NY, NY: It Really IS a Wonderful Town

Dear all:

So I'm back. I handed in the dissertation (WOO-freakin'-HOO!), albeit with several ounces of trepidation, and got the hell out of dodge by crashing with my very close friend from college, Phil, in NYC. And I have to say, it was a very good move. Firstly, I had a way of channeling all the leftover excess energy AND a way of distracting myself from worrying over what I hadn't had time to finish. Secondly, I have so much more appreciation for NYC after living in a city as small and as frequently dead as Bflo, and so much more of an appreciation for being there as a fully-fledged and legal adult. More on that later.

But the weekend was, to use the word that became the Phil-Rachel watch-word of the 60 or so hours we spent together: AWESOME!! It was unabashedly, uninhibitedly super-duper fun the whole time.

I got into the downtown area around 3:00 or 3:30 pm, after hitching a ride with the NYC Airport Service Shuttle--which took a bit longer than I thought it would, but for $15 in NYC, I was happy to take this option rather than resort to a $50 plus cab ride. Because Phil was going to be at work for the next 3 hours or so, I wandered around Manhattan's Upper East Side--concentrating on Madison, Park, and Fifth Avenues--you know, where all the fancy schmancy stores are. Of course, there are fancy schmancy stores all over NYC, but this is where they're all impressively lined up. And of course, I can't afford to buy anything from any of these places, so I just content myself with recognizing fancy schmancy designer names/lines. Some of which I don't even like, and don't understand. But you see, it's fairly hard to get really lost in this area, and I wasn't about to risk getting lost. I also had a bagel with lox and cream cheese sometime around 5:00 to have an authentically NY and Jewish experience, and it was pretty cool; the bagel wasn't the BEST NY bagel I've ever had--but it was better than what Bflo has to offer, and I've not had lox in literally years. It's amazing how nostalgic you get for New York Jewish culture when you've gone without for so long. On the downside--the bagel, lox, and cream cheese was about $10, demonstrating the other side of "authentic" New York culture--really frigging expensive.

At around 6:30, I met up with Phil for a group he has organized called Culture Circle, which brings together a group of interesting, creative, intelligent, alternative folks to share their creative work--from writing, to music, to photography, you get the picture. It actually derives from the version of Dead Poets' Society we started in college which served the same purpose--though the original version, as Phil likes to point out, was clothing-optional. (I would add that Phil was the only member that ever made use of this option, appearing nude at most meetings.)

Anyway, it had been years since I've been privy to this sort of gathering and I had a wonderful time, and was extremely impressed by some of the contributions people offered. In particular, the photography of one of Phil's new co-workers, Lenny, was very, very impressive. (Why "new" co-workers: Phil has actually started to work at Meetup.com--a craig's list type of online community organization that was actually the means by which Culture Circle got started. They hired Phil after Culture Circle and one or other of his organized groups became really popular and they met with him just to say hey and found out that he's a programmer in his daily life). Lenny apparently likes juxtaposing nature with man-made/technology-based elements in his photos--and honestly, all of them were amazing. I still think the image of the plastic Starbucks coffee cup, replete with leftover swill and foam, and yet almost ethereally backlit and aglow with the setting sun in the background, was one of the most striking and could have served as some sort of commentary on the postmodern age, or as some very subtle, ironic pro-environment advertisment.

Also, Lenny provided the quote of the weekend. In describing my current oscillation between academia and non-academia, and the temptation to "sell out to the man," Lenny responded with the perspective of someone who in many ways has "sold out" to the man, but is nevertheless an interesting, morally and intellectually sound individual. His very apt quip (perhaps slightly misquoted):

"Selling out to the man isn't so bad if the man is nice to you and doesn't eat your soul."

And this just struck me as so great, because it just about sums up how I'm feeling about "the man" these days so I really appreciated Lenny's insight. Thanks Lenny!

After Culture Circle was over--around 10 p.m.--everyone present went over to a nearby diner and hung out, and I ended up chatting for 2-3 hours with Nick, a student of "positive psychology," which is essentially based on the principle that we need to study what makes people mentally healthy, what makes them feel good, rather than just what makes people ill and depressed. To me, this makes a tremendous amount of sense, but according to Nick, it is a fairly new field, and has not yet garnered much respect within the academy. Anyway, Nick is considering Ph.D.-dom, so naturally we had lots to talk about, and perspectives to share about the pluses and minuses of pursuing this most advanced degree, and he was just really fun and interesting to talk to. He's apparently also from Buffalo, which was weird but very funny, and in fact, we had a laugh over the fact that I had thought I was leaving Buffalo behind for the weekend, and now I had someone sitting across from me throwing various Buffalo-isms at me. We were at the diner until about 1, at which point, it now being July 21st, Phil and I wended our way to a Borders to enjoy the cultural phenomenon of Harry Potter, and specifically, to join the line to acquire Book 7. I had already pre-ordered the book, but Phil wanted to get it, though more for the experience than out of true readerly eagerness. Then we wandered around some more and wound up at another diner. I had matzoh ball soup, again, another authentically New York/Jewish experience, and it was awesome, and moreover, much more reasonably priced. We got back to Phil's apartment at around 4, I think, and got to sleep at around 5 a.m. So that was Day 1.

