intellectual properties

//messages in the woods//

i was in Woodstock again this weekend, this time with a whole lovely crew of human beings. first cold and rainy and nearly freezing, then springtime: a hike with the plus side of lots of rain = lots of gushing waterfalls. then a full summer day and we went to the swimming hole and lie in the sun for hours. three seasons: one weekend. glorious, the one negative being that the almost-full moonrises were late enough that i kept falling asleep before it made it above the tall beautiful trees.

// i left more messages in the woods //

(..more..)

Filed in photos, travel | Tagged with woodstock | Comment (0)

from the sky down

(in the woods somewhere near woodstock, ny)

impressions of Alaska (travelogue)

day1/SatMay5: seattle
early morning departure from SFO, arrived early afternoon, took a cab to the 11th Avenue Inn B&B (highly recommended), settled in to the great little stand-alone apartment they gave us, and since it was a rare gorgeous sunny afternoon in Seattle, headed out for a walk to Volunteer park a short distance away, which was crowded with Cindo de Mayo festivities. wandered back, found Plum, an excellent vegan restaurant and had a late lunch.
later rendezvoused with longtime internet friend @OffbeatAriel and Andreas and little Tavi at Cal Anderson park, and then hit the bar/restaurant district for a long succession of beers and food. the night of Cinco de Mayo is a parade of trainwrecks, and we found most of it to be too loud and crowded, but Elysian Brewery was best, hands down.
fitbit data: 20,266/8.85 miles/33 floors

day2/SunMay6: seattle
slept in, had brunch, went wandering downtown/waterfront, found a nice little cocktail bar – the ZigZag Cafe – tucked away on one of the many sets of stairs that go between the bluff under the Alaskan Way Viaduct and to the waterfront. then walked back up to Capitol hill for vegetarian Thai food and off to bed.
steps: 16,249/7.1 miles/33 floors

day3/MonMay7: seattle
had breakfast at the B&B, where we met some cool people from Harlem who coincidentally also work in the fields of energy (he) and art (she) and talked to them for a long while about all that and New York, moved/walked to the hotel where the families were staying, went back down to the waterfront with Jay’s mom and stepdad, my family arrives, we all rendezvous for dinner at a pizza joint, took another walk to a comic book store and around town and then to the Space Needle before sunset. went to bed early for an early morning departure.
steps: 23,315/10.18 miles/26 floors

me, my mom, my sister, and my niece at the Space Needle

day4/TuesMay8: seattle, embarkation, out to sea
wake up, hustle to get everyone into the shuttle and to the dock, go through ship boarding process, settle into the room and boat life. it was another really gorgeous day for Seattle and we sat up on deck in the sun while the all the boarding etc happened. had family dinner, went to some shows (song and dance, comedy), and then late in the evening found that the on-board disco was 100% empty, and we all know how i love an empty dancefloor and so i danced my ass off in my own private disco for at least an hour before bed.
steps: 17,710/8.81 miles/78 floors

day5/WedMay9: at sea
this was a really long day. overnight we encountered a huge pacific swell, and the boat was rolling around all over the place. not only was it rolling constantly, our room also kept shaking like an earthquake (due to being close to the engines? i dunno) and we could barely sleep. tons of people got sick – the crew had placed little stashes of barf bags all over the place, stuck on doorways and elevators. i thought i was immune to the seasickness until i tried to go to the gym and run on the treadmill. WRONG ANSWER. had dinner, went to some shows on board and basically just lolled around on unsteady sealegs.
steps: 13,765/6.05 miles and 177 floors!

