QUICK PLUGS FOR THE HOMIES:

1. LLA S-Tier friend Emily Bice is premiering her freaking play, Before the Flood, at the Chain Theatre in NYC from September 8th - 18th!! This is an amazing achievement for anyone, but it was also inevitable because Emily is a genius. Read about her reimagining of the Noah’s Ark myth here, and get your tickets ASAP.

2. The funniest man alive, Julian Schwartz, is premiering his documentary Becoming Skeeps Rob in just two days. Keep your eyes peeled for the film dropping on August 28. We would follow Julian to the end of the earth.

It’s a tale as old as time: you age out of Brooklyn’s vibrant, ever-expanding energy; your domicile grows too big, pressed up against the creaking walls of your $3700-a-month 1br with a small office; your libido plummets precipitously. And so you move upstate. You stuff a U-Haul trailer with all your vintage furniture from Dobbin St., all your free books from the steps of the Park Slope former Village Voice editors’ homes, even the Staub cocotte with which you would cook Dua Lipa’s roast chicken recipe—you cram it in there, hook it up to the back of your Subaru Impreza, and set out on the road. You wave goodbye to your chosen familia before turning the ignition—ope! The BeReal notification went off! What serendipity! Time to take one last photo with the homies. Now, yes, it’s time to leave for good. Don’t worry—it’s not for long, and it’s not that far. Just up 87 for a while. It’s not goodbye for real.

I did this last week and tried to move up to Syracuse. Unfortunately, I kept getting stymied by the Onondaga Lake Parkway Bridge. This was me:

All my shit got completely fucked, so then I tried again in a couple days. Ah fuck:

Goddammit. The dastardly bridge! This pesky little adversary! I tried again with an Amazon truck a few days later, but unfortunately “bigger” did not mean “better”:

This is so fucked. How the hell am I supposed to move all my dope shit upstate in a clean break, loaded with emotional weight and marking a new chapter in my life, if this low-cut ass bridge keeps getting in my way?

Are you kidding me, dude? Alright. How about this…

OK. I guess this just isn’t going to work.

Well, I’ll make it there one day.

Ritam’s Footnote

You moved?? Then who’s been having horrible splatty diarrhea in your room for the past week straight??