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Can we vote now? Yes, early voting started yesterday and goes until the 22nd. Election Day is the 24th. Find your poll sites here, and you might be assigned one place for early voting and a different one for regular Election Day (I am). On that same link, you can see a sample ballot and see the other people you’ll be voting for.

Do you know who you’re voting for yet? If you don’t, Gothamist has a nice guide on candidates for mayor and other offices. They also have a quiz to show you which candidates align with your values. The New York Times reports on the election and has been posting these “10 Questions” interviews with each candidate, but they’ve also done these really frustrating non-endorsement endorsements from their opinion team. I’d also check out the Working Families Party slate. I got a voter guide from the city in the mail, and you probably did, too. This election matters more than the general because the democrat that wins is almost definitely going to beat the nobody Republican and disgraced Eric Adams, who is running as an independent. For other offices, Reynoso for borough president, Brannan for comptroller (do not rank Levine), and Williams for public advocate (do not rank Rajkumar).

What’s this ranked-choice voting stuff, and who should I rank? Here’s an explainer. Read for yourself whose values you line up with, but I can tell you where I’m thinking so far: 1. Zohran Mamdani (progressive with best chance at beating Andrew Cuomo) 2. Brad Lander (proven progressive with loads of experience) 3. Adrienne Adams (lots of experience) 4. Zellnor Myrie (cares about public education) 5. Michael Blake (did great at the first debate). My ordering might change based on if anything crazy happens over the next few weeks. Whoever you rank, I strongly advocate not ranking serial sexual harasser, nursing home death hider, journalist avoider Andrew Cuomo, who is hoping that name recognition will send him to the mayor’s office, or Jessica Ramos, a wannabe-progressive throwing her record away to kiss Cuomo’s dirty ring.

Have you ever canvassed before? I did for the first time for Zohran Mamdani and actually had a lot of fun. I’m going to try and do it again some time this week. I think that a progressive win will send a positive message throughout the country, and we have the chance to make that happen with one of the largest grassroots movements for a local election here. Who says being registered to vote in New York is lame? Whoever you find yourself gravitating towards, consider volunteering or donating to their campaigns. It’s not too late…it’s actually the perfect time to make an impact!

If you have any questions or want to talk anything out, I’m obviously here. I don’t think any of the candidates are perfect, but that’s what makes ranked-choice voting so great. Go form your own opinions! Be free!

It’s so rainy and grey after a period of building heat that it doesn’t feel like spring — it feels like fall. I’m finishing this entry after some much-needed yoga. I made the most of my week by being obsessive about local elections. I canvassed for the first time, which was fun and easier than I thought it would be. I also went to a board game cafe for the first time, which can truly entertain all demographics. There’s an “adult” version of codenames, and one of the words is moob.

Rain altered what was supposed to be an intensely busy weekend. Brooklyn Pride has been one of the best days of the year for my New York life, but I was too cozy to leave the house and brave the rain.

On Sunday, I completed my third Manhattan top-to-bottom walk in a day that did not go as planned but ended up being even better.

I just counted on my hand and realized this is my fifth Father’s Day not speaking to my dad. It’s not even like Father’s Day was this massive deal growing up. We would usually go to brunch somewhere and maybe do some activity. I associate the day with wearing a dress but don’t really have many distinct memories of how these days would go.

Now that I’m in my fourth year of no contact, I really don’t think of him much or feel myself feeling anything about it. I have a life. I’ll get annoyed sometimes if there’s something he’s doing or that I have to think about, but the feeling is pretty dull.

Last year, I wanted to avoid seeing children perform on Instagram that they have a relationship with their dads, so I did what I always do to work through my feelings: walk. I had done my first top-to-bottom walk alone on Christmas Eve when I realized I should have just gone to Pittsburgh, and all sorts of friends were obsessed and wanted to do it, too. I decided to host one in June last year and invite all of my friends, and they voted on Father’s Day. This was perfect because it gave my fatherless friends or friends with faraway fathers and I a distraction and a novel experience.