(sidenote on all the steps: yes, we were on a boat. but it was a BIG boat, and i made it a point to not sit still too long, and to never take an elevator, which on a boat that was 11 stories tall with stuff on every level can be a lot. so many of those steps are up and down, up and down stairs and through the many long tunnel hallways of the boat trying to find the other 8 members of my party. and then in every port city, we weren’t much for the tourist attractions so we just WALKED.)

day6/ThurMay10: Tracy Arm Fjord, AK (on boat)
on this day the boat took a trip up into the Tracy Arm Fjord to South Sawyer Glacier. a beautiful scenic trip, though the weather was quite drizzly and cold on deck. the boat drove right up into the ice. it was pretty cool. evening was more shows/bar hopping on board.
steps: 11,186/5.08 miles/77 floors

day7/FriMay11: Skagway, AK
Skagway is a tiny port town of about 10 square blocks and 800 people, but for some reason, despite there being almost nothing there, this was one of our longest ports of call. we got off the boat around 11am and wandered into town. by this point i was really really really really ready to get off the boat. all the swaying/moving and constant vibrating was killing me. after a run through town we went back to dock, met up with all the rest of our families, and boarded a train to the White Pass & Yukon Route for a ride up into the mountains. it was nice and scenic, albeit freezing cold. the landscape quickly turned from spring by the coast to fresh piles of snow over the pass.

back down the mountain and back into Skagway. not only was the boat motion making us physically ill, but the food and beverages on board were also not quite up to our foodie-par and my mostly-vegan gastro-intestinal sensitivities (the only saving grace being that we sat down to formal dinners every night, not eating from the neverending fast food buffet, and the food in the dining room was good, AND they had vegetarian indian food for an option every night, which i had 5 out of the 6 nights we ate dinner there, so THANK YOU TO WHOEVER DECIDED TO PUT THAT AS A PERMANENT ITEM ON THE MENU!) and so we were eager to 1. stay on land as long as possible and 2. get some good beer and food in us, so we headed for the local brewery – Skagway Brewing Co. – that we had spotted earlier. this place was great – we had a few good microbrews and decent dinner, and then it was time to get back on the boat.
steps: 15,387/6.72 miles/74 floors

day8/SatMay12: Juneau, AK
we woke up early in port in Juneau and the weather was still really crappy, so we wondered if our Big Adventure scheduled for that day – helicopter to a glacier, and then wintery dogsledding – was going to happen. we called, and were told that indeed the higher altitudes were socked in with fog (which we saw going up only 2800 feet on the train in Skagway) and that they had gotten over 10 feet of new snow in the last 2 days. still fully winter up there at altitude. so there wasn’t enough visibility for them to take us up to the dogsledding camp in the helicopter, but they did downgrade us to just a helicopter ride to a different location. a little bummed, but still excited!!

we got off the ship around 8:15am and were shuttled from port out to the Juneau airport. after a short briefing and some gear additions, we were separated into groups of 6 and piled into the helicopters. we put on the headphones, he started the copter, and woop! up we went! i think because i was the smallest person in our crew, i got the best seat! jay was sitting right next to the pilot in the front seat, and then i was right next to him, next to the window, which in a helicopter is like one big bubble so i could see everything around and below me. we went up and all of the bays and riverways and valleys and mountains around Juneau appeared. really quite amazing, and we could see for quite a ways even though it was misty/foggy at elevation. jay says the helicopter was going 140 mph, but it sure didn’t feel like it. it felt like floating. we then arrived at the valley where the glacier was, the pilot swooped around a few times, pointed out the mountain goats, and then landed us right on the glacier. it was pretty slippery, what the the drizzle/rain, but the pilot said that the ice looks even bluer when it’s overcast (if it’s sunny all you see is reflected light/glare) and we were able to hop around a little bit and look down into some chasms. we spent about 15/20 minutes on the glacier, and then got back in the copter for the trip back. so all in all, only about a 45-minute trip but super cool.

we got dropped off in the town on the way back at around 11am, and it was pouring cold rain by then. we hung out at the famous Red Dog Saloon for a bit of beer-for-brunch, and then set out to see if there were any suitable places for lunch. we ended up at the one asian restaurant in town, a chinese/sushi fast food place, and when i ordered a plate of just plain steamed broccoli the guy was kind of confused. was alright anyway, and then we headed back to the boat for another evening of entertainment and wandering around.
steps: 13,246/5.79 miles/100 floors

day09/SunMay13: Ketchikan, AK
the weather had funny cleared up, but we only had a few hours in Ketchikan so not enough time to go hiking or get into the wilderness at all. so we set out on a long walk through and around town, and just enjoyed being outside, on land, and not in the rain. back on boat, where the food/entertainment combo of the evenings were starting to feel like groundhog day.

