Usual block updates linked below. The saying goes that everyone has a story, and I’m a big believer that half of you are walking around with some pretty fascinating and colorful thoughts in your heads. So at this point I remind all of you that the original conception of this endeavor was to be a cacophonous community sounding board. In different words: if you’ve got a thought and want to share it with the block, tell us what it is and we’ll (probably) post it, with attribution and likely even admiration. Now the other half is, I’m pretty sure, just like talking about how AI has changed the way you work. I am somehow incredible at finding myself across from this half at lunches and happy hours. To you I don’t have much to say other than that I’ve never used it and I’m not even really sure what it stands for.

We wrote a few weeks ago about mental health around the block, which based on the volume of antidepressants and anxiety medication prescribed to our addresses, is let’s say, suboptimal.  This week we met a board-certified psychiatrist named Eric (Dr. Eric Ross specifically, but I’m not big on titles), who showed up at my request to an event at Sogno Toscano technically thrown for a large group of summer associates, which is law-firm speak for summer interns.  After hearing the interns joke about a rather infamous incident last summer in their world in which another intern (known in the streets as the “Sidley biter”) was fired after biting 10 of her coworkers, Eric calmly and coolly explained the underlying reasons why the Sidley biter might have felt compelled to snack on her colleagues (former colleagues).

Block updates linked below. One of our members told me this last week that it is her goal to get rejected one way or the other at least a thousand times this calendar year.  I’ve been noodling on that since she said it and think it might be one of the most brilliant rules for living that I’ve ever heard—though Sam, might one achieve the same or similar effects with just like a couple fewer rejections? Wondering if there is any magic to four entire digits…  

Usual block updates linked below. Fireworks were mostly on the wrong/east side this year, but Happy 4th!

Mental health on our block; let’s talk about it. We’re informed by one of our neighbors who works in the mental healthcare space that based on the volume of antidepressants prescribed to our addresses (among other factors), we’ve got, to put it lightly, a bit of problem around here. 

We are reasonably certain at this point that the secret to happiness, or at the very least a good couple of days (the most you can ask for), lies in some combination of the following: (i) a slow morning, (ii) a good night’s sleep, (iii) lowering your expectations, (iv) seeing people you like or potentially might like face to face, (v) radical self-forgiveness, and (vi) recognizing that things could be so, so much worse.  Occasionally people write in to this block association and ask what the “mission” is, and while we don’t intend to ever really have a good answer to that question, it has something to do with (iv).  Unfortunately you are mostly on your own with respect to the other items, though we might be able to suggest some blackout shades or audiobooks to help with (ii).

We’re going to do the Equinox walkthrough at the soon-to-be new location next Saturday, June 27th, at 11am (thanks Dominick). It should take about 30 minutes; email us if you want to come.

Thanks to a few block residents for contributing to the website this week (Emma, Bailey, others) and to a few others for helping run the Instagram. I’ve gotten questions on what exactly to post on the Instagram and my advice is just—post whenever the feelings strikes you around the block. I tend to think pictures of actual humans might be nice if you can work up the nerve.

A couple people have written in asking how they can get involved here, which I appreciate.  The answer is if you have ideas for posts or initiatives or getting the word out, I’m all ears and will help organize.  The time commitment for you assisting is roughly equivalent to however long it takes you to write an email to us because I don’t have any grand ambitions here and this organization wasn’t formed in response to a problem we’re trying to solve.  We’re just trying to share a little curiosity and maybe create a third place so close to your first place that even you, dear scroller, can’t figure out a way to bail.

Hope we’re all good after the Jumanji-style blast around 8pm last night. A few updates for you. First, we now have an Instagram, and if you want to help run it, reach out to me; I’d like it to be a collective account. Requirement is that you are responsible, but only mildly. Second, one of your neighbors reached out to me and informed me that the website doesn’t load very well on mobile. I still don’t know exactly how to fix that but in the process of trying to figure it out, I stumbled across a page showing what the most popular page on the site is. It is Timothee Chalamet. Timothee Chalamet is bringing the block together. (Thank you Bailey for sending that in).

A few important and entirely frivolous block updates for you. Thanks to some of our neighbors for writing in.

Happy rainy Memorial Day. We’re going to fire this block association project up after being dormant for years. The website remains here. As a reminder, we cover the area 28th & 29th Streets between 10th & 11th Avenues (roughly) and the goal here is pretty modest—we chronicle the happenings around the West Chelsea/Hudson Yards area and maybe occasionally bring people together. Thank you to Leslie Boghosian Murphy, the vibrant chair of our community board (Community Board 4), and Susan Numeroff, the most interesting woman in the world, for encouraging us to fire this back up.