I ended up really stressing myself out. I think I’m so easy going with my friends that I expect them to notice when I’m being rigid about something and fall in line accordingly. I was really worried about people having fun, staying close to each other, and making sure we all were going the same way. Plus, it’s a hot day for hours of physical activity. I didn’t know how to calm myself down and ended up getting hives. I had fun but probably the least of the group because I had so much going on in my head.

I wanted to redeem myself and start a tradition, doing a top-to-bottom every year now on Father’s Day. I wanted to really have fun during this fun activity that even more people have told me they’re interested in. I cast a wide net and started planning early, scheming what I thought would be a unique route down the west side through Riverside Park and the piers along the Hudson.

When you start putting time into something, especially something you’re passionate about, you start to care a lot about it. Duh! Part of my struggle last year was caring about it way too much in comparison to my friends who simply wanted a fun day and did not care which decisions were made. To me, crafting a route and creating specific opportunities for exploration was something I’d assume everyone would care about as much as I did. Most people had never been above the Upper East/West sides before, and I assumed they would have specific destinations they wanted to hit. I was wrong because all of it was novel to everyone.

I ended up making the same mistake this year. People are just excited to move, explore, and make new friends. There is no reason they would be nerding out as much as I was. However, I thought that if I was being intense about something — and I don’t think I’m usually too intense about things — that people would try to match me out of respect. I sent all sorts of polls and questions to my Partiful group asking for feedback and getting some but not much in return because everyone is happy with whatever.

A few of my friends and I just took a free alternative to the StrengthsFinder test. One of the parts of the test is seeing how much of these four qualities you are: thinker, doer, feeler, and motivator. My friends assumed I would have a high doer percentage and were shocked when that was my lowest category. I am a doer and an initiator because I have no choice, not because it’s what’s natural or joyful to me. If I want something — a new person in my life, a change in my schedule, the check — I have to make it happen myself. Part of it is because I unintentionally surround myself with passive people, part of it is because I just want things to keep moving. This walk mostly exists because people tell me they want to do this thing with me. Okay? Then let’s go full throttle.

The forecast comes, and I get nervous. I am seeing different sites giving different predictions (another reality in the Trump administration) for how rainy this Sunday will be, from a short drizzle to an all-day stormy affair. I start polling individual friends and Partiful asking if people have any opinions and get a few back but not very many. I had almost 30 people RSVP’d as Going to the walk and wanted to know if people still wanted to walk or wanted to reschedule. I had a bundle of Maybes and some people changing to Can’t Go, which was to be expected even if the weather was good; this is a big time and body commitment for a day. I didn’t want to wake up in the morning, go all the way to Inwood, and see no one there to walk with me.

I had a cozy Saturday and went to bed early enough to feel good for an early, long journey on train before my longer one by foot. At this point, the only people that I knew I would see were Meera and my friend Christina who had been texting me. It wasn’t raining when I’d left the house, but the sky was ominous. I had changed the route so that we would just go down Broadway, which would be the shortest walk and closest to any sorts of businesses we could escape the rain at or train stations we could throw the towel in.

Meera and I arrived at the Inwood A stop and waited under an awning as it lightly rained. We were alone for at least 10 minutes. In these moments, I was fuming. One of the most conservative things about me that’s come up in my adulthood is that I take an RSVP like a signed contract. Maybe exists for a reason, and Can’t Go does, too. For someone to say they’re coming to something and not only not go, but not say anything is so, so rude. I am not perfect, but I always try to be good with this for others. I also take attending my friend’s events very seriously. If this was the thing I’ve been geeking about, I’d hope people would come. Not only were people totally bailing without saying anything about it, but some of these people are my closest friends. I wanted to totally start over socially and never speak to anyone again.

I bet I’ve talked about this before on here, but when I was in high school, I felt like most of my friends could fit into one of two categories: fun but not super dependable or dependable but not super fun. I tend to be enchanted by whirlwinds of people, and sometimes the wind doesn’t always blow in my direction. I imagine I fit into this box for some people, too. I always have found that I prioritize the fun-but-less-dependable crowd, and this day made me think that I haven’t shied as much away from that lifestyle as I thought.