note: i would not say the entertainment was bad, just not my style (a lot of campy cover bands, broadway-style shows, showtunes etc). there was one music act we really liked – a solo guy with an acoustic guitar who sang classic rock songs at the bar in the beautiful atrium of the boat nearly every night until midnight, and we sat there at least 3 nights with jay’s mom and stepdad for hours, singing along and making requests. so thank you to him (Scott the Guitar Player) for being there and being so enjoyable.
steps: 16,680/7.29 miles/86 floors

day10/MonMay14: Victoria, BC
it was finally a really sunny on deck as we headed back south, and so we were able to bask poolside for most of the afternoon, as our port call time wasn’t until evening. once in Victoria (the capitol of BC and “City of Gardens”) we just took a very nice long sunset-into-dusk walk along the seaside, through the park, through downtown and all around the harbors until time to get back on the boat.
steps: 19,611/8.57 miles/44 floors

day11/TuesMay15: Seattle, WA
disembark in Seattle, cat-herded everyone to hotel, walk downtown to a lunch my mother arranged with my Great Aunt Mitty and a whole slew of extended family members i have never seen before and probably never will again, except for (my 2nd cousin once removed? i don’t even know) Jeremy Gregory, who lives in Tacoma and i was ordered to sit next to and for good reason: he’s an amazing artist working on really cool projects with puppets and photography and stop-motion animation. we talked through the whole lunch.
back to the hotel to grab luggate, and then to the airport to go home.
steps: 17,511/7.65 miles/20 floors

In summation:
2500 miles from Seattle, WA to Skagway, AK and back on an enormous boat, floating through glacial fjords, a train ride into the snowy mountains, a breathtaking helicopter ride, playing on a glacier, fields of spring flowers, endless ocean vistas, mountain views, lots of time with the families, lots of songs and dances, Seattle adventures to start and end, and many many memories.

Conclusion:
it’s clear that me and boats don’t play well together. all the motion, all the noise – i just can’t be comfortable. i have a pretty long “bucket list” for life, but “sailing around the world”, or even sailing anywhere, ever, is not on it. i do not plan on “cruising” again. i had wanted to get a lot of excercise per day, which i did, but not in the way i expected . working out like i usually do in the gym on the boat was not going to happen with all the motion. and the only yoga classes were at 8am every day. uh – no. so i readjusted to walking laps around the boat and using our time in ports to take really long walks in the towns. i had also wanted to read for an hour a day, but that also couldn’t happen because of the motion so i’m a little behind on my reading list.

HOWEVER, this was a really great thing for us to do with our families, and it was really great to spend time with all of them, and yes: without fail, the scenery was majestic. i hope to get back there someday and get into the interior. the coastlines were nice, but i like to climb mountains!

i think the most surprising thing was that i did almost totally check out and unplug from thinking about the rest of my life. i didn’t think about work, about our upcoming Enormous Life Transition (please stay tuned for that important announcement, and NO: we are not getting married), i didn’t turn on my cell phone while in ports, and i didn’t read a paper or watch the news. i think the permanently unsettled feeling of just being on the boat (sea sickness, constant vibration, not-my-usual-diet), combined with the craziness of being on a cruise ship for 7 days with 8 members of your family and the amazing awesomeness of the Alaskan scenery was physically and mentally enough to deal with. in a good way.

me, a soy latte, the sweater cape my mother knitted me, and Ketchikan (AK) harbor

DSC01149, originally uploaded by jayober.

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BQN-JFK (december vacation part 2)/end of 2011

(…cont.)

