the chommo chronicles

.bye bye summer.

Summer doesn’t formally end for another five days, but there are signs aplenty that autumn is already upon us – stuffed backpacks on crowded subways, daily countdowns to the MLB playoffs, a sleepy sun that wakes up a little later each day, sartorially dissonant ladies with jackets and scarves on top and pedicured, be-thonged toes on the bottom. Pretty soon the leaves will start to change color, the jackets will get heavier, and the interminable wait for spring training will begin anew. I can’t say that I mind much – an astrological Libra through and through, I live for the briskly temperamental in-between seasons of autumn and spring. Summer makes me sweat and expose more of my raw chicken-colored skin* to the world than I care to and winter gifts me with perpetual hat hair and ashy, dry skin. 

Still, summer in NYC does bring with it some magical moments: street fairs, zeppoles, outdoor concerts, piraguas and Italian icies, Macy's 4th of July fireworks, the orgasmic moment of getting on a chilly subway car after idling for 30 minutes on the 34th street station platform.

But nothing in the New York summertime is quite as magical  – baroque - fascinating – as the Coney Island boardwalk.

.subway rules.

One of the best things about living in NYC is having access to a 24-hour public transportation system. Sure, the stations are dirty and smell like urine more often than not, and a sudden torrential downpour can shut down the entire B/Q line for the rest of the day, and you are often thrust into too-close contact with public masturbators and deodorant-haters. Still, there’s something to be said for being able to getting anywhere you want at any time of the day for the low-low price of $2.25. Believe me: I’ve taken the Noctilien bus in Paris.

But man oh man. There are some days – days like today, when all the kids who were mercifully absent from my commute for the last two months were heading, very loudly, into their first day of school, when I was all congested, scratchy-throated and drippy-nosed with a cold that I am praying to Santa Barbara and San Miguel is not the swine flu (pleasepleasepleasepleaseohplease) – when my fellow subway-riders get on my last damned nerve and I spend my entire commute rolled up into a hot ball of please-don't-touch-me commuter rage.

Really, the world would be a better place if people just followed my subway rules.

.sweet anticipation.

By this time next week,  my husband Kim Jong-Illmatic and I will be in upstate New York, enjoying the long Labor Day weekend in a rented luxury stone house along with six friends and their 3½ children (one adorably smiley toddler, one blue-eyed wonder of an infant, one gorgeous bruiser of newborn and a baby girl still resting in her mama’s belly).  We’re looking forward to long dinners and full wine glasses,* dips in the in-ground pool, treks to local farmers’ markets, visits to local art studios, and other grown-up things – things that perhaps signal that the days of staying out drinking all night until it was time to go hunt for a 24-hour diner that served meatloaf are a thing of the past, things that lead to a big, brightly-lit sign repeatedly pulsating “ADULTHOOD: YOU’VE ARRIVED.” 

While I am of course looking forward to all of this (aging-related ansias asisde), what I’m most anticipating is all the BAKING I’m set to be doing next weekend.

Ooooohhh.

Like Jennifer Love Hewitt back when she was the hotness, I can’t hardly wait. For the past few weeks, I’ve had nothing but visions of all-purpose and pastry flours, creamed sugars and butters, peaked egg whites, melting bittersweet chocolate, toasty nuts,** cream cheese frosting, and concoctions full sweet, sweet love.

.traveling while dominican.

My government job* of the past six years involves a lot of trips to places in Europe and Latin America, an occupational requirement that has turned me into a well-oiled business-traveling machine. I’ve got my routine down pat: pack only enough as will fit into my NY&Co** roller suitcase and black backpack; get to the airport two hours before my flight and breeze through check-in and security thanks to my Silver Medallion status***; isolate myself with my [ipod/laptop/trashy romance novel/silent judgment of parents with unruly children] until it’s time to board the plane; eat my crappy vegetarian mean; pop two Tylenol Simply Sleep, drink a Dewar’s on the rocks, and wake up on the other side of Atlantic. If I’m lucky, I get to head to my hotel for a few hours of actual sleep; if not, I go straight into meetings.

But this experience is completely, totally, unbelievably different that of my previous life as a traveler. Today I travel while armed with my laptop, itinerary, and corporate Amex card; back then, I traveled while Dominican.