I'll try to post more later today or tomorrow (hooray for ethernet cables at the Case library!) but for now I have about a zillion e-mails to reply to.

Ok, here's the first cut-and-paste of my musings from the road, somewhat out of order since I was also posting from Brooklyn.

6/22/03

This is Happiness. Thank God for Jennings. Being at his house is always like a vacation (and by always I mean this time and the one other time that I have ever been here). I wish he were here to hang out with, but nevertheless, as soon as I walked in the door, I thought, “to hell with this driving all over the place crap. I’ll be staying here for a few weeks.” It’s a beautiful day and I’m sitting on his balcony looking at the Pittsburgh skyline. Yesterday was good too, although the drive to Morgantown is always boring. And of course I’m worrying about the cat. Which is silly. I know she’ll be fine. Anyway, had good driving weather yesterday afternoon, got to Toph’s house in time to watch him and Matt attempting (mostly succeeding) to put up his newly built lofted bed. Then yummy Cajun for dinner and drinks at Bent Willy’s. Sacked out on the couch about 10 minutes after we got home, and about 2 minutes in to Navy Seals (oooh! Navy Seals!). Woke up early this morning (for some unknown reason) and drove here. Oh, that’s the microwave, lunch is ready (thank goodness, food!). More later….


6/23/03

Continued enjoyment in Pitts. Discovering that I’m not very good at navigating by myself, through lots of construction, but I’ll get over it. I manage to get where I’m trying to go, I just often have to take a few extra turns to get there. Went to the Mattress Factory yesterday afternoon. I’m not sure if installations based on the appearance of light are really my bag, but it was mostly cool. My favorite was the big metal building in the parking lot, with high-backed wooden pews and a square cut in the ceiling. The sky was so perfectly blue yesterday that it took me a while to decide if it really was the sky shining through a hole or merely a projection of blue light. Jess and Timmy arrived late, due to truck problems, so I decided just to meet up with them this morning. Spent far too many hours watching tv last night and slept late this morning. A completely lovely way to spend a vacation, if I do say so myself. Went to Timmy’s new house this afternoon. It’s nice, but I think he’s a bit foolish for buying it. Helped them unpack some stuff and moved furniture and whatnot. Now I’m back here, theoretically to do some work, while Jess naps, before we all head out for dinner or drinks or something this evening. Hoping that I have the willpower to make it an early evening as I have hopes of leaving by 9:00 tomorrow morning. Speaking of which, the one thing I did manage to accomplish today was deciphering my directions to long Island. I now actually think that I might know how to get there and feel much less daunted by the whole thing. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see if I still feel that way tomorrow evening…oh! And I got to check my e-mail for the first time in 3 days, so that was nice. Both the respite from the whole electronic world and the brief return to it. 

Letter to the Editor:

New York's Finest - they were called heroes a little less than two years ago. And rightfully so. But tonight...well, let's just say that I haven't felt quite so much like an animal in ages. Went to the pride parade, and was (I thought) very understanding of the street closings and whatnot along the parade route. Even after the parade ended. I could understand the need for crowd control and everything. Makes sense that the police are antsy, their job is stressful, and, on most days, I respect their work. But I couldn't help beginning to wonder on my way home. It's 11:00 at night and streets are still closed (the parade ended around 5:30). In a fairly arbitrary fashion. Now, I truly hope that there was a method to the madness that I simply missed. Numerous streets were closed to both pedestrian and car traffic. Carrie and I had to walk several blocks out of our way just to arrive at the subway stop. I wanted to ask a policeman why smushing so many people onto a sidewalk (when there were completely empty streets available) was necessary but feared arrest/harrassment. understand the need for crowd contol, but quite frankly, it would seem that allowing the crowd to spread out into the empty streets would reduce the number of people crashing into each other and therefore diffuse the whole situation. But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

In other news, it's been a lovely, very musical weekend in NYC. Went to Carnegie Hall this afternoon (for free!) and a wonderful concert for Leonard Cohen last night. Hopefully will have time to write in detail later, for now must sleep as seeing David in morning, then catching train to Long Island for one more night with Matt and picking up my car to drive to Cleveland on Tuesday.

ps - ooh..."night with matt" sounds dirty...alas, it is not.