Wednesday, my last full day in PR, in the morning Reagan and i went horseback riding on the beach, where i learned i’m not as scared of horses as i thought it was. in fact, i’d maybe like to learn to ride one FAST.

after lunch, we went back down to the beach and went surfing. i was not nearly as successful as the first time (trying too hard then, i suppose) and tired myself out quite a bit paddling, falling, paddling, falling. the waves started to get bigger and one came up and reagan said watch out this one’s breaking! but it turned out that i was at just the right spot and it just lifted me up and off i went. as soon as i realized i’d caught it/it caught me, i stood up. woo! after that, my shoulder was really starting to hurt from all the paddling and so i called it a day. later we went back to the beach again and watched the sunset and had some last evening cocktails.

Thursday morning we got up early and went to have 8am breakfast at this charming english B&B on top of a hill overlooking the ocean before i had to go to the airport. it was really gorgeous, but i was *so exhausted* i could barely think. this doesn’t happen to me much – usually once i’m up i’m up, even if i haven’t slept, but i just couldn’t wake up for a couple of hours. so tired from all the frolicking in the sun the day before.

then off to the airport, but by then i was awake and no sleep on the plane. jay, who had been in NY since Tuesday, was so sweet and came to meet me at JFK. we got back to brooklyn late afternoon, settled ourselves, and then met up with peoples for dinner at a delicious veg restaurant Angelica Kitchen (where the waiter recognized me as he also works at another vegan restaurant i’d been to last week. tour de vegan restaurants NYC!) and then drinks and then late night endless bantering until 3am and finally crashed.

i tried to sleep in Friday but it didn’t work and i was up first at 8 and then at 10. Jay, Chris and I got up, had breakfast, and headed to the New Museum, which was underwhelming. i love participatory art, but the place was jammed, being a Friday and a holiday weekend, and so we weren’t able to really do all the things in the time we had. but even if we could….some of the things were broken/not available, and some were just…..? i don’t find tunnels made out of blank white styrofoam very impressive conceptually or aesthetically. i think Burning Man has ruined me ever enjoying that kind of art in such a sterile environment ever again.  don’t touch! stand in line! sign this waiver! oh and it doesn’t *really* work! anyway, there was also an exhibit about conflicts surrounding censorship of Lebanese art that was much more interesting.

after the museum, Chris took off and Wiley joined us for happy hour, and then we headed up to Central Park to go ice skating. upon arrival, however, it was obvious that ice skating among the crowds would not be pleasurable. so we wandered through the park in the dark instead, came out on the other side and found ourselves some cappuccino.

at this point in the evening, it would have been smart to go back to bklyn and take a nap, as we had 2 events to attend Friday night. however, the travel and logistics were such that it would be much easier if we just went to the first one directly, and so we opted to have dinner out instead at superfine and then head to the party. but at some point during dinner i started to crash in an irritable way. i drank a 5-hour energy but basically once we got to the first party i went directly to the couch and stayed there, eyes closed (but enjoying the eclectic live music) until we left at midnight.

at midnight we went back over to the Lower East Side to see friends Stuart Bogie and Colin Stetson (of Transmission fame – you know, that band from ann arbor ->SF that we saw triple-digit times in 2000-2003?) play in a newer band formation, Superhuman Happiness at the Cake Shop on Ludlow. now, when Stuart told me about it, he said it was a Phish afterparty. generally, despite the fact that we were avid fans/phans of both during the exact same years (early 2000s), the worlds of Transmission jazz and Phish have i think never really intersected for us and so i wondered how this mashup of scenes was going to be. but i trust their musical judgement completely, and so we went. through the pre-NYE wasted crowds into a hot crowded basement we went, just as they were about to go on.

