recap

i seem to be falling behind on the ol' blogworld... i'm crazy busy these days. but a recap of stuff:

tuesday, i went with jake and his roommate laz to see their friend ben's band, ghetto blaster play at the pussycat lounge. they were really good, for it being their third practice! ben seems like a funny fella.

wednesday i worked, worked, worked.

thursday, i also worked, then i met kelley for happy hour at calico jack's. it was crowded and super-expensive, and the food wasn't all that great. then i went to bloomingdales on 60th and lexington, bought some stuff on sale, and got creative with how i was going to catch a subway. cutting a long story short, i walked from 61st and lexington to 50th and 8th, which, if you've never been here, is about the same distance from lodo in denver to kansas. or maybe not - but it had been a LONG DAY, so it felt like that.

friday, i went to work, sat in on the general assembly as they were discussing a draft of a something. however, the parts of the draft they were discussing were interesting: peacekeeping operations, peacebuilding commissions, disarmament and non-proliferation, and terrorism. it was crazy cool and frightening at times (because of certain countries' responses) and really boring at others. then, i ran home quick like a bunny, and went uptown to hear maryam sing cherubino (she says hi, fred!), then went out for a late dinner with maryam and jessica, as well as made plans to go out for dinner next saturday.

today, i've played a whole lot of spider solitaire in my room, deciding if i have time to nap before showering, then deciding i didn't, then showering, paying cold hard cash to the computer to spend time with you lovely people. i'm off to get me some coffee, sit and knit mariah for a bit, and then meet with jess ("she's a diminutive peach!" - semaphoria).

i'm sorry i'm not being witty or terribly descriptive... i'm always in a hurry these days it seems - gotta fit in, you know. if i haven't responded to email or written you lately to say, yo 'sup? (like to jill - hi jillie!) i'm sorry, and in theory i will be able to eventually.

and just as something to stick in erik's craw,

xoxox

chalk it up to "new york experience"

today, on the e-train i was lucky enough to get a seat in a car with working a/c. i got on, and a few stops later, i was sitting in the seat next to the door when we stopped at 50th st.

the early 20-something, pregnant young woman who came through the door first turned around and elbowed the 50+ year old man in a suit behind her. he shoves her shoulder forward.

she turns around and says "who do you think you are shoving me, motherf**er?"

he says "i didn't shove you, people bump into each other on the subway, a**hole!"

she says "you don't get to touch me, i'm pregnant!" and goes to deck him. (this is all occuring about 10 inches from my face.

then, a man barrels his way through the crowd and puts himself between the two of them, and the woman barely has enough time to stop her flailing fist from hitting him. he says, "all right, let's just calm down, and get some space between you guys."

i get off at lexington 3 stops later, having had no other stories to report.

in a ny state of mind?

last night i went out with jake and his roommate laz to see their friend ben's band, ghetto blaster play at the pussycat lounge. gb was good, acousticindiepunkfolkish in nature. very funny lyrics from time to time!

before gb started playing, we were talking about places to go in manhattan and brooklyn, and jake told me about something i'd never imagined.

he and laz were in a bar or cafe or something and tried to find a table to sit at in the back. so they went to the back, opened the door, and what to their wondering eyes should appear? a bunch of people dancing to nothing. sheer silence. but they looked like they were at a party, were all genuinely dancing, there was a dj and everything...

they found out, it was a bluetooth party. (added for clarity: they all head bluetooth earpieces and the music was being broadcast that way)

completely random question absolutely not drawn from real life

don't you hate it when some really busy people arrange a meeting with you to answer your questions, and then the meeting starts late even through you're ready on time and runs over by an hour, totalling the amount of time you've been ready for/in the meeting to over 2 hours, and a little bit after the initial 20 minute mark you have to pee but you don't because you can wait for another 45 minutes or so, and then the meeting runs over, but you think it's almost over because it's winding down, so you still have to wait to pee because you can't leave right before the meeting ends, then it picks up a new wind and keeps going but then starts to wind down again, and the last 1h20 minutes of the meeting you're hoping that you don't pee on yourself?

whooooooooooooooooooo

today it's cooler and rainy and windy.

up here on the 31st floor, the wind makes a creepy howling noise straight out of a halloween soundtrack.

still singing "frank mills" today.

the most ginormous you've seen!

i have had an interesting weekend so far... with lot of tired. it's been SO HOT in my room lately that my shampoo has melted... whaaa? it's of the consistency of melted honey at the time. because it is SO HOT in my room. maryam might give me a fan to put in the window and bring some air in and hopefully cool it down a bit.

