In Which I Employ an Excess of Superlatives (or, Who IS this Super Positive Person and When Will She Go Away?)

Last night I went to bed around 12:30 feeling totally down, just dejected and lonely. I wasn't even especially tired (I thought) and mostly went to bed because I didn't see any way that it would improve, so calling it quits and expecting better of the following day seemed the logical course of action. (It was that or emotional overeating, let's be honest.)

I don't say this to elicit sympathy, or to make you feel like I am a sad and lonely person (by and large, I'm not) but rather to highlight how brilliantly this plan worked!

Today was marvelous in nearly every way. I slept until about 10:30. (Remember how I didn't think I was tired? I was wrong.) When I went to bed last night, the radiator was simply CRANKING, the little one in my bedroom is off (when I moved in, my friends found that it was leaking and closed the valve - I'm certain that if I were to point this out to my landlord, he would fix it, but the truth is, it suits me just fine for that radiator to be off anyhow) but the big one in the living room keeps it uncomfortably warm when it's blazing away, so I had cracked the window right next to it. When I woke up this morning, the radiator had clearly eased off hours earlier. I'm informed that it was somewhere in the 18ºF range this morning. My apartment was SERIOUSLY cold. I got up, shut the window, and then just got back into my marvelously toasty bed and read for a while, until hunger drove me out of the nest of warmth. The luxury of being able to read in my down cocoon with no urgent need to do anything was so relaxing!

By the time my desire for breakfast overcame my disinclination to be cold, the temperature situation was beginning to rectify itself, so I got dressed and made myself a slightly larger than normal breakfast - two poached eggs, blackened hash browns with cheese, and a cup of tea. (One of these days, I really should consider a tea pot - but the 2c pyrex measuring cup works pretty marvelously for brewing loose tea, and has the added advantage of already taking up room in my overcrowded excuse for a kitchen.) I got to sit at my table, back together and returned to its rightful place in the window now that the Christmas tree has been (forcibly) evicted, and eat my breakfast in the sunlight. I didn't realize how much light was being blocked by the tree! It's like a whole new apartment!

Breakfast consumed (blackened hash browns were a perfect plan), I settled in to play a little bit of World of Warcraft, kill a few dragons, the usual. I haven't seen my dear neighbors in weeks though, so I texted to invite them to dinner - may as well give the newly resurrected table a work out. Not only did they think that a good plan, they were making a run to the Flatbush Food Co-op, of which they are members (and I am not), and did I want to come along? Well, sure. I could always use some good produce and some bulk beans. The Co-op taunted me with their special on organic avocados - I love avocado. It does not love me. My neighbors great people with whom to go shopping - they have the same appreciation for the variety and abundance in the produce section as I do. A trip to the Food Co-op isn't just an errand, it's an outing!

At home, groceries in hand, I decided to deal with the Indigo Girls song stuck in my head in the only way I could imagine - listening to them. I've been a fan of the IG for over twenty years and they are one of my first musical loves, and cooking dinner for my friends while listening to music that's been with me my entire adult life was a beautiful thing, filled with joy (and garlic. Which is sort of the same thing.) The neighbors showed up, with excellent green beans to contribute, and we sat down to a sumptuous meal of cheese tortellini in spicy vodka sauce, green beans, and fresh bread with roasted garlic. We are so fortunate to be able to have such abundance available to us, and to know what to do with it!

We played Bananagrams, chatted, and listened to music - generally had a delightful evening, and topped it off with some ice cream I can't recommend enough, Mexican Chili Chocolate from Steve's Craft Ice Cream.

I can't think of anything about this day that was not in every way superior to yesterday. Nearly perfect!

Basement Blogging

Juno really is a pushy little girl. 

I put some sliced apple down on the wooden box there in front of them today and she literally walked all over poor Jupiter to get to it. Look at his squashed little ear! He doesn't seem to mind at all however. He's had his share and is just ignoring Miss Piggy there.

This show that I'm running right now (boring light board - I'm remembering why I've tried to make a break with the electrics) has Monday night shows. Who does that? Honestly. This is New York. We have standards! It's weird to get up on Monday, after a few two show days, and know that you have to go to work. It's like working Saturday (and Sunday) if you had a "real" job. Gugh.

