Lame Lundi.

This is a Monday morning in desperate need of a James Brown/Jimi Hendrix mix on Pandora. I paid my 99 cents, I can do that. Maybe later I’ll mix in some showtunes, but my disposition isn’t so sunny at the moment. It’s more muggy than anything. Especially considering the AC was nonexistant on the V train to work this morning. I eventually had to put the book away because I couldn’t concentrate.

Though I can’t concentrate on this book much anymore. I might retire mid-book for the first time in months. It’s just a schlep that doesn’t feel worth it.

One step closer to getting our dream apartment. Fingers crossed!

Oh, hello, inbox. You’re looking increasingly foreboding this morning.

Clurbs & Humps. (It’s a euchre thing.)

If anything can simultaneously drive me completely out of the city and make me fall in love with it again, it’s summer.

But, me being me, I’m leaning toward being completely driven out. Let’s fast forward to fall. Weather where I can wear shorts and a hoodie. Always been kinda my thing.

Rain finally decided to show up tonight, and — though welcome considering the humidity sucked your breath right from your core for the past few days — it came just as the New York Philharmonic was winding down its set on the Great Lawn of Central Park. Lots of lightning, no fireworks, thousands of New Yorkers mass exodus-ing from the lawn.

But good conversation can revive an otherwise dim week. And I was once again on a winning euchre team last night — that’s three games in a row right now, I think. Or maybe four. Let’s say four.

My friends love Central Park because they can still see the buildings; they know they’re still in New York. I have trouble agreeing. I like my great lawns to be great lawns, with nothing but a few trailers, tents or farmhouses to spot it. No highrises peeking over the trees.

I’m complaining to the wrong people. Then again, I don’t think I’m really complaining to anyone, so it’s the whole tree-falls-in-the-forest thing. I’m not complaining.

Though I did get shushed at the symphony tonight. Two hundred yards from the stage. Among thousands of New Yorkers. Really, lady?

Maybe if I can free myself of Mystery Illness or I can break from my insanely tight budget or girls don’t get murdered two blocks away, I’ll loosen up. Until then, I’m sprawling out at free events, then locking myself in my apartment and reading the gajillion books I’m supposed to have finished by September. Ha.

…of our own device.

Every now and then I find it liberating — sexy, even — to be a grownup. Tonight it comes from the fact that in the last hour I felt a mad sweet craving, went to the grocery store to grab essentials and procured a dozen butterscotch scones. All without setting off the fire alarm. (I say this not because I’m a bad cook, but because the smoke alarm in my apartment reacts loudly to the most minor of offenses. I’m still nervous to go pull my rainboot/door prop away and cut off air circulation.)

There lives something inherently American about staying up to watch late-night talk shows. In theory, they provide comfort, solace, almost a lullaby. To an outsider, they look stable. They fit into a structure. It’s like thinking about the American tradition of the family vacation; looking in it feels uplifting, warm — it looks like nonstop happiness. Ugh, have you ever taken a family vacation? Especially if your family in any way involves teenage girls.

So here lies (lays, leis, loos) my dilemma. Do I watch Conan for mild entertainment and a sort of outsider comfort, only to wake up at 6:30 for a planned morning yoga, half-sleep while listening to New York’s Best Classic Rock on my alarm, and finally pull myself out of bed at 7:07? Or do I retire my inherent American perception of what was once the only market in television after 10 p.m. and instead turn to baking, blogging, and reading Terry Pratchett?

I fear I’ve made my decision. Goodnight, all.