anyhow, i went to herald square (seriously, i've yet to not think of a song... yesterday was "give my regards to broadway, remember me to herald square!" and i didn't mention that when i was down in washington square on thursday,i passed waverly and started singing "i met a boy called frank mills on september 12 right here, in front of the waverly, but unfortunately, i lost his address...") to go to school products, as recommended by the wunnerful jess of fig and plum. there, i bought some supplies for mariah. then, i hopped on the subway and went to brooklyn to go to target - seriously, i've been going into every store i've seen for the past 9 days looking for hangers, and got sick of looking for them, so i went to brooklyn to a place i knew would have them and also got a slacks hanger (or "slacks rack" as it was called), a pair of white work pants, some yoga clothes and a yoga mat. yes, i've found where i'm going to do yoga. i will go tonight at 6 pm...if i get my paper on venezuelan hemorrhagic fever finished... unlikely... :(

anyhow, from there, i went home and pounded some sudafed (for the sinus headache i've been cooking for a few days) and had a little rest before leaving to meet with the maryam. i met her and her friend jessica at the reebok sports club (m. works in the salon there) and we walked to dive 75 on 75th street (like atomic cowboy in that it has board games but not in that it's an old world pub) and later to big nick's for nosh... it was fun, and THEN, here's the really good part,

we saw charlie and the chocolate factory at the imax.

how much bigger could johnny depp be? not much. and he's so darn pretty, too! anyhow, the movie was AMAZING, he was funny and weird and quirky (his dancing to the oompa loompas never stopped being really funny), and it's the best tim burton movie i've seen in ages... i had this ridiculously goofy grin on my face the whole time! tim burton and roald dahl were meant for each other... he should do the witches and b.f.g.s too.

and the event reminded me of the first time i saw edward scissorhands in san diego with my sister and my fred... fred was very very sick. and because of the sinus pressure and the ginormosity of the screen, there was a point where i almost had to leap over a thousand people to barf. but i didn't because i wanted to see the movie so badly... so i powered through it and willed myself not to barf.

yay!

song stuck in my head

and no, julynn, it's NOT new york, new york.

"all the whores on bleecker street
they wear the blissful grin
caused by the drugs they take
to relieve them of their sin..."

a second to breathe and an internet connection to use

i'm paying out the nose at the moment to use the internet connection at my apartment building, but signing up for t-mobile hotspots since the free wifi cafes aren't as plentiful as one would have hoped in this city. there's free internet in the parks, but it hasn't been nice enough to go to the parks lately.

anyhow, the stifling humidity (much closer to 100% than to 90%) that has been making me wretched since friday finally broke yesterday. everyone was complaining that it was just too hot yesterday, but hot i can handle.

today i get to go in a little late because i'm going down to nyu to see my advisor participate in a panel on... i can't remember precisely what it's on, but it's likely on weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. then we're going back to the office and having more meetings! i've been assigned a sort of broad-sweeping research question to compile while i'm here and present before i leave in september. it's a hard question (dealing with wmd verification processes for bioweapons and the question of whether there should be a code of conduct for those in the life sciences. this brings up more questions about living in the post-cold war era and whether we should return to a more pre-cold war era since the current political situation is much less stable and predictible than it was then) and it will take a lot of time to work out. glad i've got 2 months.

i'll also be here for the september summit. you know, when the heads of the 191 member states arrive to meet and chat and try to fix the world. i anticipate increased security for the 2 or 3 weeks leading up to that. i could be wrong, but it's unlikely.

cool stuff...

i sat in on a meeting with the security council today.

ain't kansas...

today, i had lunch with women from sudan, ethiopia, kenya and a man from somalia. i went to a meeting attended by (officially, but actually delagates) the uk, russian federation, romania, greece, and with experts from germany, the us, romania, russia, and south africa.

i've heard more people speaking french than english in the hallways, more englishmen speaking english than americans, and even overheard what may have been farsi (i've only heard farsi 5-6 times, so i am not sure).

this is so cool.

the first 28 hours...

Wow – so it’s already been a busy 28 hours in nyc! i’m writing this around 9:30 saturday night, in my room into ms word because I don’t have a connection in my room, and found out that the “modestly-priced” internet access is charged by the minute. So I’ll be looking for free wifi pretty soon. anyhow, i arrived around 5:30 Friday night into jfk, and took a cab to where I’ll be living. It’s an all-female house in midtown, 3 blocks from penn station/Madison square garden. My room, quite frankly looks much like a convent cell, but it has a vanity sink, bed, locking closet, armoire, bookshelves, and a fan. i.e. no air conditioning, and according to jake, it’s been unusually humid the past 2 days. Anyhow, I arrived, and the wonderful maryam was waiting for me, helped me check in, get my stuff in the room, and see where the basics in the building were (i.e. toilets – it’s like a dorm with its shower stalls and community toilets, dining room, etc.) then, we hopped on the a train (and no, I was unable to stop singing “take the a train” all night long. Maryamamama promised that proclivity goes away pretty quickly) to Brooklyn where we got pizza at grimaldi’s and did some visiting. We talked about our 10-year high school reunion that just passed on july 9 (neither of us attended, and she hadn’t heard about it at all), caught up on mutual friends from high school and college (we both started college in boston – she finished there, I transferred to new Orleans), and suddenly she stopped talking. Then she said, do you remember someone from high school who was a year ahead of us named eva? And I said, yes – with curly dyed black hair, very pretty? And she said, yes, it’s really funny because that woman waiting for a table outside looks just like her. So I looked out the window, and sure as all get out, she looked JUST like her. A little too much so. So we finished visiting, paid our check, and maryam stopped at her table on the way out to find out if it was her, and, you betcha, it was eva. (small world theory to be applied here)