Walter is back in town, but staying in a hotel in Manhattan with tour friends, so I met up with him and his friend Dave this afternoon at the Apple store (where, no, I did not buy anything) and wandered down Fifth Ave to Rockefeller Center. I rarely go down that way - no real reason to go there and millions of touristy reasons not to - but it was a fun excursion. We stopped in the Disney store, where I was actually a little disgusted by the absurdity of some of the Disney paraphernalia, and the Nintendo store, where Walter played Wii Music to my very great amusement. I think that the appeal of the Wii is that so many of the games make an art form out of turning stupid concepts into great fun. 

I dragged them down to Thom's for dinner (I wanted meatloaf ) and it was fun to be there - I've not been by much since the Sox lost game seven of the ALCS and my baseball season ended. I just don't care much about football and Thom's isn't exactly close to my house! I'd like to meet up with them again after the show, but we'll see how I feel when we get there. The dark of the basement here at Baruch is making me sleepy! The theatre is on the third or fourth basement level and for some reason the dark of this theatre is somehow darker than theatres above ground.

The wifi down here is cleverly named "crystalset" because at one point in the show the lead offers to get parts and a crystal set so her hidden Polish Jews can make a radio. Our network, like the radio (and the Jews for that matter), is hidden, so it seems even more appropriate. I like a cleverly named wireless access point. None of this "linksys" nonsense! Ours at home is sort of blah - it's twostep because we live on the second floor and Dave is a big Dave Matthews fan. I'll have to work on that...

Here at the Bed & Breakfast...

It feels like we've had a lot of company lately, or maybe it just feels like I've been cleaning up for company a lot lately!

We were lucky enough to have the great Angela and Zach over for dinner on Wednesday, and then our friend Reid came over Thursday night to drink some lovely cold beverages and try to talk me into taking an A2 gig (I should) and Friday morning Dave's best friends from high school (and before) showed up for the weekend. Fortunately for me, one of those friends is a rabid Sox fan, so I had no trouble planning our weekend around the Sox-Yankees series. Sadly for me, I could have ignored the first two games completely and possibly had a better time. (As I type, they are removing the tarp at Fenway, so the third game should start soon.)

I wish I could enjoy just feeding Dave as much as I enjoy feeding all the other people who come through our hotel here. We'd eat much better if that was the case. Wednesday was roasted veggies and a simple tomato sauce over pici pasta. (Alas, the last of that. I'd been hoarding it.) Thursday, nothing special, though since Reid had come straight from work, I threw together a plate for him. Friday we made homemade pizza before the ballgame, Saturday was french toast in the morning and hamburgers, corn and watermelon for dinner. (The corn, oh, the corn... so good. Just all of the things that fresh corn on the cob should be.)We never eat like that when we don't have guests anymore. (Tonight, for example, is leftover night.) I should get on that.

It's been a fun week though, and tomorrow I'll be all set for more guests. Anyone want to make a reservation?

Friends and ancient history

Thanks Youk!

I was having a pretty crap sort of a day, but Kevin Youkilis has totally got my back. His cheer-me-up bid was a lovely grand slam, and the Sox are steamrollering over the poor O's right now, which is quite the mood alterer.

Night before last I was up too late chatting online with Walter, and somehow ended up hitting the Wayback Machine to see what lingering bits of my early blogs are still preserved there. There's something dreadfully narcissistic about rereading your own journal from nine years ago, but it's also quite fun. The word blog wasn't even in use when I started. I can't seem to find any entries from before Dec. 1999, but I started in Jan of that year. I've only kept it up intermittently though.

The thing that struck me most is that the friends I mentioned most often in those days are still the friends I go to when I'm feeling blue these days. I was feeling pretty low in one of those late 1999 entries, and my solution was to go out with my good friend Jess. Today? I called Jess and Jeremy to have them over to dinner. My mom told me once that her friends that she made in college were the ones she ended up keeping forever, and that seems to be true for me as well. Though there are a number of my high school friends with whom I am still close, and of course there are others since college. I wonder though, what it is about college that makes such long term friendships.

Whatever it is, I'm glad of it.