Small Gifts

It's a small and lovely gift when Central Park is closed to vehicular traffic. It really gives me a little thrill when I turn the corner to enter the park and find out that it's exclusively for bicycles and people and doggies. (It is closed to cars on the weekends and late night, but not M - F on my commute to work.) I guess all that snow on Saturday was the cause for this treat.

I saw this double-scary stuff right before the park - DIRTY SNOW + DUMP TRUCK so I stayed back. Yuck. Getting dirty will not be tolerated.


When I saw the barricades at the Park I was so happy. No cars. Peaceful.


It set me off to a great start on Monday morning.

I pull my glove/pot-holder off with my teeth so I can operate my camera.
A red jacket is excellent for visibility. 

I never take pictures of this view of Central Park South because it's usually too stressful and congested.


Before I put my helmet on, I took pictures of my all-the-way-around-my-eye eyeliner. I never do eyeliner on the bottom and wanted to check it in the camera. I blurred or smudged it pretty well. I thought I looked more EMO but I look ok in the picture. My outfit was all black. I wasn't trying to be EMO, but I do like themes.


Monday I also tried out some new super-cheap-o glitter oxfords.

These guys are pretty excellent bicycle shoes. 

A really good day...and night...

Matt and I took off work to go to a taping of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. It's refreshing to be off during the week.  I had a big day. First thing, I went to a follow-up visit with my cute, hummingbird-sized dermatologist who was a co-intern with Matt back during his internship year. We love her.  I went straight home and we got ready and went to the gym. We both had good work outs and I think my new sports bra (note: if you have actual breasts, this is not a sports bra) gave me the confidence to run 3miles quickly. My first gym visit since October! For lunch we shared some burritos then rode the bus down and across town to 11th Ave. to pick up our Daily Show tickets.

You pick up your tickets then you have about 2  hours to kill, so we checked out some stores and ate at a pretty authentic feeling Irish Pub. We had Guinness and shared an order of fish & chips.
I really loved the feel of that bar. And whatever shade of green paint is going on in there. It's like a dirty mint green color. Ooh...

We got back in the Daily Show line and watched dogs go in and out of a dog park. I exclaimed to Matt: "Look whose coming across the street!" it wasn't a human celebrity, but a French Mastiff who looked exactly like the Turner & Hooch dog. We are big fans.

I was under-dressed and kept putting my hands in Matt's coat pockets with his hands to try to be warm.

We finally got inside and saw how tiny Jon Stewart is when he came out to do a pre-show Q&A with the audience. Seeing that he could shop at Brooks Brother's Boys helped me get over my infatuation. Now we'll just be friends. It's all good. Elizabeth Warren was the guest and who doesn't love her?

I said goodbye to Matt as we were walking out of the taping because I had to run down to Escuelita on 39th Street to meet my friends for the Lady Bunny cabaret show "That ain't no lady"

If you're in NYC or coming to visit- And you love crudeness and rudeness and bad manners like I do- You should by all means go see the show. Here's a link to buy tickets.

Linda Simpson was at the door and greeted me with a hug. The Cowboy from The Village People and Richie Rich were in the audience. The show is really action-packed and seriously nasty. And hilarious. And we are so going back. My friends who went with me both came out of it like "We're telling our friends and coming to this mess again." Amen.

I said goodbye to my friends and walked to the port authority to throw the white flag and get in the taxi line. I got one quickly. I gazed up at the New York Times building and rode home feeling the magic of living here. I asked him to stop at the red light near our apartment near a pizza shop.  I got a slice on a paper plate- no bag, and walked down the street to our apartment.

Sometimes there are magical, convenient times like this. Being dropped off by your taxi, taking 3 steps into the pizza shop, taking some more steps to your apartment and drifting off to sleep feeling so happy and good about the whole day.