Weekly updates linked below.  First, we want to thank two members of the Chelsea Garden Club, Luis and Milton, for caring for some of our block tree pits for the last year; we had reported two weeks ago that the Horticultural Society of New York was responsible for the beautification, and it turns out that was only partially true.  Thanks also to those of you who wrote in about this, including Phyllis. 

The usual updates below. Two garden-related notes: First, we wrote a few weeks ago about the rooftop garden on the top ofthe Post Office building, and I now have a modest dream that a group of us will go up there for a tour or maybe even a gathering.  If you have a connection to Tishman Speyer, the leaseholder of the top floors of Morgan North, or Newmark, the real estate advisor hired to sub-lease the space, please let us know.  Thus far our tactics have ranged from sending emails to both followed by a light “just following up” or a “just bringing this to the top of your inbox,” yet to no avail.  I get it though. 

One of my most charismatic friends will tell you that the secret to everyone liking you is walking around with the baseline assumption that everyone already likes you and thinks you’re beautiful.  Now, I will be the first to admit that something about the words “she wants me bro” hits my ear wrong, both as a phrase and as a feeling, particularly when coming from a male voice and when “she” is like a bartender pre-tip who just courtesy laughed at your uncomfortable joke.  But the more I think about it, the more I realize that you’ve got to spend a lot more time in your own head, alone, than telling me about that flirtatious bartender at Whitman’s.  And so you know what?  I agree with you.  She wants you, bro.   

The usual updates linked below.  The organizer(s) behind this endeavor will be out of office next week and attempting to learn to surf, by which we likely mean just repeatedly falling into the ocean as an overly tanned Lachlan or Callum or something tells us we’re doing something wrong with our shoulders.  Is it the feet or the shoulders, Lachlan? 

The usual block updates linked below.  New York is, when brought to the logical conclusion of its most terrifying form, the long hallway of an apartment building.  Get off the elevator; walk towards your apartment; face an unnerving and almost disturbing quiet given that you know there are people all around (right? right??), yet you’ve never met them and they’re all behind just-closed doors.  Get safely in your apartment and behind a just-closed door yourself.

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).