But as the prophet Jemima Kirke once said, I think you guys are thinking about yourselves too much. People have their own problems and lives and aren’t as concerned with a friend’s passion project. If I want people to be understanding with me, I need to be understanding with others. It’s New York, after all, and bailing is way less personal, especially on a summer weekend. Plus, I ended up getting a few valid excuses from people later in the day that obviously would not have been awake enough at 8 a.m. on a weekend to placate me.

And lest we forget that it’s Father’s Day and I’m in a weird mood even if I didn’t know I would be. In my second year of no contact, I wasn’t as obviously sad, but I did find my anger — even if I didn’t recognize it as such — moving through my body in different, non-daddy issue vehicles. I’d get unnecessarily angry at small stuff, from work to driving to a restaurant being late with my food. I realized that just because my dad-sad wasn’t at the surface anymore doesn’t mean it wasn’t still there.

I don’t have these moments much anymore, which makes sense now that it’s been a longer time since the initial trauma. But I’m already someone who tries to find solutions and hates to wallow — when does my body actually want to be angry now that it’s been a long time? To quote the prophet Addison Rae in what one could argue is a parent-divorce album, Am I too old to blame my dad? I honestly have no idea, and this is probably the first thing in my life that’s teaching me about what grief looks like after years of its presence.

By the transitive property, my daddy issues totally make sense for why I got extra upset about people living their lives and it not aligning with mine. However, I felt like if I’ve been so apparent with how much I care about this thing I organized, why can’t people just quickly say something? In this attempt to embrace whatever feelings of mine come up, both can be true. I’m allowed to be angry, and I’m allowed to move on from it quickly. I spent the first 20 blocks storming and the next 30 cooling it off until I felt like myself again, no longer angry.

I am just worrying about the rain. Meera and I sprint to the train for a long but painless trek up Manhattan to the 1 where we are to meet our fellow walkers a few blocks away at the A train stop on Broadway. It wasn’t raining when I left the house and only wore a hoodie and was worried that that wouldn’t be enough coverage for the day. Meera and I were both frustrated with our shoe choice. I see umbrellas up as we pull into 207th Street. My calves are still a little off-kilter from my sprint.

I miscommunicate with Christina and she thinks I’ll be meeting her in the Bronx to walk over the bridge into Manhattan. At least it’s a 15-minute walk from where I am now. Meera and I wait under an awning as it lightly rains around us. Not too bad but not nothing either, just a step above mist. I worry that this will be the lightest rain of the day. Meera and I wait under the awning to what feels like an audience of zero.

Justin appears out of the station. He’s just happy that someone finally made a social plan uptown and not in Brooklyn. He’s wearing a muscle tee, jeans, and sneakers. Christina arrives and looks ready for the day with her backpack, ponytail, and BU rowing tee. So this is the four of us. Korin texts that she’s on her way but running late.

We start down Broadway and meet Korin a few blocks away at the Dyckman stop with her adorable athleisure set locked and loaded. We stand around the corner as Korin finishes up her Father’s Day call with her dad. When she rejoins us, an old woman with one of those granny shopping carts approaches us.

Can I ask you a fashion question? Immediately, we are at ease and respond positively. She looks at Korin, motions to her outfit, and says This outfit has no pockets then to Meera’s long pants with pocket pouches low on the thighs and say These have pockets, but they’re ugly. Two casualties already in this group. She goes on to say how women’s outfits lack functional pockets or that they’re for putting our phones next to our ovaries (she’s not wrong!).

She presents her outfit. Underneath her jacket is this billowing black vest with a plethora of pockets, even some pockets with other pockets on top of them. She brags about its contents, which include a band-aid, matches, and my son’s college essay. But alas, the vest is for men. She said that we need to work on bringing more pockets to women. Little does she know that Korin works in fashion, but revealing that would turn her speech into a panel discussion. We agree with her wholeheartedly, and she tells us to have a nice day and have a nice generation.

