The last weekend of summer this year is all wet and desperate. If I concentrate I can find omens!

Today my NYU buddy list was heavier than it had been in months. So many people online, not idle, screening each other through dummy away messages. It only took me a minute to realize they were all back at school studying.

Luckily not everyone is in lower Manhattan, in the library. My roommate, a close friend and classmate, is watching a spelling bee movie on her brand new aerobed. THIS is civilization! So is lying prone on my own bed for a half hour or so, face in the wet window, listening to a bongo drummer across the backyards.

So I gave myself the day. I finished a decent book and walked to the nearest two used bookstores to find more by the same author. No luck. There was a ranking of 100 books hanging up, and the first four sucked (Joyce, Nabokov, Joyce, Fitzgerald). I was tempted to look for the fifth on the shelves, since it was ranked so high. I resisted.

It was raining so I ran home, nearly sideswiping some strollers. Here's a secret: most of the time, I don't mind sharing my neighborhood with kids. I can't begrudge them Park Slope because I imagine they're so much happier than kids who grow up in the woods.

Dogs don't chase them. When they do, the rumors that the dogs are actually coyotes are less credible. Roads and restaurants surround the trees, instead of vice versa, so kids have no reason to believe that nature is a threat to civilization. That probably makes summer camp less stressful. And they don't have to drive a half hour just to glimpse a brand name, meaning their carsick little brothers throw up on them less often.

Best of all, their moms have jobs! (I know this because the only young white women in the park on weekdays are dirty grad students like me.) Employed moms are great. I imagine you don't get sick of them around age 19, they don't yell at you for bringing down the win ratio on solitaire, and they have more money.

Anyway, so off-campus life is all heartwarming. But how about this day... I'm going to cap it off with a "mixer" at school. A luscious 25 minutes away. People I don't like will be there. I've convinced myself it's not worth it to crack a book. By the time I check the syllabus and pick out a highlighter, it will be almost time to shower because checking the syllabus takes 2 hours because it hurts so much.

Hey, classes will be better than researching mo-peds for Legal Aid though!