Strictly Borough?

No, not me. Last night brought me through three boroughs--an exhausting, and mildly disorienting venture. I started, of course, in Brooklyn, left for Manhattan to have the people at Devachan yell at me for having my hair blown out too much, returned to Brooklyn to go to Queens for a birthday party, then back to Manhattan for yet another birthday party. My friend B.L. scoffed the other day when I suggested he meet me in Brooklyn even though he himself used to live here, and I'm afraid I was much the same before I moved here. But I proved myself truly reformed last night. H.H. brought us to Studio Square in LIC, deemed "the new Beer Garden." It certainly was new, almost like the Disney Land version of the original Bohemian Beer Garden. Sushi bar, Hamburgers, and Sangria too. Maybe that makes it more like Epcot. And H.H. is relatively new, too, turning an ignominious 22 years old. I begrudged her less when it became clear that I was not the oldest one there, though I was on my way to a 30th birthday celebration, that of my childhood friend, M.C. He and I grew up together, living about seven houses down from one another. There weren't many kids on our block in those days, and he and I were avid He-Man and She-Ra playmates. A brief search on E-Bay showed many He-Man action figure options--a missed opportunity. I will have to think faster (unlikely) when he turns 40. M.C.'s father was there last night, a man I hadn't seen in years and years, and all of a sudden, my mind was flooded with strange little snippets of memories, like him serving M and me flounder in their kitchen, and me picking the little bones out of the fish. Or when he dared me a penny to jump into the deep end of a neighbor's pool. He remembered my father's passion for Pagnol, and that my Grandpa lived in the same neighborhood we now found ourselves together in. I suppose, as an only child, it surprises me to find people in my life--who are not my parents--who know my family and me from the time of my childhood. People who have a reference base for my life unlike the overwhelming majority of my friends. I returned to Brooklyn for the night with a certain amount of borough travelin' pride--but secretly pleased that the next day would not lead me out King's County.