On Saturday, at my request, we went to Coney Island specifically to ride the Cyclone, an antique wooden roller coaster that has been looming at the southern tip of Brooklyn since the beginning of time. It was constructed long before loops or over-the-shoulder harnesses were invented, and is really nothing more than a series of hills and turns, and hill-turn combos. Its wooden body is painted white, red, and rotten, and its undercarriage looks like the underside of high school bleachers, when they're all pushed together against the wall. Lots of criss-crossing slats at sharp angles that poke holes in my trust.

I've always liked roller coasters, but I admit that the only thing that makes me okay with them is the rationalization that roller coaster deaths are rare, and the probability of my car being the one to fly from the tracks has got to be reassuringly low. (All of the ride-deaths happen at the state fair, don't you know.) In any case, any misgivings I have about roller coasters undergo a transformation somewhere between my brain and my mouth, because if you ask me what I think of them, I'll tell you I think they're awesome.

I don't really know why I haven't ridden the Cyclone before now. Part of it, I guess, is that I'm partial to the loop (though I hate its headache-inducing cousin, the corkscrew), and I'm not as fond of hills. It also probably has a lot to do with the line of people that's permanently attached to the ride, curling around the elderly beast like a long tail.

This past weekend the line was comparatively short, which was nice, because I was determined to ride the Cyclone regardless. While we inched forward, we could hear the combined sounds of screaming and the loud rush of the car sailing down a steep hill. To my right, I noticed a light bulb that was fused to a beam of the roller coaster, hanging on desperately, completely hollowed by years of decay. No one had bothered to replace it in, I don't know, 50 years. Reassuring! To my left, I saw a 400-pound carnie who looked like he hadn't stood up in, I don't know, the same amount of time. His weight was distributed as if it had, over the years, formed itself around the chair he'd been sitting on since he last got up to change the light bulb. He sat on the other side of the tracks, taunting the Cyclone riders with insults, before pushing a simple lever forward and sending them on their way.

After I climbed into the car (bruising myself on the way in), I shoved my bags at my feet, thinking that since we weren't going upside down, there was no need to fully secure them. However, as soon as we eclipsed the first hill, I realized that the Cyclone wasn't kidding, and that it was going to jerk us around the way you shake a can of spray paint. As a result, I was forced to slide down in my seat and create a "ceiling" with my legs in an effort to combat both gravity and inertia. By the time the ride was over, my leg muscles were cramp-ridden, and I'd gained a limp. My head was damaged, too, from the violent shaking it had endured.

The whole experience was not unlike what it would feel like to get beaten up, I think, except that you pay $5 for the opportunity. (I'm glad I did it, anyway.) Todd suggested that it was probably like what it would feel like to BE Coney Island, which, if you don't know, is a pretty abused and forsaken place. (Albeit one that's totally endearing.)

Joy dressed us up in clothing she bought from a well known store. She told us to be careful with it, and made us wear special non-sweating deodorant so that she could return the items when we were finished. She drew liquid eyeliner just above my lashes and filled my hair with blond bobby pins and hairspray, until the top of my head looked like the hump of a camel. The other girls in the room asked if she would give them the same treatment sometime.

We changed clothes in the hot car while listening to an old Madonna cassette tape. Just as we were ready, it began to pour, so the four of us waited in the small square vestibule of a random apartment building, pressing ourselves against the wall whenever deliveries came through or people wanted their mail. The sun came out and left and came out again, and the wind whipped water at our temporary building in horizontal sheets. It took a long time for the weather to relax.

Jena chose the locations (brightly painted chipped walls) and instructed us how to position ourselves (look down, move your chin to the left) while she took pictures. Normally it would make me uncomfortable to be the subject, but I didn't feel much like myself and therefore didn't mind, even when curious strangers stopped to look.

I'd had too much coffee that morning (because it didn't seem to be working), and by the end of the day I could barely talk without slurring, I was so tired. So I unwisely drank another giant cup, which made me remarkably uncomfortable and gave me Invisible Skin Snakes. (I generally don't drink much coffee, which was part of the problem.) It didn't take long for the surge to reverse itself, but it kindly left the snakes behind, as well as the energy of a mop.

When I got home I took my hair down, my fingers searching for bobby pins in a tangled nest of Aqua Net. Upon completion, I looked like I'd been electrocuted.

Last night Kathryn and I went to see the band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at the Southside Seaport, on a stage underneath empty sails and skyscrapers. We stood in line for Stella-Artois-in-an-RC-cup for most of the show, but it wasn't so bad because the line snaked through the audience anyway; the only difference between the beer queue and the audience was the direction people were facing.

We left before the headliners finished playing, to eat greasy seafood at a place that had a hundred bras nailed to the wall, most of which were signed and dated in Sharpie: "Carol" on the left cup, "1983" on the right.

While I was standing at the bar and looking up at the menu, an old drunk man of about fifty-three stared at me until I finally looked back at him. He had a red moustache that curled around to the corners of his mouth, almost handlebar-style, and he involuntarily swayed while he stood. "Duhn lisssen to these guys," he slurred at me, motioning to a group of disinterested men behind him with a sloppy wave. "They duhn know what thar talkin about." No one else had said anything to me, but I nodded and told him OK, I won't. A moment later, he changed sides of the room, propped his body against a wall, and watched the space in front of him, his eyes glazed over.