On Day 2, our priority was to go see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (which I'll just say now, I found excruciatingly disappointing--far too abrupt, far too undeveloped), to get gelato from Il Laboratorio del Gelato (located in the Lower East Side: so AWESOME), and to get margherita slushies before seeing the movie (apparently Phil has never seen an HP movie completely sober and wanted to maintain the tradition), and wandering around in general. We were also going to a housewarming party of a friend of Phil's who is a programmer but who is also a part-time model (??!!) and who had just bought a condo in Brooklyn with his sister. More on that later. Anyway, the day is now somewhat blurry, because there was quite a bit of alcohol involved, and of course, I had gone to bed very late the previous evening, but I remember the gelato--because Il Laboratorio basically rocks. The only minor disappointment was that they weren't selling the honey-lavendar I had last time, which knocked my socks off, because they only sell a few flavors each day. So I had the dark chocolate, which was still plenty awesome, and made missing the honey-lavendar more all right. Then we went to get the margherita slushies, and I know I got buzzed astonishingly quickly--those who know me know this is not at all astonishing--and Phil and I just wandered around giggling and being silly, and took lots of pictures. Many of them of skyscrapers all shiny in the brilliant weather we had, for example:

But it IS important to stress how fun it was to wander around NYC tipsy on margherita slushies, and thus, what a different experience NYC is when you're a fully legal adult. I know, because I speak as someone who experienced NYC regularly for more than half of my life, but also as someone who was always under parental supervision. I should also note that the night before, we had seen a couple of girls who were loudly, obnoxiously drunk, wandering around Manhattan. This night, however, those loudly obnoxiously drunk people were clearly Phil and I. Because we were drunk later too. Come to think of it, we may not have been completely sober from about 5 p.m. until sometime the next morning, though neither of us was in any way so drunk as to be a danger to ourselves or others. Just loud and very silly. As in, we sang songs as we walked--loud, obnoxious songs. And I don't have pictures of me yet--Phil hasn't sent them to me yet--but here's a representative picture of Phil, shortly post-slushie--and this should give you an idea of our state:

I hope that no one is too shocked or dismayed. Because clearly Phil is entirely capable of fairly coordinated movement and conscious thought. He's just a lot more giddy than usual. A lot like me when I'm under the influence. More happy, more extroverted, less easily embarrassed (though that's not saying much in Phil's case), than usual. Anyway, we bought our tickets for Order of the Phoenix shortly after the slushie, but Phil felt that we needed to be assured of our altered state for the duration of the entire film. So we went to a bar before actually going to the movie; as you can see below, he had a scotch, I had a cosmo.

According to my NYC guide, however, cosmos are no longer hip, which means, I guess, that I'll need to find another cocktail to have at the tip of my tongue. At any rate, we were obviously even more tipsy when we got to the movie, and I actually think I dozed off for a bit during the screening. But I'll say it again, our inebriation did not stop Order of the Phoenix from being disappointing to me, and given what a happy little drunk I am, that's really saying something.

After the movie, and more wandering, and I think we may have had dinner somewhere, but I honestly forget, we went to the housewarming party. The two-bedroom condo was amazing, HUGE. And perfect for dancing, although shockingly, there wasn't any (and what's up with that, you ostensibly, hip Manhattanites? You're too cool to dance? Jeez-US.) In any case, the party was full of beautiful, hip people, so naturally I stood out like a sore thumb. Well, not really, but I was definitely lacking in the hipness quotient, at least in terms of how I was dressed. Phil should warn me the next time he's thinking of taking me to a hip party to take my hip party clothes. I did get to talk to a few, cool people: Jason, Phil's friend, who I had met the night before at Culture Circle, two of Phil's other friends, Emmanuella and Marianne--the former who Phil at one point wanted to date, the latter who he actually used to date--who were both very nice, but were mainly focused on conducting matchmaking for Jason to an almost obsessive degree. I talked with them mostly by making suggestions in the matchmaking (I don't think I was much help) but was mostly bemused by the whole process. I was also introduced to the host of the party--the programmer/part-time model, Todd, who was nice and surprisingly down-to-earth, but was clearly preoccupied with hosting duties...