We start up the hill past Fort Tryon, and as we’re just barely getting up the hill, Matias appears after getting off a bus. I was so excited to see him because it was a total surprise. He is a freak, and this was just one part of his three-part day that was supposed to include a field day. Honestly, seeing a friend come that hadn’t texted me earlier that morning saying they were on their way was enough to restore my faith in my friendships and snap out of my funk, which was already happening after the pockets conversation.

The heights is hills and hills, obviously. Me, Korin, and Matias take up the front for the majority of the walk with Meera, Justin, and Christina together for a while. We walked through a small bundle of Zohran canvassers handing out fliers and we were like Got you! The worst of the rain was at the beginning of the walk, which wasn’t bad. By the time we hit City College, I think the rain was gone. This temperature ended up being perfect for the walk. I’m not sure if I even sweat. Shoutout to iPhone weather app, and screw Accuweather.

Ryan, who just returned from what seemed like an envious trip to France and Spain, texted me that he was going to come for a moment and leave for lunch with a friend that coincidentally also went to grade school with us. We walked to the valley under the elevated 1 train near 125th Street and made our first stop, Justin’s request to grab coffee at a place called Dear Mama.

The cafe is in this massive building that fills the whole valley, owned by Columbia, with high ceilings that work for a Vital climbing gym for part of the block. We walked by local campaign volunteers for city council seats that none of us, due to our addresses, would be voting for. Ryan met us at the shop, which had baristas that seemed annoyed at our group but put on a veneer of niceness — not very New York of them! I housed a spinach-and-cheese boureka and took a bathroom break with the gals.

We started up the hill, my least favorite part of the walk, into Morningside Heights. When we reached the top, I knew we were done with the most grueling parts of the walk. My first walk, I took my big stop shortly after this. I still felt good and ready to keep going, as did the rest of our crew. The last walk, we took our break around 72nd Street, so I wanted to make it until there.

Max (another home friend, bringing the Mt. Lebanon representation way up) and Charlotte joined us around 100th Street, where we waited for a while as people called dads and said hi to nearby friends. I spent this break critiquing a pizza shop called Cheesy Pizza that looked terrible, and I postulated that any pizzeria that uses the Italian flag colors probably sucks.

Ryan left us at 96th Street, and I told him to come back downtown if his lunch finishes early. I showed Matias and Korin an extremely deep cut song from my youth, “I Need to Know” by R Angels, which I got from the Stuart Little DVD Disk 2 and had a music video that felt like whatever sexy meant to preschool me. Christina’s pitch for a stop is to the gluten-free bagel shop Modern Bread and Bagel, which Max and I had been to a few years ago but I don’t think I got anything. The line gets big fast, and Meera and I split an egg, cheese, and chili oil jam on an everything bagel. Definitely the best gluten-free bagel I’ve ever had because I couldn’t tell it was breadless.

Neale joined us at this point, walking up from the train near the Natural History museum. He said he walked by Brad Lander (who almost if not all of our group would rank #2 in the mayoral primary) at a farmer’s market outside of the museum, so we all walked through it. He had a whole line of people waiting to talk to him. I want to know if his tan right now is from the sun or synthetic. I think this was a good place for him to choose to hang on this day. Our first of two celebrity sightings of the day, if you can count a comptroller as a celeb.

Columbus Avenue is blocked off on weekends to cars, so there are a bunch of young families and newlywed couples hanging out on their Upper West Side Sundays. I saw a girl with a UWS hat and decided that I hated it. Neale gave me a gift, Celsius powder, for organizing the walk. He said he was originally going to give it to whoever in the group seemed to be doing poorly, but everyone was energized so he just gave it to me. I’ll take it.

We stopped for coffee again, this time at the Sensuous Bean, one of the best business names ever. Max used to live nearby, so I’ve always been fascinated by it. It’s a super cool coffeeshop and meant for true coffee-lovers. Unfortunately, I was there and got an iced lavender honey almond milk latte (AMAZING), but the thing to do is to get whatever drip coffee they have. Our crew was too rambunctious for the small space.

