It’s a Tuesday in early August in New York. And damn hot. But miserable as these conditions may sound, there are smart, energy-efficient ways to beat the heat. One solution is detailed below, with expert demonstration by a seasoned city dweller:

1. Find a spot in the apartment with ample room to sprawl out. Your position should be located strategically between open windows and oscillating fans for maximum circulation. Consider your preference for sun or shade, and gauge the sunbeam trajectory throughout the course of the afternoon.

2. Place yourself in your chosen spot in the following fashion: Lie on your back, belly up, legs extended, and tail out. Now, do everything in your power not to break this pose for as long as possible. Nothing else exists. The phone does not exist. Emails are not streaming in. There are no deadlines. No meetings. No errands. All you have to pay attention to is the back of your second set of eyelids, for the next God knows how long.

3. When at last you’ve returned to consciousness from your first extended nap of the afternoon, take a stretch by slowly shifting your front legs (or arms) to the opposite side of your body. As you begin to turn your head in the same direction, your lower half will follow suit. This will also afford you a view of what other creatures in the room are up to. You can yawn now.

4. Once you’re all settled into your new pose, you’re ready to drift back to sleep and wait for either (1) the temperature to drop, or (2) feeding time, whichever comes first.

“As far as I’m concerned, the whole point of living in New York City is indoors. You want greenery? Order the spinach.”
—David Rakoff, from the essay “In New England Everyone Calls You Dave,” collected in his book Fraud.

“One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes—I can’t even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there’s a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life.”
—Frank O’Hara, from the poem “Meditations in an Emergency”

The crowd at David Byrne’s free concert in Prospect Park, Brooklyn—rain forecast be damned. June, 2009.

Um, really?

One of my very favorite things about New York in summertime is that everyone seems to up and move outdoors. The park is our backyard. The rooftop turns into the living room. The stoop becomes the kitchen. The fire escape: the den.

I’ve always chalked the phenomenon up to we New Yorkers’ lack of indoor space. Our apartments are just so tiny—there sure ain’t room for a decent-size get-together. If the weather’s right, let’s just spill out into the street. Plus it’s so hot and muggy; no window a/c unit is going to churn out cold air fast enough for this crowd, and no indoor space is going to be as well-ventilated as plein air.

It’s a treat to walk down my block and hear other folks’ music pumping out of speakers pressed up to the window screens (usually), smell what they’ve got on the grill, see the colorful buffet all set out, and run the gauntlet of kids steering bikes and scooters across the sidewalk, oblivious to adults (so far up!) with something to do, someplace to be.

But then maybe the writers I quoted above were talking about Manhattan. I haven’t been there in years (well—called it home, anyway). When I go back for a visit (almost daily), the lovely human-scale buildings seem to be disappearing as fast as Bush supporters, and slick glass high-rises are the way of the future. What if a person wants to set up a lawn chair out front? What if I want to have a Saturday stoop sale? What if we want to throw a rooftop party? The answer, I guess, is: Move to Brooklyn.