(historical aside:  in May 2001, we came to NYC and a phishhead friend told us to go see Antibalas, which was playing in a basement of a jewish cultural center somewhere.  we arrived, and just after the band started playing, Stuart Bogie walked out and joined them. it was very……serendipitous.  so going to see him play again, in some dark basement somewhere in NYC, 10+ years later, was just kind of awesome.)

and when it started….it became very obvious that this was indeed a Phish afterparty. lots of phisheads, still with their glow bracelets and rolling eyes were packed inside. the music was definitely more indie-jam than jazz, with lots of melodic singing mixed with funked beats, which i can totally appreciate, especially watching them play so physically, so ecstatically, but i was so exhausted i just found myself a spot standing on a bench up against the wall, my head almost hitting the ceiling, observant. i wanted to make it to the end of the set to get to hang out, but just couldn’t. it was a sauna in there, i was wearing 2 layers of clothes, and the energy was so the opposite of where i needed to be. so in the middle of a cover of Sledgehammer (covers? did not expect that), we exited into the cold night and finally headed to bed at 3am, totally exhausted.

i was also not successful sleeping in more today, and right now as i’m typing this i should be trying to take a nap before heading out for NYE, but NYC makes me manic.  and plus, it’s the LAST DAY OF 2011 and i get to see many of our beautiful friends tonight!  how could i not be excited? we have 2+ parties on the list and we’ll see how far we get.

.::.

i’m looking forward to seeing the sun come up on 2012, as 2011 – full of personal and global/internal and external revolutions, experiments and changes – has been a one hell of a good year.  keep up the good, everyone. we’re moving forward.

Filed in autobiographical, music, travel | Tagged with igottawearshades, jazz, NYC, puerto rico, reagan, surfing | Comment (0)

SFO-NYC-BQN (part 1)

yes, i have been on vacation for 9 days and i have not blogged a thing about it.  isn’t that what vacation is for? not doing what you don’t feel like?

first i was in new york for 4.5 days, and while i had intentions of sitting in coffee shops on snowy afternoons working on things that need to be worked on (sorry to be opaque but they aren’t quite public yet), instead the weather was quite nice and so there was a lot of wandering around with days progressing from a search for good coffee to a search for good cocktails to a search for good late night company/activities,  lather rinse repeat with an increasingly foggier state of mind – something like this.

besides wandering, i did see our friend Martin Dockery’s new monologue  The Holy Land Experience, and also visited the Lady Gaga installation at Barney’s on Madison Ave, which was highly underwhelming, but Bill Cunningham (famous NY fashion photographer, not the Fox News dude) was outside taking photos of people going in and out and i said hello to him as I had just watched the amazing Bill Cunningham New York documentary again just the night before.  i said “hello Mr. Cunningham!  I just watched your documentary again last night!” and he said “Why would you do that?” and then went on clicking. and then it’s possible that he took a photo of me that if so i’m sure will end up on the cutting room floor and not in the NYT but still made my day.

and then i came to Puerto Rico, where my friend Reagan’s surfer family has a house on the very west end in Rincón, near Aguadilla, to a surfing town that is so not-foreign it feels like i’m in Florida. i mean, it’s part of the U.S. but i didn’t realize that it would still feel like the U.S. once arrived, I also intended to do work, but i am in a house that shares wireless with the surfer hostel next door, and for the first two days it didn’t work. when we asked why it wasn’t working, dude seriously said “i dunno….wind?”.  it was mentioned that turning it off and on again might work. and wouldn’t you know, we got home and hey!  it worked.

our friends Justin (who always seems to be in the same part of the world i am, even when we dont plan it (see: Prague 2009, Chile 2010, and now PR 2011) and Amanda were on the island visiting family and we had quite a Christmas eve that involved surfing (catching my first wave evar!) and then some epic bar dancing where we made complete asses of ourselves and included justin catching me from hitting the floor in a badly calculated dance move involving multiple bar stools. you know: christmas.

since then Reagan and i have gone surfing, went to morning yoga on the beach, hiked a 5 mile loop, and ingested numerous rum-filled coconuts in between. i’m here for 2 more days, now the internet works, and maybe i’ll get some work done, although we tried surfing again today but the waves were too small and so obvi we have to go back tomorrow .  then it’s back to NYC, where Jay is now wandering the streets on his own time and we will meet up, and then NYE weekend, which, if i can count on my friends, will be full bore until the sun comes up on new year’s day.

…read part 2…

QOT(other)D: penguins

in discussion of “bucket lists” while watching docu on Antarctica:

“i want to see some fucking penguins!”

