April 28, 2007

Activities

It's Saturday and I'm so pleased that it's Saturday. Last week was eventful, to say in the least. First I'd like to pay tribute to the gifts my parents left behind: a gaudy but adorable handbag that I picked out that my mom bought me on my birthday (cutest bag I own to date), and the keepsake bottle of zinfandel spelled out using actual subway lines. They found this themselves and thought it to be an ideal apartment-warming gift for us - nice! Anyway, last weekend we helped Jeff celebrate his 30th in El Barrio with Lauren and company. It was a lot of fun, although the flask Jeff kept handing me must have contained something rather lethal because Sunday was hangover city, for me. Sunday didn't exactly produce a refreshed Craig, either, so the gorgeous New York weather found Craig and I reluctant to leave the apartment. Monday was another stunning day as weather goes. Tuesday brought more of the same, only warmer, and after work Craig and I tailgated and went to the Mets game. We were with a handful of co-workers and I genuinely wasn't feeling all that well, so I told Craig I'd meet him back at home and I left. Our friend Scott had joined us so I really didn't want to insist that they leave, too. The Mets were playing the Rockies and our free seats were 910 rows from the field so I didn't feel bad leaving...well, when I wound around the spiraling ramps of Shea Stadium and finally made my way to the 7 train platform, I noticed a lot of people milling about. I stood there with all the people for about 16 minutes (I kept checking my watch) until an announcement was made: "Due to an earlier incident at 103rd Street, the Manhattan-bound 7 train is not running from Main Street to 61st Street/Woodside." For anyone unfamiliar with Flushing, Queens or Mets games at Shea, there are only really two modes of transportation for New Yorkers without cars: the 7 train and public buses. Now, I'm morphing into a New Yorker more and more each day, or so I'd like to believe. So I'm not averse to the bus or to having to find alternate modes of transportation when the subway is diverted. However, because the incident took place at 103rd at Roosevelt, and Roosevelt runs parallel right underneath the elevated 7 train, this meant that the buses were also running painfully slow, packed to the gills, and would not get me to 61st Street in very speedy fashion. I attempted a bus at first, but by 111th Street (Shea is at 126th and Roosevelt), I was irritable and wanted out. So I got off the bus and walked, little white girl in a Mets fleece walking alone in Queens. The thing is this: Queens at that hour with the Mets game happening was probably the safest place I could have been right then. There were people out everywhere, and police, too. And I hadn't had that many beers because I didn't feel well, so there wasn't even a thick fog through which I navigated. But I still felt weary. Here I was in the middle of Queens with no good way to get into Manhattan (cabs were not swarming the streets, either). I trudged all the way to 82nd Street from 111th, and finally shoved my way back into a bus out of sheer desperation, and took it to 74th Street/Broadway, where I was finally able to catch an F train back into Manhattan. By the time I got out at 63rd and Lex, all I wanted was a bright yellow hero to roll up and take me home. And one did. And I tipped him like six bucks for it, too. Craig left the game in the 9th inning (the game ended in the 12th, that night) and arrived home something like ten minutes after I did. What an ordeal.*So Wednesday after work we were going to see Kristin Hersh perform at the Bowery Ballroom. I stumbled, literally just fell into the discovery the previous Saturday that she was on tour with an album released in January (what an awful fan I am!) so we got tickets for like $36 total for 2 (!) and I bought the album to get to know it a little. I doubt I've ever addressed this, but I'm a Kristin Hersh enthusiast, and have been really since 1994, when her Hips and Makers album was released and I made the startling discovery of her haunting voice and even more powerful lyrics. My memory of it goes like this: when I was in high school, I had a gang of girls that I ran with that all wanted to write and drink coffee and listen to subversive music and play guitar. One night I was home by myself listening to 92.3 (my favorite radio station in Indianapolis) falling asleep very close to the speakers of my stereo when the song "Your Ghost" came on, which had backing vocals by Michael Stipe so of course it caught my attention. I'm not sure how this discovery story varies from any other raging Kristin Hersh fanatic's story, but it's what I recall, and I've loved her work ever since!***So, Wednesday she performed with the husband and wife strings (cello and violin) team from England and it was unbelievable. The sound of it still rings in my ears even this much later in the week. It was just unreal. She's brilliant. After the show, Craig went downstairs to get her autograph for me! He tried to remind her of a show we saw of hers back in Atlanta (leading me to think maybe I have mentioned her before...I don't remember). He took a bad photograph of her on his cell phone and he was so proud of himself for meeting her and getting her autograph for me! So sweet is my adoring boyfriend!!*Thursday I had class. I've reached out to my instructor to see if she's teaching anything in the fall that I could possibly take...she informed me that she offers an intimate class setting outside of school and she's losing a couple of students so she has spots available for certain students that she likes - and evidently I fit the bill! I don't know many details yet, and I know she's tied up for the summer so it wouldn't kick off until the fall, but how unbelievable would that be! Working with someone of her experience and charisma and intellect would be such a thrill, and the result she hopes to provide is mentorship for a goal, such as publication! I really hope this unfolds. It would be amazing. I found so much productivity working with her this semester. I've written quite a few pieces that I'm genuinely excited to revise.*So Craig is still asleep, but today we'll probably head over to the furniture store to purchase the little makeshift table we want to put in the place of my clunky cumbersome glass-topped table. A co-worker has moved out to Long Beach and has much more room for his family, now, and I've arranged a deal with them where they will "borrow" (and "store") our table while we live another year in our Upper East Side shoebox apartment. We've found a cheap table that seats two that will fit nicely against our brick column - it isn't something we'll keep forever but at least for the duration of our Manhattan life. I love Manhattan, still, and forever. The other night I dreamed we were leaving in one day, and I panicked and started running through the list of all the things I needed to eat, see, or do before departing New York...I know the day will come sometime (unless I can persuade Craig to stay forever - unlikely but one never knows...) but not yet. Sometimes it feels like we just got here. Oh, I love it, living here...

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I LOVE your new bag! It's just big enough to hold EVERYTHING you'd ever need carting back and forth from UES to Queens every day! :)

xoxo

8:57 AM  

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