I spent this afternoon at a surprise birthday/anniversary party for my aunt and uncle in Queens, a big party with lots of family and friends. I didn’t recognize most of the people there, maybe only a quarter — we were like three or four separate parties, with just the one common bond — and the loud music made it difficult to talk with the relatives I did know. But the look of genuine surprise and tears of real joy on my aunt’s face made it all worthwhile. (My uncle had planned the event, so he wasn’t surprised.)
I will say this much, though: while I may be moving to Queens in the relatively near future, it won’t be to Maspeth. It looks nice enough, but I don’t think you could pick a spot less accessible to Manhattan or more poorly laid out. It’s a knot of streets and avenues and drives that don’t follow any logical pattern. When I first moved back to New York, I interviewed for a job at a map company. The night before, I consulted the company’s own map of the area, which amazingly still made finding them the day of extremely difficult. (Even with the same uncle, who’s lived there for decades, in the passenger seat, helping me navigate.)
This evening, I watched The Lady Vanishes, a strange but delightful mix of Hitchcockian humor and suspense. It’s equal parts tense and ridiculous.