Three Days of Spring?

I'm looking out my window right now and it's a veritable Disneyland of springtime: birds chirping, sun shining...all I need now is some squirrels to help me get dressed and I'll feel like a regular Cinderella. I know it's not just the Florida girl in me who thinks IT TOOK SO LONG FOR SPRING TO GET HERE. New Yorkers have been complaining about it for weeks, as we complain about almost every weather situation that's not spring or fall. What on earth was this miserable cold in the middle of March? What's with all the rain, Mother Nature? But now it's almost like homegirl's done with her mood swings and we get to have a real spring.

It's 70 degrees-ish and sunny today, so beautiful that I am begrudging myself for being inside and writing. The plan today is to walk as much as possible, perhaps the exact opposite of what the last four months have been. Knowing what our "fall" was like this past year--short, just barely leather jacket-y enough to walk around and see those leaves change--I'm worried spring will be the same. But, as Maw Manhattan always says, just because something's around for a short time doesn't mean you shouldn't enjoy it!

The speed at which the months have passed by is amazing--imagine, we are already a third of the way through this year. The Tribeca Film Festival is on its way, the Vulture Festival is coming up, as are weekends spent on my rooftop and also at Coney Island, Brighton Beach, and Manhattan Beach. I'm already booking events well into June. All I feel are possibilities, for the first time in weeks. That's such a spring cliche, I know, but after what seems like 5 months of winter, it's nice to see a little sunshine and feel a little warmth, you know?

I'm in for a big change in the next few months: I have to move! I've lived in the same apartment for four years, which I'm told is very unusual in New York, but still. As the warm weather rolls around and I want to roll around in it, it means I also have to start packing up my life and finding a new apartment. New York real estate is, as anyone will tell you, one of the worst things in the history of ever. Though, to be fair, it's probably a lot better than it was in the 1950s, when there was one moving day for the entire city. At least my roommates and I get to do this on (mostly) our own time. I have no doubt I will write about that experience as it happens; I'm sure it'll be one for the books--as moving always is, isn't it?--though of course I hope everything only goes smoothly (famous last words, I hope not).

Today I will walk to the International Center of Photography for their fundraiser photo book sale; I will bum around downtown and take pictures; I will be relaxing in a park or two and read my books; I will have thai food with AS and I will go to Brooklyn for JR's birthday. I'm just glad it's a season where I don't have to trudge through the snow to do all of it. So, on this beautiful spring day, from my warm Manhattan heart to yours, Happy Spring! It took long enough to get here, oy.