It began as usual. My friends and I were going out to dinner on a Sunday night. But something was indeed different this evening, for New York City is having it's warmest day since last August. For 10 months now we have lived inside hospitable or cold weather and have done such a good job of it.
On the way out tonight, the weather was on my mind all day. It was beautiful here, not just pleasant but extraordinary. How often does life get extraordinary? For some it is often, but how often can you live in extraordinary until it doesn't seem so? Maybe we can ask Jenna and Barbara and Paris and Nicole about that. But rarely can media ask the overpriveliged about it without even seeming more banal , for what would they compare it to, maybe that's why we tune into the lives that fall from grace. Tonight I was one of the millions of priveliged as I walked around a truly great city and felt what it was like to be amongst 10 million priveliged people all at once.
When I went out tonight it was hot but pleasantly so, it was 87 and 6:45 in the evening. As I joined some friends tonight we joked about getting out of the heat while celebrating our entry into the gulfstream for a wonderful foray. Sorry I didn't capitalize gulfstream like a jet but it's a wind for all of us here.
Maybe it's time a clear, clean, warm wind blew for all of us. Tonight I wandered around in my shorts and short sleeved shirt and tan skin feeling like the male Carrie Bradshaw from "sex in the city" but then i realized everyone i walked past incredibly felt the same way, sexy and special. Even the tourist sauntered by me on the way home, clinging to each others arms not out of insecurity but out of passion. The warm air made us all comrades as we sauntered along the sidewalks towards our destinations. Even beggars on sidewalks glided towards us with their cups and wiley smiles and for once I gave them dollars instead of just sending it in to the NY Mission to feed the homeless or the NY Times Neediest Fund because whatever we felt tonight, nothing was stronger than our common humanity.
Two blocks from my place a very cute 30-something skated by and kissed me on the cheek in some street ballet I didn't realize I was even a part of. It was just so incredible to be alive tonight. Yes we may get Sarin in the subways tomorrow or a chlorine leak in NJ or Indian Point may be slammed into tomorrow by a Virgin Airlines jet but for tonight before I get home to watch the Tony's to celebrate the life in this old funky town, life is golden, truly golden.
And I wish all of this for you tonight.