hearting NY

Reason number 253 to heart New York: The summer time.

(stupid puggle just licked my whole face!)

• Summerstage at Central Park: picnic blankets on bare grass under the trees, sunshine, dogs, friends, and copious amounts of wine and champagne. Oh, plus your buds Gilles Peterson and Jamie Lidell performing live as your soundtrack to the perfect lazy summer Sunday afternoon.
  
• Rooftop parties.
  
• Outdoor dinners with the sun still up.
  
• Never-ending happy hours.
  
• Beers are ok pre-noon time, or anytime for that matter.
  
• There is *always* something to do and the hardest decision is fitting everything in.

Reason number 254 to heart New York: You could live a lifetime here and still never have enough time to do everything.

• Kanye West concert at Madison Square Garden. I'm not even really a fan, but tickets were offered and I couldn't pass them up. And hey, it's Kanye, self-proclaimed "biggest superstar in the world." The pleasant surprise for me though was when N.E.R.D. opened. God bless Pharell.
  
• Discovering new haunts and old friends. Old friend Anton spun at new club Love in the West Village, with its sprawling dance floor, waterfalls-as-projector-screens, dark beehive-like caves with cushions, all of it combining to induce a coma of nightlife downtempo.
  
• The Wackness at the Angelika Theatre. Coming-of-age story of a teen drug dealer, his pot-smoking psychiatrist, and the city itself, against the backdrop of the pre-September 11 NYC (one scene features the brilliant Ben Kingsley sitting on a Brooklyn bench across the Twin Towers), and the then-incoming Guiliani era that set in motion a wave of changes to result in the safer and less gritty NY we know today, all set to the beat of thumping 1994 NYC hiphop (think Biggie).

I laughed, I cried, I drank, I danced, and I fell in love with New York all over again.