2002-04-19 - 3:47 p.m.

For everyone bitching about how hot the Midwest and the East Coast have been this week, I have only one thing to say to you: You weren't recovering from surgery in a non-air-conditioned apartment on the third floor of a Brooklyn walkup in 96-degree heat on Wednesday.

So there.

Surgery? you ask. I answer, Minor, ass.

But the week has been good, despite heat, despite surgery, despite the creepy guy across the hall accosting me last night. (I know he's nuts, but I think he's also harmless.) Despite work being a drag both general (how am I going to have enough time for fun this summer?) and specific (how the hell am I going to turn in my sections before I fly to the D at the end of the month?).

But shit, how can I complain, "Been Caught Stealing" is playing on my headphones, it's Friday, and I'm a short few hours away from meeting up with Mariah at the Greenpoint Tavern, where we'll have a rather large beer and walk up to the actual neighborhood of Greenpoint to watch Powertrane and the Mooney Suzuki kick some hipster ass. (Kick harder, lads! HARDER!)

Powertrane is going to rock. I don't care how old those fellas are. Just check out the collective CV: Stooges, Rationals, Iggy Pop, Sonic's Rendezvous Band, Radio Birdman. I like the fact that one dude was in a band named after a song written by the former band of another dude. If I don't hear "City Slang" I'm gonna be pissed. Wait, no I won't; there's tons of other songs that those men have played/written that will rock me from Rockaway to Rye.

Also, Nami and I are going to paint my room tomorrow. Baby blue, baby.

Ah, and last night was gorgeous! We went out for a midnight stroll for some iced tea. The magnolias in the neighborhood are in full bloom, as are the lilacs. And the streets were crawling with people escaping apartment heat and savoring sweet nighttime air that actually felt like spring. We sipped and walked to the park and explored the new playground near the 9th St entrance. It's got a musical theme: fountains shaped like giant harps and horns that are "sinking" into the concrete, playable PVC structures, etc. Though it suffers from the child-proofing that's afflicted every playground in the last decade (i.e., lack of a real slide or monkey bars), the playscape more than makes up for that in its size and complexity. I've been sleeping surprisingly well through the heat wave.