–me

wishlist manifestation item #1

the what-am-i-going-to-do-with-my-life end-of-year holiday booked:

SFO -> JFK 12/18/11

JFK->Aguadilla, Puerto Rico 12/23/11

Aguadilla->JFK 12/29/11

JFK->SFO 1/2/12

so. NYC for a few days, christmas on an island with one of my BFFs, and then back to NYC for NYE.

and then…2012: (it’s)what’s next(?)

recession wishlist for 11/11/11

i heard today was a lucky day, 11/11/11. so in the spirit of making wishes on lucky days, let us itemize the list of crazy plans i have in mind in over the next 10 months (after November Austerity is over, of course!):

• visit family in Michigan sometime before it snows too much (=in the next 30 days?)
• New York City + Puerto Rico for Christmas +NYE 2011
• Phish @ Madison Square Garden New Year’s Run (not NYE but one of the other nights?) tried, did not get tickets
• Utah – January? SLC or Zion?
• weeklong yoga retreat in Mexico – February
• Montana/Glacier NP – April?
• Cruise from Seattle to Alaska, May 2012, with both of our families (not only a crazy plan – actually booked)
• Iceland, June/July 2012 to chase the midnight sun
• August 2012: fly in/out of burning man 2012 for a 72-hour stay
• Fall 2012: NYC School of Visual Arts: Critical Theory and the Arts (MA) . for this, i need to get my shit together. a lot.

**
apparently the way my mind works is that while we are suffering a major Recession and i don’t have a full-time job, i should spend a lot of time and money traveling and apply to an expensive private art school in the one of the most expensive cities in the world.

anyone want to suggest anything else awesome and totally impractical i should consider adding?

NY: all that’s fit to print

where did i leave off……

monday was rough, with the late night/early morning that happened sunday evening, and then the heat, but eventually i crawled out and wandered up to Williamsburg. yeah yeah, hipster mecca/gentrification whatever, but they have great food and shopping.  i wished all day that it would rain.  around dinnertime i met marc on the street and we walked his dogs and pushed his adorable child around, and i’m sure if some people could’ve seen me, standing with 2 dogs on leashes in hand and a baby in a stroller waiting for marc outside the drycleaner, they would’ve had to blink a few times.  we caught up and had light dinner and eventually i had to say goodnight because my brain was no longer working.  i slept monday night.

tuesday i met up with W.O for lunch near chinatown at a vegan restaurant, and everything looked so good we ordered way too much food. to my luck he summoned JayB to tag team, and after W left J and i finished the food and then headed out for early afternoon cocktails at some random place nearby.  after that i hopped a train uptown to visit my one and only coworker, who i’ve worked with for more than 10 years, as i’d never seen his apt. since he moved from berkeley to NY a few years ago. it was a short trip that included a visit to St. John’s Cathedral and a walk to Columbia where he was giving an evening guest lecture.

back on the train downtown to the village to meet up with Alliedise and CGlush, my old phishy phriends!  we had a great dinner at Kin Shop – a thai fusion place that was delish! – and then headed out for cocktails.  tried to get in Death and Co. – i really loved the carved gothic doors – but it was so crowded maitre d’ dude wouldn’t even let us inside.  so a quick phone call and off to Please Don’t Tell, which i won’t tell you about except that it was hands down my favorite of all the bars i went to (which in 10 days has to be at least 20).  other friends joined in and it turned into yet another very late and mostly sleepless night.