eva’s living in Brooklyn, working at the whitney, finishing her ph.d. in art history and writing articles. Maryam said she is an opera singer (she is) and eva said that her current topic that she’s writing on these days is on violence in opera and how it is manifesting in violence today. She asked what I was doing, and I told her the nature of the internship (global disarmament and nonproliferation, and she had a weird cosmic moment where 3 women from a small town in Redlands met in a pizza place in Brooklyn and were the embodiment of her papers. So that was weird.

Anyhow, we left, and decided to walk over the Brooklyn bridge to get back to manhattan, and it was a lovely walk. I got home around 11:30, and decided I needed to unpack as much as possible. So I did, and in the process, lost my mailbox key. Not usually an issue, but the policy at my facility is to leave the room and closet keys in the mailboxes, and only take the mailbox key out of the building. So Saturday, I tore my newly arranged room apart 3 separate times. I must have lost it in the lobby or elevator or somewhere, because it’s just not in here. Writing about it made me determined to find it so I got on my hands and knees to look for it under the carpets even, and nope, it ain’t here.

Anyhow, I partook of the breakfast on Saturday morning that is included in my rent (apple pancakes, apple juice, and special k hold the milk), took a shower and went walking into the fashion district. If I had an internet connection, I’d look for the lys that jess at fig and plum told me is there, since it’s right by me. But alas… anyhow, then I came back, did a few repeats on yaymee’s branching out on the rooftop garden. The rooftop garden has gorgeous views of the new Yorker (hotel, not magazine) and the empire state building, uptown and downtown, and the jersey suburbs (hi yaymee, I thought of you!). realizing I had knitted through lunch, I went to wendy’s and sat by two extremely attractive Italian men, from italy, and eavesdropped as much as I could (I don’t speak Italian… I understand some, but nothing useful). I called my parents and told my mama about what I’d done, and then jake called.

Jake was my best friend in college when I transferred to new Orleans halfway through my college career. And he’s a lousy friend to have long distance (yes, I’ve told him this to his face, and he agrees. No slander here) because he doesn’t keep in touch with people. In fact, the last time I heard from him was in maybe may of 2003 when he was moving from paris to Copenhagen. He’s in Brooklyn now, and I only know that because I mailed a letter to him care of his parents in north Carolina telling him he needed to email me. And he did 6 months later, telling me he was in Brooklyn, working on his novel, working at a hotel, and had fallen in love with a woman from argentina. Anyhow, he called me this afternoon and we met up at penn station, and went to central park’s summer stage to see, of all things, Kermit ruffins, someone else, and ReBirth brass band, all from new Orleans. And we also met up with amber and tom, from college in new Orleans. It was another school reunion! The music was fun, and it was sticky and hot (hotter and stickier than any of us had experienced since new Orleans), and we were joined by romina, jake’s argentinian girlfriend. The music ended, and jake, romina, and I grabbed dinner on our way to the subway (romina, by the way is awesome. She is the sort of person that you – or more specifically, I – like as soon as you make eye contact). I’ve walked about 12 miles (not an exaggeration) since I landed in newyork yesterday.

Since I’ve done so much walking, I must give a shout out to teva for making the world’s Most Comfortable Walking shoes (their flip flops I got at REI). Make no mistake, my feet are TIRED (and filthy – I just scrubbed them with soap and a pumice stone in my sink), but the shoes don’t rub funny, give blisters, or feel otherwise uncomfortable. Thanks teva!

Anyhow, tomorrow, I’m going to take the e train to the u.n. to see how that goes, and walk back to see if I want to ride or walk to work. And I have to find a wifi café to work on my research paper for the telecommuting job, too. All in all, for someone who didn’t want to ever live in new york, it’s been a good 24 hours. Old and new friends, concerts in the park, and the cult meeting down the street (meet amma – many call her a living saint! Get a hug from her, too!). no, I didn’t meet amma, and shame on you for thinking I did.

less than 2 days...

until i'm in new york, settling into my room. some exciting things have happened since noon today:

1. i found out i'd have housing for the WHOLE TIME I AM THERE!
2. i found out my maryama is singing cherubino in a concert version of the marriage of figaro next thursday and 2 fridays from now
3. she can help me get a good but thrifty haircut and color
4. thank you india - wait, how did alanis lyrics wind up here?

things i have left to do:

1. laundry
2. mop floors
3. clean bedroom
4. pack
5. hug the dog so much until he's sick of me and i of him
6. scrub shower