The place was filled with older men who seemed lonely. They came in groups, only to stare at other tables, or at the TV. The aggressively heterosexual table of blondes and jocks got the most attention. I admit, I was watching them too, mostly out of fascination.

Later we went to a comedy show, and then onto Mark Mothersbaugh's art opening, where I saw a flowerpot hat, a man wearing a mask of a woman's face and Mickey Mouse ears, and a person dressed as a Twinkie. I finished my book while waiting for the train.

I used to have a cheap woven door mat in front of my apartment, but two-and-a-half years ago, someone stole it. It was the one item that I owned that was not kept inside my apartment (my bike stays inside, and I have no car), and it got swiped. It's actually kind of sad, since it was only worth $3. I'm going to trust that whoever took it was in desperate need of that door mat, and that he or she had a lot of mouths to feed, or feet to wipe, or something. When I discovered that it was missing, I searched all the floors in my building, to see if the thief was dumb enough to set it in the hallway. Not that dumb, it turns out.

I didn't bother getting a new mat (I just leave my door key on the naked floor instead), but yesterday a new mat came to me! Yes, there's now a completely filthy door mat lined up squarely in front of my apartment. It's gray and was (at one time) fuzzy, and it has a black rubber border. Through the dirt, I can barely make out the words, "Oh no! Not you again!"

This weekend I went to a small town in upstate New York, to a place that has lots of things New York City lacks: a river you can swim in, big yards covered in grass that you could confidently lie down on, quaint country stores, $2 beers, $3 pancakes, two-lane steel bridges, constellations, and elaborate insects. (In New York, it seems to be all roaches and silverfish.)

There were lots of creatures in my motel bathroom that looked almost prehistoric, with hundreds of legs and pincers for heads. They mostly kept to themselves, and just walked back and forth (as if on a track), their tiny legs moving in order from top to bottom. It made me think of the keys of a piano, when you string your hand across them, starting at the lowest note and making your way up to the highest. I surprised myself by not being very bothered by them, besides when I cursed them for hiding just when I got my camera out.

Today, at the second cookout of the weekend, I took a few photos of insects that had drowned in our food, or had perched on the edge of plastic cups and soda cans. As the day progressed, friends began calling me over to take a photo of a bug disguised as a leaf, or of a frightening spider reclining on its web. "Lisa, c'mere. A bug! Bring your camera!" The fascination with rural insects seemed to be topped only by fascination with the price of beer, which instantly turned everybody into philanthropists.

There's a man in Union Square who's got a hairless barrel chest and a shaved head. He struts around wearing no shirt, small black shorts, sneakers, and tube socks, holding his hands in fists by his side. "Welcome to New Wimp City," his sign says. His sign also says that if you pay him, he will do push-ups with you standing on his back. I've never seen him in action; I've only seen him circling his sign, his expression mean and predator-like.

...

Last week a few of my friends spent the night in jail, for trespassing. They climbed through a hole in the fence of a boarded up public swimming pool and then sat on the roof, talking and taking pictures of the empty park below. Just after they left, climbing out the way they climbed in, the graffiti police strolled up to them and (apologetically) escorted them to the station. For the rest of the night, the guys sat on a bench in the holding pen, and the girl sat in a chair outside, handcuffed to the same holding pen. The room was freezing, they said.

...

The first evidence I've seen of the new subway bag-searching policy was today, at the Lorimer stop on the L. Police were loitering around the station in clusters; most were leaning against walls on their forearms, talking to each other, and some were standing with their hands clasped in front or behind their bodies, legs apart.

In front of one of the claspers, there was a folding table set up with a giant megaphone sitting on it, no doubt extra powerful among the subway tiles. As I passed by I looked straight ahead, assuming that I'd somehow appear suspicious if I paid too much attention. No one was getting searched at that moment, at least not that I noticed.

...

My friends M and N got shot at a week ago. They were walking home, when a black Ford Explorer skidded around the corner and began firing at some guys sitting on a stoop. M and N were exactly between the shooter and the target, and they fell to the sidewalk as soon as they heard the first bang. (M said that, considering the circumstances, it's hard to believe no one got hit.) Once the car was out of sight, M and N hid on a nearby off-ramp and called the cops, before cautiously making their way home.

M told me that the event seemed so unreal that she could almost convince herself that she had imagined it. The only physical evidence available to her was the scrape on her foot that she'd acquired from her sidewalk dive, and that when she and N returned to the scene the next day, N's coffee cup was still laying on the ground.

...

During the morning commute, an old bearded man sat next to a woman in her late 30s. The man was trying to persuade the woman to adopt his religion; she seemed interested and gave him encouraging feedback. His stop came before hers. Just before he disappeared through the train doors, he looked at her and solemnly said, "Make the Right Choice."

She slid over and I sat next to her. Less than a minute passed before she noticed my camera bag and asked me with wide eyes, "Are you a photographer?" with the same inflection one would apply to something far more rare and exotic, like a lion tamer, or a felon. When she asked me where I was from, I told her, "I'm from North Carolina. I've lived in New York for about 3 years." I was not claiming to be a New Yorker, but apparently I'd set off an alarm anyway. "You're still from North Carolina! You're not a New Yorker yet! Talk to me in 70 years. Me? I'm a native. Born and raised."

She continued talking, her attitude oscillating between wondrous and emphatic, depending on the subject. She was busy trying to convince me of the suggestive nature of skyscrapers, when I finally reached my stop.