gossamer webs.
When we first moved here, the backyard was filled with flies, but as the trees and flowers took hold, the spiders somehow learned about it and moved in. They've been doing good work ever since. Was it too late for me to start a new career as a spider?
Clio, who supervises the spiders, likes to patrol the garden two and ideally three times each day. She begins with an aerial view from the deck before she heads into the vegetation, looking for traces of her enemies: namely, rats (thankfully only in theory these days) and stray cats, who sometimes spend the night under the hellebores and ferns.
Each morning before jury duty, I biked downtown on an electric Citi Bike or ebike, which was a good opportunity to think about how ebikes are easily the fastest way to get anywhere in Manhattan and to question why they are not subsidized when we (as a society) should be ramping up bike infrastructure and ridership, and doing everything possible to discourage driving (cars and especially SUVs). Also, the bike lanes -- even the protected ones -- in Manhattan are treacherous and basically wtf is wrong with our stupid city? In Paris, the Rue de Rivoli has been converted into two gigantic bikes lanes and New York City allocates about 18 inches of space for thousands of bikes. In short, biking around the city continues to be a source of exhilaration and bitterness. My one hope for Mayor Eric Adams when he entered office was that he might do something to improve the city's random, hazardous bike infrastructure -- he at least knows how to ride a bike, unlike de Blasio -- but Eric Adams has one item on his agenda, which is giving money to the police. (Actually two items if you count pretending that Covid doesn't exist.) (Actually three if you count partying.)
I was surprised and not surprised to find the area around City Hall and the courthouses depopulated and militarized. Many commercial spaces were vacant. There were a lot of cops, SUVs, and metal barriers preventing pedestrians from walking across formerly public plazas. This is the future of the United States, I thought, and then corrected myself: No, this is the present. Small remnants of urban anarchy and chaos could be found, thanks to the neighborhood's proximity to Chinatown. As I waited in the security line, I longed to be doing high kicks and light calisthenics with these older women (i.e., my age) instead of participating in the prison-industrial complex. I would have taken more pictures of jury duty but my phone was confiscated even though the website said that 'jurors are permitted to bring one (1) cell phone to the courthouse.' When I queried this misinformation, I was told that they wanted jurors to bring the cell phones to the courthouse so that we could answer the Covid questions, but we were not allowed to have them in the courthouse. 'Why can't you explain that on the website?' I asked the jury clerk, who shrugged. I would have complained more, but I was worried that the clerk might take revenge and keep me for two weeks in a large room with 150-200 people.
I went through voir dire (the questioning of potential jurors) twice and did not make the cut. When the judge asked if any of us had moral objections to serving, I thought, how could you not? I didn't actually say that, but other features of my background made me an unlikely selection for the jury. I felt sad watching the other jurors get questioned about their hobbies: so many of them answered 'shopping on Amazon.' One guy answered 'getting ordered around by my wife,' and everyone laughed like we were in a sit-com, even though an actual defendant was in the room awaiting trial for crimes that could land him in prison for many years. In contrast, I was released from jury duty after three days.
Later that week, I went to Sandy Hook, which is a beach/state park in northern New Jersey (that looks like a hook). I had heard a lot of good things about it over the years, and a friend invited me to go for the day. Waiting for the ferry, I worried that we might end up in Ikea. But I remained full of complaints about our neoliberal infrastructure: seriously, why is the ferry to Ikea 'FREE' while the ferry to Sandy Hook is $47.00 USD? I dreamed of living in a different dimension where the government invested in public transit and made it accessible to all. (And where the planet wasn't overheating.)
Sandy Hook used to be a military base, which meant there were a lot of decrepit houses to admire. It was also a pretty day, with bright skies and just enough cloud coverage to keep the sun from feeling oppressive (in contrast to now, for example).
The beach grass was lovely. This is what the earth will look like in 10,000 years when the remains of our present civilization have been mostly buried by nature.
A school bus ferried us across an enormous parking lot for private automobiles and dropped us at the path to the beach. Being gay, we selected the gay beach, which was also clothing optional. I had never been to a clothing-optional beach. I imagined something remote and windswept, dotted with naked beachgoers who would drift in and out of the waves like water naiads before disappearing back into the dunes.
In fact, it looked like this.
I wasn't deterred. I ate lunch and napped and swam for a few hours until it was time to go back to the bus: in short, I did everything I expected to do at the beach. It was relaxing and made me wish it were easier (and less expensive) to get to the beach from Washington Heights. Spending a day at a nude beach made me think that probably all beaches should be clothing optional, because nudity stops being titillating when it's everywhere. I mean, sure it's (sometimes) fun to look, but it's kind of like, okay, this person has a body, they are using it to move through time and space, welcome to the club.
But somehow I don't think our country is ready to be more relaxed about nudity, given how unrelaxed we are about everything else that strays beyond the narrowest confines of proper sexual conduct and appearance as defined by the Christian right. Could our country be any worse right now? Sadly, I think we all know that the answer is yes.
Back home, I spent time with Zephyr, who is turning sixteen in August. I hate to admit it, but he's getting old.
He was not the only one, I realized, as I checked the forecast.
Lovely trip! I once got a second-degree burn on my exposed parts at Black's Beach in La Jolla. (Marines at Camp Pendleton liked to take time off, visit Black's and ogle the gals; the queer guys ogled the Marines.) Of course, I had dropped blotter acid and my friends just let me bake.
Posted by: Jeff Weinstein | 07/22/2022 at 07:03 PM
I've always wished for a world that contained extensive bike roads - just paths, only for bikes, anywhere you wanted to go. As it stands now I can barely leave my house on a bike, as I live on a 2-lane road with no shoulders. I loved your thoughts on the nude beach, "this person has a body, they are using it to move through time and space, welcome to the club." If only everyone thought like that!
Posted by: Sarah | 07/26/2022 at 03:01 PM