Yesterday’s 18.3 mile walk to Fresh Pond and back was not intended to break some personal record for relentless walking. I had no intention of entering Beth-El cemetery, of feeling trapped on Cypress Hills Street, of discovering that there is a Bleecker Street in Queens.
The total moving time was almost 8 hours. I got home and took a break on the couch, feeling I could walk another 18 miles.
The weather? Completely perfect. I love the hot sun pouring onto my face and other exposed flesh. Yesterday’s sun was just the right tonic, swabbing my face with the smile of good health and embracing my arms and legs.
Summertime sunlight in New York is almost perfect compared to the metallic, hard light of Florida, where 3:30-4:30pm was the oven hour when I grew up there. If (when) I consider moving to other parts of the country I should remember my enthusiasm for the climate here. I look forward to both summer and winter, and miss them both in their absence.
More than once yesterday I felt lost. I consulted smartphone mapping apps, which made me feel more lost than the old days, when a Hagstrom pocket map of the 5 boroughs stood still, not twitching or spastically lurching about, doing nothing more than providing a sense of where the hell I am. Or was.
Those were good maps. The current crop of map apps… not so much. Bloated with overpaid developer smarts and, to repeat, bloated ambition.
Honest directionless wandering opens up the world as no mapping app can. Who knew there was Polish enclave in Fresh Pond? An Asian enclave on Grand Avenue approaching Queens Boulevard. Not I. They don’t show you that on the map apps. There is no ethnic heat map on these otherwise incompetent apps that waste thousands of their users’ hours every single day.
I was at the wedding of two friends some years ago. As a singleton I was seated at a table with 5 couples, the intention of the bride and groom being that I would sit next to a certain intellectual dude.
I ended up between two extremely non-talkative couples who honored the American stigma against single men, addressing me only as needed (pass the pepper?).
All 5 couples at the table had driven by car to the event, in a not-exactly-obscure location in Long Island City, Queens.
All 5 couples had relied on a certain search engine’s mapping directions to get there.
All 5 couples got completely and in one case even terrifyingly lost.
Three of the couples ended up driving in circles around a menagerie of Brooklyn parking lots.
One couple found itself on Shore Boulevard in Astoria Park, nowhere near the wedding venue.
The last couple had its car spanked by bored guttersnipes standing around under a stop light in faraway Two Coves, Astoria.
Everyone present who used this search engine’s mapping app got completely lost, but for some reason only branding and hype can explain they all pledged to use that app next time.
I would bet cash money that these folks still use that mapping app today, despite the fact that it doesn’t fucking work.
Cypress Hills Street felt like a turkey shoot. I thought I was going Queens-ward but sensed from reality and not app maps that this was wrong.
Somewhere in the Congregation Shearith Israel Cemetery I ran into a fence, turning back to Cypress Hills Street in defeat having thought there would be an exit to this cemetery that could give me some time in my journey that did not include that claustrophobic street.
It was not a good day but I emerged from it surprisingly unsore, and without spending a single dollar of real money. That Dunkin’ Donuts gift card got me home.
I passed the M train at Fresh Pond Road. I am in austerity mode, not even spending money on subway or bus fare. Friday should be when I get the bounty from my IRA, minus thousands of dollars in taxes and penalties. I am not happy about that, and my accountant made me feel like a loser for cashing out even this pittance. But maybe Friday will be the day I use the subway again.
Everyone has different notions of what represents poverty. I would be an asshole if I thought I was living in poverty between now and the end of the year. I lost thousands of dollars today on the IRA cashout. I have no one to blame but myself for letting my work sink into oblivion. I can’t figure out how to get the KML file from yesterday’s trek to post to the OSM plugin. I’m going to deep fry some chicken.
