monday, november 15.

Heyya!

Ah! Check out this week's Strong Bad. http://homestarrunner.com/sbemail117.html Sooooo good. "Let's make this moment be the symbol of our lives. We'll pawn yer dad's computer and we'll sail to paradise. You're a girl, or maybe a waaaa-gooon filled up wid paaaaan-cakes." Strong Bad is genius.

So, i'm starting to do a little writing for Pamphlet, this on line publication Jenny Southlynn and Ed Birch have been putting together. ive got a light local interview sumthin sumthin going up there this week. It ended up fun. And i think i gave people the wrong address to it earlier. It's www.pamphletpress.org . Dunno when it's gonna be up, but word is it's gettin there. Yep.

Ok. Big stuff Monday. Well, not really, but it was a nice one. Nearly 70 today. Beautiful and breezy with a bold, obstanate sun glaring off the buildings throughout the long afternoon. "That's right," i thought! "Keep fightin, lil sun!" The long underwear and fancy sock supply is staving off winter chills pretty well so far. These 70 degree mid November days help a bunch too. Went to a Chomskey lecture after work. And, today, i finally claimed my midtown subway stop.

Yeah. ive been taking all kinds of lines to work in the morning. The Bleeker Street 6 to 33rd, or to 42nd, the 2nd Ave. F to 34th, or the 2nd Ave V to 34th or the F or V to 42nd (ends up, those two go to the same place). The names of the lines are nutty. And all of the stops except for 33rd Street lets you off to a mess of possible exits. It's crazy. So, you can get off at the F train's 34th Street stop, and find yourself spit out into the Manhattan Mall on 30th Street, or onto 32nd Street and 6th Avenue. It's a pain in the ass, especially considering that the Manhattan Mall, in addition to being the last place i would want to go in New York, is really, really hard to find your way out of. (Not to mention also being jarringly flashbacky to some less than positive days of yorn.) An lemme telljou, garfrien, finding jurself dazed and totally lost-ed in the mall's basement foodcourt in your fancy work cloth-es after roaming four floors past a gajillion freaking stores selling shawls and otha disposable fashionista wear at 9 in the morning does not a good day start. Nuh uh, it does not. To this day, i still haven't found the fricking 34th Street exit for the 34th Street stop.

But, Friday, after previously only finding the 40th Street and the 42nd St/5th Ave exits, i landed somehow outside of the F/V line's 42nd Street stop exit on 42nd Street and 6th Ave.. Wow. It's dreamy. Shoots you out on the edge of Bryant Park --a block-sized park that flows out from the back of the majestic midtown manhattan public library.

The park consists of a large lawn "quad" surrounded by a sculpted grey-white concrete block terrace. A fat, orange-lit fountain is at one side of the park, proud stairs slope upwards into the library on the other. The terrace is lined in shrubs and flat, green slat benches. All this is nice, presenting such a striking open respite from the surrounding storefronted skyscrapers and torrential waves of shoppers.

But the best part of the park is the chairs.

Single green wooden slat folding chairs and a good number of tiny folding tables wait clustered on the north side of the quad in the mornings behind a sign reading "The Lawn is Closed." i walk by them on my way to work. By noon, though, it seems, the sign is taken away, and the now occupied chairs have been individually grabbed by folks and scattered wherever the sun hits the park. Pairs of people eating lunch together on the small tables and solitary readers randomly fill the terrace and fleck the lawn. Interestingly, the park is always very quiet, and everyone faces south into the sun in a silent mass homage to the last warm rays of light.

In the evenings, less people are around, but the air is noticably charged. Under heavy dusk dimness, couples meet there, whispering to each other over clasped hands and long looks on the benches in the shadowns, embracing greetings on the park edges, nuzzling each other against the back fences. Single people sit in chairs staring out across the lawn. Rare open spaces occupied in private ways.

The southern edge of the lawn is bordered by a corridor of pale, giraffe-neck-like, enormous and graceful trees gently lit by warm lights spilling out from neighboring office buildings. What an amazingly stark contrast they are in front of the detailed architecture of the city. Walking through them, i heard waltz music. They made me want to spin with my head back, arm up, trailing loose strands of silver stars from my fingertip. i know it sounds stupid. But i don't care. i love those trees. And they're gonna be so the shizzy when it snows. Oh, beautiful park.

So, as of today, that's become my train stop. It's such a good one. So regal and reserved in the morning. Magically gauzy and borderline scandalous after 5 on my way out of the work day. And a whole hellufa lot better than the mall.

Yeah huh. Ok. Nuff for now. i am so full from happy hour with my flat mates over delicious Belgian beers and long awaited moules frites (mussels and french fries) at Vol De Nuit over offa Washington Square Park on NYU's campus. Uhhh. All physical powers are being called to aid in digestion. Hope all is well with all!

xo