magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

I thought it a little odd that I had heard about relatively few 4th of July plans leading up to today. But I had some work to do this morning, and figured that something would come up. (To be fair, Marie was planning to find a suitable fireworks viewing spot on the Queens waterfront, and had invited me, twice, but I was holding out for a rooftop.) As late afternoon was turning into early evening I decided to give Chris a call. 'Where are you at?' he asked.

'At home. What's the scoop? Have you heard of anything going on?'

'You didn't get a message from Jessie?'

'No. Why? What is she up to?'

'They're all having a picnic in Prospect Park. I guess she just assumed I'd tell you. I'm in SoHo with Sarah. We just ate pizza. You should come down and meet us here.' 45 minutes later, off the train, there's a voicemail. 'We're headed out to a rooftop party at OfficeOps. You know where that is, right? I guess what I'm saying is: Get back on the train.'

I managed to catch them before they got on the subway, and the three of us walked up to Union Square to catch the L. Half way out to Brooklyn Sarah decided that because she had to work tomorrow she really couldn't go out tonight, and hopped off the train to catch it back the other way and then on to New Jersey.

'So, do you think they'll be a cover charge at this party?' I asked Chris.

'I don't know. Maybe. What are you willing to pay?'

'I'd rather watch the fireworks for free somewhere. $5 maybe. If it included beer.' It ended up being $15. 'Why don't I give Adam a call and see what they're up to.' I got his voicemail. 'Hey, it's Bean. I'm in the old neighbourhood with Chris, and we were going to this party at OfficeOps, but there's a $15 cover, so I figured I'd give you a call and see if you're up to anything, or have people over to watch the fireworks from your roof. If you get this message soon, give me a call back. Otherwise we'll probably head out to Park Slope, and I'm sure I'll see you sometime later this summer.'

Walking back down into the subway we crossed paths with Liz and Kerry. 'We're headed to Adam's,' Liz said. 'Is that where you're coming from?'

'No. I just called him to see what was up, but got his voicemail. Are they having a barbecue thing? Is it exclusive? Will we be crashing it if we tag along?'

'Actually I didn't even talk to Adam. I got a message from Caitlin.'

'So you're already crashing.'

As it happened, it wasn't really a 4th of July thing. Adam and Becky were silkscreening in the back yard, the start of their new clothing line venture. And a few other people were hanging out. They had cooked up some veggies on the grill earlier, and there were a few cans of beer kicking around. They screened a green octopus (septipus, really) on my heather-pink shirt. But they were all headed out to Long Island City to watch the fireworks from the roof of Silvercup Studios (an exclusive party), so Chris and I decided to see if we could jet down to Julia's in Park Slope.

On the way out I asked Adam when he was going to get around to doing a real barbecue this summer. 'I'm planning something for the end of the month,' he said noncommittally.

'It doesn't have to be a huge blow-out bash with bands and circus acts and hundreds of people. You could do a couple smaller parties, like the ones from two summers ago. Mostly just RISD kids. 30 or 40 people tops.' I don't think he was sold, even though apparently the final barbecue of last year got so out of hand that I can't imagine why he'd want to risk repeating it.

By the time that Chris and I finally got a car (about 9:10) there didn't seem to be any chance that we'd get to Park Slope before the fireworks had started. Possibly before the were over. But the driver decided to take the BQE, where traffic was at a standstill once the fireworks did start, as everyone stopped or slowed down to watch from their cars. (The people without views, or who were just generally impatient, honked incessantly throughout.) It took us an hour and a half to get from Bushwick to Park Slope, but we actually ended up with a decent enough view of the fireworks from lower Manhattan barge for most of the show. The subway would have gotten us there is about a quarter of the time, but we would have likely missed the whole thing underground.

The party had thinned out by the time we got there, but there were still people hanging out, and there was still beer to be drunk, and there was still the errant firework going off here and there around us. By 1:00AM pretty much everyone had left, even though very few of us have "real" jobs, the beer was gone, and Matt and Julia wanted to get to bed, so I headed home.