The walking continues. We’ve now surpassed the point that we took a break last time, and I still feel super energized. For the rest of the walk, I keep checking in with the group and making sure people are still feeling good. At this point, I realized that I might not need to take a break for a long time, if at all. Everyone stays doing well. I’m so impressed with myself and my friends and so proud of us for trucking along. I’m feeling it in the lower half of my body aside from my feet (should be an ad for my New Balances) but nothing too dire. I told Matias and Korin about how every time I go to Aimee’s yoga classes, she talks about how hip opening movements can bring out a lot of emotions, so we open our legs and laugh. We take a picture at a weird fountain at an apartment building near Columbus Circle.

We turn onto 9th Avenue and sail down to avoid the touristy mess an avenue or two over. It’s crazy how this whole day took like 7 hours and I forget most of the things we talked about. Meera’s coworker friend and her boyfriend coincidentally run into us, showing that New York is a small town. All the pausing and zooming we did somehow timed perfectly enough to run into someone.

We tried peeing at a Dunks that didn’t have a bathroom and reluctantly decided to take a break at Chelsea Market. Most of us used the bathroom and over half of us got some bites, a hot dog or mac and cheese. This was my first time sitting during the walk, and I’m at 14th Street! I felt like such an athlete. I sat on the toilet for way longer than necessary and rejoined the group.

My pitch for the rest of the walk was to go along the Hudson River Greenway, which was part of my original plan for the day, then get a big meal. The group agreed, so we started to the water. Neale had never been on the Little Island, so we took a detour. Christina was especially excited to jump on these panels that are supposed to make music, kind of like the piano at FAO Schwarz. Unfortunately, they were not working and covered by a mat, which Christina took off anyway. Two of the panels worked.

At this point, I feel incredible. This is the home stretch. For the past month or two, most days I go into the office I get off the L and walk all the way down to FiDi. My favorite route is this way along the water so I can feel the breeze, experience some semblance of greenery, and watch the hotties and posers run. This walk is something I do all the time. Korin and I play “Sneakernight” for Matias because basically what I’m gonna do is dance, which is the line that made him realize he knows the song already. We ended up seeing TikToker/BJ Novak girlfriend(?) Delaney Rowe running in a green jacket, our second celebrity if you count a TikToker as a celeb.

Ryan reappears near the World Trade Center. I’m starting to get tired and forget how long this stretch actually is. We start hitting the Ellis Island scammers, multiple of whom start ragging Ryan for his 6’9 stature. One eventually tells him that he should pay for all of us. We laugh as he rolls his eyes.

I originally wanted to end in Battery Park, but it’s all wet, so we walk to the true southernmost point, the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. We hit a fence and cheer, clapping for each other as we arrive fully at the bottom. Ryan takes pictures of all of us. I feel great and so accomplished.

My friend Kaylie who could not make the day originally made a reservation for a bunch of us to go to Fraunces Tavern, a restaurant George Washington went to, for 7:30. I asked her to cancel it since we were sailing, which thankfully was free. We ended up going anyway, instead our group getting there around 4 after starting the walk around 9:30. There was a table for the nine of us, and everyone had a drink and something meaty. I had an overpriced burger that was still perfect because I needed it so bad, as well as a spicy margarita.

We all said goodbye, ready to go home and get cozy. Last walk, I felt more stressed as the walk continued, but this time I let my frustration out at the very beginning so I could have fun. I really felt my athleticism here and that I’ve really made progress in my stamina the more I’ve been walking lately. Next year, I’ll want to emphasize that people can join the journey at any time if they don’t want to get up so early because it was really nice having the group grow and change as time went on. The people who came were all going with the flow of the day, and I enjoyed that we took a bunch of small stops instead of one or two big ones. I left feeling thankful for my tribe and lucky that the ones who braved the forecast did. We were rewarded with little rain, cloudy skies, and clear minds. I went home, called my mom, ate pizza rolls, and fell asleep before 11.

Anyway, here’s reasons why you should canvass written by someone who just did this for the first time: