Summer is Almost Here

I'm a-gonna look into the boating scene, and quite possibly take a sailing class.

I want to spend some time on beaches, but maybe not in New York. One thought is to do a little vacation in Newfoundland. If I stay in New York, I'll just end up working the whole time.

Summer is the best time in NYC .. I know people complain about the smells and the heat but I just love the alfresco dining options that the city offers and all the free concerts that almost every park in the city offers.. hurrag for summer I say especially after such a brutal winter..

I second that, uptowngirl! I'm so excited for summer! There are so many great concerts coming up! And, I love having a long dinner outside and walking home without a sweater!

Spent three days in a row sunbathing! I love good weather!

@ajadedidealist sunbathing ! Quelle Horreur! just kidding I too love getting a sun tan but cant help being sucked in by the anti-sun brigade so I make a compromise now and have given up the yummy smelling Ambre Solaires of my youth for Neutrogena Sunblock SPF 30 :)

@Everybody: My girlfriend tells me I need a tan because my skin is so pale looking. But I am concerned about being out in the sun too long because of skin cancer.

@hhusted maybe you should try a self tanner ..it gives you the glow without the exposure but I dont know if they have products for men specifically..maybe you should do some research at your local Duane Reade..

@Uptowngirl: Duane Reade. That overpriced place. No thanks. I'm not going out for the next two weeks anyway. But thanks anyway.

How can you not go out, @hhusted? The weather is so beautiful and there's so much to do in New York in the springtime!

Nah, the sun up here is way too weak to give you cancer in just a few sittings. Now if you were to sit in the sun in the tropics somewhere, like in Florida, and to do it for extreme amounts of time, then you MIGHT worry a little about skin cancer. But no way NYC sun can do much to you, and besides a little sun exposure is good for producing vitamin D.

@Ajadedidealist: As I said in a previous post, I am recovering from surgery. The surgeons told me to stay home and take it easy for at least two weeks while my body heals. So that is why I am not going out.

@Uraniumfish Sailing class has been on my to do list for some time... Have you picked one yet?

@everyone I want to start diving... though I have a feeling this might be better done in the Bahamas or something. But I guess I can learn here, pre-vacation.

@NeverSleeps I like these people because after you get your basics, you can do great things like take a week-long sailing tour of the Caribbean with your sailing instructors.

Oops, I meant these people:

https://www.sailmanhattan.com/

A week-long sailing expedition in the Caribbean sounds like just the kind of adventure I want to have this summer. Or perhaps a road trip to the west coast? Or maybe just a visit to Key West.

As far as NYC activities, I think I am going to join the pool in Red Hook and take some tango lessons. Maybe meet a guy who isn't a jerk? Time will tell.

On the pool front: someone recently recommended the Chelsea Rec Center. yearly membership is really low, about what you would pay for a month's membership at the YMCA or such places, and then you can use the pool year-round. I might look into it. I want to find a good pool.

Ohh yeah, Dblack, let me know what the dealio is with Chelsea Rec Center. Man, I love pools!

@Everyone what's your attitude towards sunscreen?

@Uptowngirl: I hate putting anything on my body that is creamy and slimy. My girlfriend does it all the time. I just can't stand anything touching my body that I consider feminine, or that has a icky, slimy, or creamy feel to it.

@uptowngirl Can't live without it. I think I have every brand in my bathroom, and I just bought some new ones. I am pale, and my parents - after lives spent in the sun without any - are constantly going to the dermatologist to have pre-cancerous skin cells removed. Which is not what I have planned for myself! I carry little portable sticks of the stuff wherever I go.

I didn't actually see any sailors... Fleet Week only serves to remind me of that episode of SATC... how sad.

@hhusted Ha! You equate "creamy and slimy" with femininity?

@Uraniumfish Yeah, I don't think the NYC sun is too weak during the summer... I started getting sunburns as soon as it started getting warm enough to have brunch outdoors in short sleeves.

@BroadwayBK: Did you read my post right: "...feminine, or that has a icky, slimy, or creamy..."

Did you notice I used the preposition "or." Therefore, it means feminine or the other way, but not both. If I wanted to include feminine and icky, slimy, or creamy, I would have used the conjunction "and" instead.

Sunscreen is a must for me. I know way too many people who have had skin cancer. And, I'm olive skinned and even I have sun damage from growing up at the beach and not believing in sunscreen. I don't think it's feminine. Every male surfer I know wears it. It's totally masculine to not want to die.

@JenMac: I did not say wearing sunscreen was a feminine thing. I don't understand how you and BroadwayBK could misinterpret what I said. I was not saying that sunscreen was a feminist thing. I was saying I thought sunscreen was feminine. Read my comments correctly please. Thank you.

@JenMac and BroadwayBk bet you both did the coconut oil thing when you were younger? I remember days spent just lying on a beach or being the poolside and being gloriously brown at the end of it ..I am not that stupid anymore and do wear sunscreen at least when I am swimming or on the beach , I usually forget to wear sunscreen on a regular basis though..

@uptowngirl: yes, I definitely did the Bain de Soleil oil when I was a kid / teen and I miss it so! Now, I wear sunscreen every day and a hat at the beach. Boooo!