very early (6:45) the next (Wed.) morning i travelled back to brooklyn (aside: on the oh-hi-i’ve-been-up-all-night-drinking-on-a-weeknight walk of shame on the train, during AM rush hour, a woman dressed much like any other commuter is standing 12 inches from me.  she is loudly evangalizing: “YOU ARE THE PROBLEM WITH THIS WORLD. LOOK AT YOURSELF. YOU KNOW YOU ARE A SINNER. YOU KNOW IT. DEEP DOWN. YOU KNOW YOU ARE THE PROBLEM. SEE THE LIGHT. TAKE JESUS AS YOUR SAVIOR AND BECOME GOOD, NOT EVIL…and on in that vein. at first i was like OMG CLASSIC NEW YORK CRAZY and initially aggravated, but then i determined i was not going to be affected by her words, and i just started watching her closely. she was mostly eloquent. she was sincere.  she sounded genuinely concerned. and so i just watched her face. watched her speak, watched her eyes look at no one. then she got off. i wondered if she does that regularly. or with direction.) (also: early morning joggers always make me feel more shame than commuters. getting up and going to work is de rigueur. but getting up to jog represents something i have never had and seeing them while i’m making my way home sometimes makes me question my priorities.) i  grabbed a backpack full of beachy things, and hopped the LIRR to go see Reagan at the beach.  by this point i needed a vacation from my vacation. i was in Wantagh by 11:00am and half asleep on the beach for the rest of the afternoon after that.

in the evening Orange arrived, and we made Big Gulp sized margaritas and headed a half mile down the beach to:

according to RBM, this kind of thing never happens there. down the way is Jones Beach amphitheater, but this was right there in their little town and FREE on the BEACH and this was a BIG DEAL. and the crowd proved it.  thousands!  really!

to start it off the mayor and some other people got up and started talking and during this we went over to the beach and had fun jumping off the lifeguard stands into the sand.  some tweenie girls with Bieber t-shirts who were also doing this took these photos of us:

and then, back to the show. now, i have never been a huge Billy Joel fan. the Greatest Hits existed in my college house just so we could get drunk and sing Piano Man at 4am. repeatedly.  so anyway – i was super pleasantly surprised at how good this cover band was (they were not joking with the “Ultimate” descriptor) and also surprised at myself that i did actually know a lot of the words to the songs i didn’t even realize i knew.  they also covered Tiny Dancer which made my day and then Whole Lotta Love, which you wouldn’t think a Billy Joel Cover Band would be able to nail but they did a hell of a job on that.

most of the other attendees had brought lawn chairs and blankets and picnics and coolers and whatnot. all we had was our enormous margaritas, and eventually summoned the Brother to bring the other half of the bottle of tequila which we drank just like, straight. most of the other attendees also stayed seated in said lawnchairs, but we were DANCING and after a while a whole slew of Women With Husbands Who Don’t Dance joined us and we started our own little dance party there on stage right.

it was actually kind of a long show and by the end of it we were exhausted from screaming and dancing, and also totally tanked.  i had to wrangle the girls away from trying to talk some security guards into coming home with us, and we (us three + Mom, Brother, and Brother’s GF) walked back home.  we all eventually went to bed, but as tweeted, someone woke up on top of the pool table after having gone to sleep in a BED and it wasn’t me.  i laughed so hard when this was revealed i almost fell down.

anyway, up early before 6am again on Thurs AM (so many early mornings in new york!) to retrieve Jay from his red-eye flight into JFK despite irreconcilable hangovers from that bottle of tequila.  jay retrieved, back to the beach. the morning was fogged in (so nice after NYC heat!!!) but it eventually burned off, and Reagan’s brother took us out on his boat from some pull-behind-the-boat tubing action on the little inlet.  this looked super fun but also looked like i might hurt my shoulder if i tried, as people were getting THROWN from that thing, so i did not participate.  boat was also acting janky, and so we headed back to the beach.  not as nice of a beachy beach day as the day before – windy/sandblown and the water was rougher.  so we lounged around, and then in early evening got back on the LIRR and headed back to Brooklyn.

where it was HOTTTT.  man. whew.  it took us a while to get back to our host apt and then we headed out again for a late dinner with W.O. and Kat, which of course led to after dinner drinks and by around midnight i totally CRASHED.

so where are we now.  Friday. i had now been in NY for a full week and i think i got maybe 3 nights of actual sleep?  unclear.  also, i can’t eat well in the heat and had about 5 iced coffees every day.  so i was starting to get that end-of-the-week-at-burning-man feeling.  sort of light and not quite focused.  we had breakfast at an airconditioned coffee shop (which had a totally oversharing young sexy counter staff) and then headed to midtown to have lunch at a vegan japanese place with Bex before she left the country, and got to see C and her tiny baby girl.  by the time we got done with lunch it was literally 104 degrees in manhattan – i saw the temp on a clock tower.