But considering how few people I knew and my lack of hipness, I had a pretty good time. I mean, I was still quite pleasantly buzzed, after all, and though I eventually ran out of people to talk to, because everyone was talking to people they already knew, we left soon after that point, and so was it ultimately a fine evening. We took a cab home, and according to Phil, I fell asleep around 4 a.m. I should add that I was glad to see my party-all-night skills were still in relatively good shape.

Day 3:

It's important to note that the previous evening, Phil and I had thought it would be awesome to stay in our PJ's for a while on Sunday morning and watch a movie from our childhoods and eat Lucky Charms. So I should add that the remainder of that night was spent wandering around NYC still tipsy while looking for Lucky Charms and a movie of this ilk, and that we remained very obnoxiously loud and silly. At first, we thought about watching that magnificently clunky mythological fantasy from the 80s, Clash of the Titans--starring Harry Hamlin--filmed well before his marriage to Lisa Rinna, or his appearance as the murdering, cheating, dirty-middle-aged man on Veronica Mars, Season 1 (the absolute bestest season), and if you haven't seen it and you like movies so bad they're good, you should totally, seriously check it out. But earlier in the day I had mentioned the original Muppet Movie as a film that stirred equally warm and fuzzy childhood memories, and in pursuing this thread, Phil suggested that he buy The Muppets Take Manhattan as a fitting tribute to the weekend, and also so we could see whether any of the places we'd seen over the past couple of days were featured.

So the next morning, we awoke and watched muppets, and ate Lucky Charms, before heading out once more to the city for a final day of wandering. We went to a great bakery called Amy's Bread, where we split a cupcake--don't have a picture, but I think Phil might, so if he does, I'll post it later--and where he had a sandwich and I had an reportedly low-fat applesauce donut to boot. Both were excellent.

Then we went to see Michael Moore's Sicko, which was incredibly sad, but very thought-provoking and happily, not overly-didactic, and then we went to have Ethiopian food for dinner, which is probably my favorite ethnically exotic food to have. Probably because I just don't get to have it very often. In fact, the last time I had it was during my last trip to NYC to see Phil--2 years ago. Ah, Ethiopian food. It makes my palate metaphorically weep for joy.

Then Phil got a cab to take us both to the airport so he could see me off, and as if in tribute to the wonderfulness of the weekend, there was a gorgeous sunset as we drove--full of rich pinks and salmons and hints of orange--which Phil also got a picture of, and which I will also post once it is made available to me. My flight was a late one--not leaving till 11 p.m. and I got back to my apartment in Buffalo at around 1 am.

I was also ecstatic to see that Harry Potter Book 7 had arrived, as expected, in my absence, and while I had originally planned not to start reading until the next morning, I found I couldn't wait, and read till about 4 a.m. Slept in, and then finished it, and I have to say, Book 7 was, overall, a delightfully satisfying experience. I have only a couple of minor quibbles with things that struck me as inconsistent with earlier books. But the major questions were answered, and answered exactly as I predicted they would be, which made it all the more satisfying. A couple deaths I didn't expect, one death I half-expected, had given up on, but then it happened, and one death I expected that never came. Then I reread it over the next couple of days.

So that was my latest NYC experience.

But to return to the more "normal" side of my reality these days--and I use the term loosely, since really, normal for most people does not involve rationalizing 7 years of graduate work, 4 of which involve drafting what might, someday, in the best case scenario, become a book manuscript--my defense is scheduled for August 9th, and as long as I don't hear from anyone from my committee about problems in the coming week, I think it will go on as planned. I'm sure there will be revisions for me to do before I formally submit it to the university, but in the meantime, I'm contemplating what to do next--which will involve a combination of doing academic things, in case I decide I'm still interested in being an academic, and thinking and considering non-academic things in case I decide that I'm not, and in order to make jumping ship seem not completely insane in the eyes of my peers, who are likely to demand, "Why the hell would you do that? After all that work? Are you nuts??!!" But more on that later.

I'm also thinking about finishing the sweater I started knitting..mmm...probably more than 2 years ago, or the scarf I started knitting about 6 months ago but which ended up being a pain in the ass because I made the stripes too damn narrow and was dealing with a gazzilion threads of yarn everytime I switched colors. I might also bake something, because it's been a while since I've baked anything, but it's supposed to be damn hot for the next few days, so maybe that's not such a good plan. What will probably happen, though, is that I watch obsessive amounts of tv--it IS Shark Week on The Discovery Channel, after all, and I can never resist good shark tv.