@hhusted: I'm confused about your comments. You said you think "sunscreen is feminine," and in reference to sunscreen you said that you "can't stand anything touching your body that you consider feminine." I don't understand how either BroadwayBK or myself misunderstood you saying that sunscreen is a feminine thing when those were, actually, your exact words.

@uptowngirl I did notice sailors recently, not that I think of it, so I guess I got a glimpse of Fleet Week.

@BroadwayBK Yeah, I think danger from sun has increased in the last few years and seems much more serious now than it used to be. I grew up (partly) in Florida and was quite careful about sunscreen because one simply learns to be in a place like that. I guess I always considered the sun up here fairly weak and not worth worrying with sunscreen over. But it's probably clever to be careful even up here, as the weather has been getting extreme (is it just me?) and who knows what increased ozone dangers there are now which there didn't used to be a few years ago.

My little sis wears sunscreen year round - she doesn't go outside without it. She burns sooo easily, and doesn't tan at all. I can't imagine. Luckily, my skin is not so sensitive. But I've passed the age of wanting to tan - is that even trendy anymore?

@NeverSleeps It's not really trendy any more. Overly sun tanned people look stupid, and sometimes lacking taste, in the way you associate with coke-snorting, gold sequined wearing, losers trying to look decadent or whatever. Which was over in the eighties, good riddance.

@uptowngirl My parents actually live on a little lake, so I spent a lot of my teenage days on the dock, covered in "tanning" oil. As soon as I could drive I was at the beach just about all summer, too. For all the good it did me.

@Uraniumfish It's that whole earth-tilting-on-the-axis thing. The NYC sun is pretty inconsequential during the colder months, at least as far as my skin is concerned. But when summer arrives, I do break out the sunscreen just to walk around.

@NeverSleeps Yeah, it's cool to be pale now. Or whatever your natural skin color is. I completely agree with Uraniumfish's take on the matter.

Thought so. Being tan is so cheesy.

I'm with you guys. I'm just as happy being a paleface all summer long and knowing I'll have healthy skin into my old age. And tanning does look stupid. I associate it with bodybuilders. All of the ones I've ever met (don't ask) were meat-headed divas, and I saw a scary amount of leather and leopard skin prints. Yowah.

I'm with you guys on the tanning -- but, I know an alarming number of girls who go to the tanning salon year round in this city. I don't know that the phenomenon has completely died yet.

I think there is a set of people that like to be tan - gym bunnies and whatnot. The Pauly D's of the world.

@JenMac: You said this:"@hhusted: I'm confused about your comments. You said you think "sunscreen is feminine," and in reference to sunscreen you said that you "can't stand anything touching your body that you consider feminine." I don't understand how either BroadwayBK or myself misunderstood you saying that sunscreen is a feminine thing when those were, actually, your exact words.

JenMac: You also are misinterpreting my comments. Re-read what you wrote. You used the words "think" and "consider." These words mean that it is my belief. It does not mean that sunscreen in itself is feminine. Only I think or consider it that way. Just because I consider it or think it does not make it so. It is only my opinion.

I hope my comments make more sense now.

Actually, hhusted they don't really make more sense now. I understood exactly what the others did, and still understand the same thing after your explanation!

@Uraniumfish: Well obviously, that is what you choose to believe, because that is not what my comments were about. I know what I said and what I meant. Unfortunately, words on the screen can be misconstrued because the way it is said, the gesture of the person saying it, and the tone of voice used is missing.

I really don't understand how anyone can understand the word "or" to mean that both sides of the expression are equal. Nor can I understand how anyone can read "consider" as anything other than referring to my opinion. Let's face facts. It is my belief that sunscreen is more a woman's device than a man's. I understand from what was commented in this forum earlier that men have been known to use it. But the majority of people who use it are women.

I went into Duane Reade one day recently to purchase batteries, and saw this lady stacking sunscreen on the shelf. I remembered comments from this forum and asked the lady who buys sunscreen the most. She told me it was her experience that more women did. I thanked her for her observation.

I tend to only use SPF 2-4 - and it absorbs fine. But I don't sunbathe for long periods of time, and I tend to be quite sparing in my application. Yet, despite my inordinately fair skin, I rarely burn - which I s uppose is a good thing. Bad part is I rarely tan either

@uptowngirl Are you putting too much on?

@Everyone: I just found Hawaiian Tropic lotion with SPF 30 at Target. We can all have the spf we need with the suntan oil smell from our youth that we all love! Every time I put this stuff on, I feel like a vacation: not that I'm on a vacation . . . like I, literally, am a vacation.

@JenMac ooh! I want! I am so like you, the smell of sunscreen instantly transports me to the beach in my head of course
@NeverSleeps perhaps that's the case..maybe I am being too over zealous in my protection efforts :)

@DBlack LOL!

@hhusted You went to a focus group to learn about something icky that you would never use? Actually, the research says that women are more likely to sunbathe than men are. Not that they are "outside more". And women are socialized and encouraged to use sunscreen more than men, that's true, but that doesn't make sunscreen a "woman's device." Like I said, it's not mascara. Anyway, moving on.

@NeverSleeps: Yeah, they paid me $150 for being there. Couldn't turn that down.