https://larabeecommazach.com Periodic updates from your Zach Larabee /Users/zachlarabee/Documents/github/larabeecommazach/website/log/posts/2025_06_29.html 6/29/2025 - Balconies

Our first place in New York City was on the 26th floor. There was a balcony facing East with a clear view of the East River, a sliver of Roosevelt Island, and a good stretch of Queens.

At night, I could see the landing lights of planes coming in to LaGuardia or JFK. The planes' flight paths were aimed toward us, and their lights were so bright they were visible from miles away. The combination made it seem as if they weren't even moving. One of our first nights in the apartment I sat staring at a trio of them in a pyramid formation hovering near the horizon. I muttered curse words to myself before piecing together what I was seeing.

If I looked down from the balcony instead of out I could see the lights on the delivery riders' e-bikes blasting up First Avenue like rainbow-colored comets. There was no mistaking their motion.

Storms from the Atlantic would blow through Manhattan headed west. If one finished passing over the neighborhood in the late afternoon when the sun was behind our building we could reliably catch a rainbow over Queens. We knew a good one was happening when the neighbors' balconies started filling up. Parents pointing "Look! Look!" to their small children just like we did with ours. I caught a double rainbow on that balcony more than once.



We're in a new place now. Before, we were floating above the neighborhood in a corner building. Now we're mid-block on the fifth floor, nestled in among the surrounding buildings. The new place is smaller but its balcony is bigger, on the back of the building facing north into the center of the block. There are trees in the neighboring backyards. They're scrappy city trees, but tall enough to be eye-level with our balcony. Some mornings I can hear the cooing of a mourning dove, a sound which always reminds me of slow days on summer vacation as a kid. The other day I watched a hawk chasing a pigeon into the leaves. There's a bluejay sometimes. The views on this balcony aren't as dramatic as the old place, but it's nice getting a taste of nature in the middle of the city.



If you've taken the time to read this then I'm going to reward you with bonus knowledge: This October, Aimee and I will be welcoming a new baby girl into the world! We're very very very excited. It's Dad Time.

/Users/zachlarabee/Documents/github/larabeecommazach/website/log/posts/2025_05_08.html Recent Happenings - Teens Edition

I was walking down a street lined with brownstones and noticed a boy of 14 or 15 a few houses up ahead. His trajectory was leading him towards one of the brownstone's fenced-in patios. As he approached the fence his pace slowed slightly and he hesitated in a moment of consideration before he took a few quick shuffling steps, placed one hand on top of the fence, and hopped over it. His landing was not graceful. Afterwards, he didn't look over his shoulder to check if anyone had witnessed his athletic feat and I found his lack of self-conciousness to be admirable. I wondered if it was the first time he had ever performed this maneuver. Maybe until a recent growth spurt the possibility of the jump had never even occurred to him. He opened the door of the patio entrance and walked into what appeared to be a beautifully decorated home.



A group of teen girls walked past with ice cream cones. One of them was defending (rightfully) the acquisition of their sweet treats and said "It's fine, ice cream is basically just milk."



My dog was stopping to sniff another dog whose owner was a kid of 12 or 13. Shorter than me by only a few inches, thin and gangly, with a voice that was still very much the voice of a boy. With excellent diction and enunciation he asked me "Say, what breed is your dog?" We traded a few "tell me about your dog" questions before parting ways. The whole exchange felt like he was practicing talking to an adult for an assignment. I found the whole thing to be delightful and if he had asked me any questions about what it's like to be a 40 year old man I would have answered him as honestly as I could.

https://larabeecommazach.com/log/posts/2025_03_27.html 3/27/2025

I was in New Orleans a few weeks ago for a wedding and found myself with some time to kill in the French Quarter. I was posted-up at the edge of Jackson Square, listening to a killer brass band when this guy with an absolutely insane energy rolls up. I'm kind of shy about taking photos in public and do not have the guts to ask a stranger if I can take their picture, so I decided to try and shoot from the hip on the sly. He was farther away than the cropped version of the image suggests, but as you'll notice in the snapshot below, my attempt at evading detection was not successful.