Other than that, I really need to clean my apartment. I was planning on doing that this past weekend, but discovered I needed time to recover from NYC the previous weekend. So I slept a lot, and didn't do much of anything. Which really isn't so bad.

Until next time. And hopefully more NYC pictures will be forthcoming.

Pains in My Head & Heart

I suppose you think the title is purely metaphoric.

Unfortunately, I really AM experiencing chest pain (presumably heartburn) and little stabs of headache pain as well. Perhaps it's all the caffeine. Perhaps it's the compulsion to eat my lunch at 9:30 in the morning, and then having my stomach catch up to my brain and holler, "What are you DOING? Don't you know that I'm still working on breakfast??!"

Perhaps its the stress of trying to finish the dissertation in the next 3 or 4 days and trying to figure out what I have to do versus what, in ideal conditions, I'd like to do, and realizing that some of the former may become some of the latter, even though it really shouldn't be that way. Fuck.

I'll say it again: FUCK.

Compounding the stress is the fact that my office unexpectedly got slammed with a task that normally comes at a different time of the year, that has a very inflexible deadline, but that does not include the same reasonable amount of time to complete the project in question--thereby removing any illusions I had about being able to do some of my non-paying work at my paying-job. I also agreed to cat-sit for a friend this weekend before knowing about the whole working-at-work fiasco. And I am happy to cat-sit, but unfortuantely, it will also take time and attention away from finishing the god-awful beast that is the dissertation.

Personally, I blame the administration. When in doubt, always blame the university administration--the bureaucrats who have no concept of the time and energy it takes to do scut-work, or its importance, because they never do any. Scut-workers around the world should seriously unite.

"And yet," you wonder, "if you're so busy, and stressed, and overburdened by work, why the hell are you blogging right now?"

A valid question. Personally, I chalk it up to one of my many coping mechanisms--which is to repond to high stress with denial and total avoidance, as well as irony and humor. I mean, it is kind of amusing to respond to two rather high-pressure deadlines with, "Oh yes? Deadlines? Well thanks very much for the FYI but I rather feel like blogging instead. I'm just not in a deadline sort of mood right now, thanks again, so very much..."

Indeed, when in doubt, succumb to denial, paralysis, and feigned nonchalance. On the plus side, I'm going to NYC again next weekend to see my very good friend Phil, who I've not seen in two years. And it will be wonderful in many ways, but not least because by then I will have handed in the dissertation, and will feel--temporarily but magnificently--FREE. And time with Phil is always a great journey of the mind, the soul and the body. Like me, Phil is a great walker, talker, thinker, and eater of delicious, ethnically diverse cuisine, and we do all of these things together with great verve.

Ahhh..

But a lot needs to happen in the ever-shrinking space of time between now and then, and so, back to work I go, having vented my spleen a bit. If there was only a way to stop time, to not have to sleep, to take some of the pressure off...I guess for the time being, I'll have to settle for some TUMS. Everyone, please pray to and adore the academic gods on my behalf. May they be kind.

Signs of the Times: The End is Near--What the &*%$ Does that Mean???

Self-Quote of Yesterday: "Sometimes freaking out is good. Freak-outs usually mean I'm getting stuff done."

Self-Quote of Yesteryears: "Sometimes I think, I wish I didn't need to sleep...I mean, think about how much we could get done if we didn't need to sleep, if like, sleep was purely optional and recreational. We'd probably enjoy it much more that way too."

My horoscope this week from Rob Brezny's Free Will Astrology:
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In the coming week, I doubt you’ll misplace your keys or forget to set your alarm clock or spill soup on your shirt. While shopping, you’ll be intuitive about picking the checkout line that moves fastest. If you take a plane somewhere, your luggage will show up promptly in the baggage claim area. In other words, Taurus, the little things in life will go well for you, reducing your wasted time and inconvenience to near zero. May I suggest that you respond to this grace period not by cramming in more busy work, but by giving yourself regular opportunities to enjoy the luxury of taking deep breaths and gazing at the big picture?

My question: Is there a pattern here? Do these things all really go together, or is it just another indication of my frenetics this week?

i.e. It's almost time to hand in the diss--I'm giving myself a preliminary deadline of June 13th, and a final deadline of June 16th. May the academic gods be kind. But I'm still going to Taste of Buffalo tomorrow, and I'm still having a sangria slushie or three. Work hard, party harder.