Today’s soundtrack: Do you remember promises, promises
Today at 6:32pm: Walking into a Crosby Street bar (ñ) and walking right back out.

If you had an infrared satellite cam trained on New York City on a late summer Sunday, you’d see lots of hotspots. You’d see the sharply rendered hum of a/c exhausts and, zooming closer, the vaguely humanoid forms of sweaty people.

You’d also see an assload of raw, shimmering hotspots, and those would be barbecues. People firing up their grills in courtyards, alleyways, rooftops, fire escapes. In groups of one to twenty, grilling everything from ground chuck to indulgent porterhouses. Gathered around the fire, the humanoids, standing and sitting. Eating and forgetting.

Time is money, and the situation on Earth 2002 dictates you trade precious hours of your life so you can put a roof over it. I like the barbecue because it speaks of leisure. You’re not under the roof anymore; there are thirty faster ways for you to get a meal right around the corner, but you go outside with the other boys and girls and fix the meal yourselves.

I spent last Sunday concentrating on a hamburger amidst friends and acquaintances, looking out over the East River from the Jersey side. All of us ate and then the sun went down quick. There was that beautiful ten minutes when Manhattan turns gold, right before the sun descends somewhere into Brooklyn.

The summer shot by like a cannonball, like a flaming arrow, like 1987. Back then I was mastering the intricacies of downshifting and parallel parking, under the late ‘80s sun, a Billy Idol/Generation X tape in the dash keeping time through tinny speakers.

I swear I looked up for just a second and everything changed. The dashboard shifted shape, the surrounding car twisted from a Datsun to a Volkswagen. The music coming through the speakers is different. I gained fifteen years and a job and an Internet and ex-girlfriends I’d rather forget. Some people stopped breathing, others started. Reagan descended into madness and Asian food became popular.

I wiggle the stick back into reverse and finish parking. The first time I parked the Datsun in the city I was worried I’d forget where I left it. I don’t have to worry about things like that anymore.