we opted to walk through central park anyway, and eventually came upon some kids playing in a sprinkler.  adults were going by sweating buckets in all directions, tourists looking like they were going to drop dead kept walking, but we were like OH YES and took off everything we could in public and joined the kids in the sprinkler.  definite HIGHLIGHT.

and then back on the train to Brooklyn for happy hour.  a lot of our friends were going that evening to see the Glitch Mob somewhere, so this was a pre-gathering of sorts.  we were not going to that show, and so after the many happy hours instead had a late dinner at IndochineNY. great atmosphere, if a little kitchy, super hot wait staff, good cocktails. and then out for more cocktails. and more. until we ended up back in Brooklyn at the Fulton Grand until 3am+, where some wasted asshat made a snide Paris Hilton comment at me. i really wanted to punch him and that’s when i knew it was time to go home.

saturday we got up slowly and eventually braved the heat and made it to the Brooklyn flea market. lots of cool stuff, but we were SWEATING.  i never sweat. it was amazing how much i was sweating.  hopped the train to PS1 -formerly public school #1, now an extension of MoMA where they have afternoon parties in their courtyard.  i don’t want to talk too much shit about the art inside, but none of us liked it. except for the longstanding piece “Meeting” by James Turrell, which is one of the old classrooms with benches along with walls and a big hole to the sky.  so simple, yet so much more enjoyable than the videos of people screaming on an endless loop.

anyway, when they redid PS1 into the museum, they bought out the houses/buildings around the sides to demolish and create the outdoor spaces, but one of the landowners wouldn’t sell. and now, some friends of friends live in the only remaining apartment building, which has a deck that literally sits above the courtyard where the party is going on. it’s definitely baller to sit up there on a hot afternoon with a couple of bottles of champagne and watch the crowd.

um…..then. saturday night. back to brooklyn. to dinner party. to bar. and finally, a late night hottub party. that went until the sun was well up.  i finally went to sleep at 11:00am on Sunday. and that’s all i’ll say about that.

sunday then, as you can imagine, was more than a little surreal. i slept for 3 hours but then we had to get back to the host apartment, pack our stuff, and get on a plane back to SFO.  and thus ended my 10 days in NYC.

.::.

things i did not do:

see the Statue of Liberty, even in the distance. (maybe i did from the brooklyn bridge?)

visit Ground Zero

go to Times Square or anywhere near it

go to the Zoo

see some people i wanted to

shop nearly enough

.::.

i went to yoga today and my instructor said she was a little out of it and low energy because she’s doing the 10 day master cleanse.  i was like, yeah, i feel you, because i am still pretty exhausted and so had empathy. even though i’ve been home for 3 days, i still feel in recovery. while i did what was perhaps the opposite of a traditional cleanse, as i’ve mentioned before with burning man,  it’s actually sort of the same in terms of deprivation and your body going into survival mode, which at a certain point starts to feel euphoric. after 10 days of extreme heat, tons of water to stay hydrated, too many iced coffees, sleep deprivation, walking  miles and miles every day (after a couple of days of walking in the heat my feet were so swollen every pair of shoes i had gave me blisters and eventually i had my feet almost totally taped. not to mention all the other weird bruises and scrapes i somehow acquired. sexy.), dancing, too many bars and drinks to count, and most importantly, the constant enveloping feeling of love from all of my amazing friends, by the time i got off the plane late sunday evening, i was practically delirious. but it felt really good to be alive.

.::.

many thx again to all the lovelies who put me up, picked me up, took me out, danced with me, drank with me, ate with me, walked with me, laughed with me, sang with me, talked with me, lounged with me, soaked with me, napped with me, sweat your ass off with me, beached with me, walked me home, called me a car.  especially Bex and Nat for hosting. so amazing.