I was recently walking the dog around the time kids were getting out of school. Up the block was a group of gradeschoolers heading in the opposite direction. A boy who appeared to be 8 or 9 was speaking above his companions in what sounded from a distance like an insane and hitherto unheard language. As they approached his words came into focus - he was showing off his counting skills at a rapid pace to who was probably his younger sister. "One-thousand-one-one-thousand-two-one-thousand-three-one-thousand-four-one-thousand-five..." He gulped air and asked her "Can you count in 1.1 millions? 1.1 million-2.2 million-3.3 million..." His voice got lost in the crowd as the distance between us increased, but I've been dying to know if he made it from 9.9 million to 11 million.



I spotted a sharply dressed man riding up First Avenue on his bicycle. He was praying out loud and his hands were folded in front of his chest instead of gripping the handlebars. He wasn't wearing a helmet.



https://larabeecommazach.com/log/posts/2025_02_22.html There are a few reasons why I choose to keep my ears open while moving about in the world. Wearing noise-cancelling headphones makes me feel unpleasantly disconnected from my environment. Mostly though, I feel that there's simply too much to miss hearing with headphones on. Noticing the sounds around me is a way to stay grounded and present in the world. It's a way to bring small joys into my life, a practice which is increasingly important as the world gets more and more terrible.
I'm fortunate to live in a dense urban environment where I can be absolutely gluttonous about the sounds I take in. A flock of delivery bikes going by. The construction site down the street. A particularly expressive display of siren operation by an emergency vehicle. These are all good things to hear, in a John Cage, "everything is music" sort of way. There are more immediate aural pleasures to be had in the world though, and for me, this means picking up bits and pieces of strangers' conversations.
The other night I was walking the dog and passed a man finishing up a conversation on the phone. I caught the words "okay, good night. Take it easy." These are unremarkable words on the page. The tone in which "take it easy" was delivered though, was special to me. "Take it easy", (TIE henceforth) is a send-off which in my mind is typically delivered in a lighthearted manner. TIE is sometimes said in a hippie-stoner affect, "Take it eeeeaaaaaasy." It's the refrain of a breezy song by the Eagles, a band I don't personally care for very much. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention TIE's more juvenile cousin, "Take it sleazy." TIE is for good times, unless of course it is being used in an attempt to calm down a person who is very much not taking it easy, but that's not why I'm here.
On the night in question, I heard TIE delivered in a manner outside my preconceptions of the phrase. It was unusual enough in my experience to prompt me to write several paragraphs about it. This expression of TIE was neither light nor comical, but carried with it care and weight. The words were "take it easy," but the tone said more: "I'm glad to have heard your voice. I know things have been hard for you but keep your head up. Be kind to yourself. I'm here for you and I love you." I imagined that the person on the other end of the call had been comforted by the conversation. It felt like a privilege to have overheard this small moment of intimacy. It lifted my spirits and warmed me and made me feel glad in my decision to keep my ears open to receive such things. Small joys.

https://larabeecommazach.com/log/posts/2025_02_07.html If there's one thing I know about my neighborhood, it's that Sebastian Pampalone has done something to piss somebody off.



https://larabeecommazach.com/log/posts/2025_01_31.html I'm going to start by talking about the internet and then maybe I'll get to something else. This site was born of the simple goal of having an online presence outside of social media. I built this site without using any of the services which advertise in podcasts. It was fairly easy. Initially I thought it would be a static thing where I would simply link to projects I've done in the past. Later on I realized I might want to experiment more with something resembling a blog. So I had to learn how to make an RSS feed. This was also fairly easy. If you have a personal website, but it doesn't have an RSS feed, I'm going to encourage you to add one. Tell me about it and I'll subscribe to your RSS feed like it's 2009 and Google hasn't killed off Reader yet.

I have intentionally chosen not to install analytics on the site and thus will have no idea if anyone ever reads anything here. Beyond being reached out to directly about it, I have no way of knowing if anyone reads this. This brings me peace. I can publish some bullshit here and not spend the next two hours compulsively refreshing to see how many new likes have rolled in. It's just me, speaking into the void at a reasonable volume.