26.september.2004 :: yesterday evan and i went to nyc to see the ed ruscha show at the whitney. we've been wanting to go all summer, and this is the last weekend of the show, so it was now or never. the show was worth every minute of the uncomfortable, four-hour lucky star bus rides down and back. i was really taken with the powdered graphite and gunpowder drawings. there was also a great alexander calder exhibit...we're both fans, so it was an extra bonus. we were both surprised to learn from a quick buzz around the edward hopper exhibit that hopper lived and worked much earlier (by about 40 years) than we thought! his older works are vastly different from the sharp, contrast-defined paintings i associate with him. i feel enlightened :)
the rest of the city also had surprises in store for us...from the street fair in little italy that greeted us with yummy gyros to the rollerskate dance party in central park to the sweet/sour cousin of kimchee at singapore cafe to an open-air screening of an unidentified chinese movie while we waited for our bus home. it was a good day!
24.september.2004 :: did someone say it's friday? it sure hasn't felt like one. this morning on my way to class i was convinced it was monday. my disorientation probably resulted our having spent a long, relaxing afternoon in the park yesterday, picnicking, throwing the football, and generally getting our minds off work. the sky was spectacular; big and blue. we sat and talked for so long that the shadows from the trees on memorial drive chased us northeast across the grass. i had ballet again last night. it was fabulous (again). there was leaping involved...and i learned the meanings of some terms that i recognized as a young ballerina but only had an intuitive idea of. pretty cool :)
today on my way home from the legal services center the traffic on tremont street was super thick and slow. as a bicyclist i expect, on average, one negative encounter per trip with a motorist, whether it be getting cut off, honked at, or cursed from a rolled-down window. this afternoon it was a variation on that last one. the exchange i had with the driver of a big SUV with tinted windows was confusing. in retrospect, i think i may have assumed incorrectly that the driver was trying to be as obnoxious as he came across. for that i apologize. still, to all drivers: please, don't talk to me when both of us are supposed to be paying attention to the road and the other cars and cyclists on it, even if we're stopped fifteen cars back at a slow red light. and especially if you don't have anything nice to say. okay? thanks.
and (last but absolutely not least), congratulations to my dear friends Lea and Katie, both of whom recently accepted judicial clerkship positions for next year. Lea will be clerking for Chief Justice Margaret Marshall of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachussets, and Katie for judge Karen Nelson Moore of the 6th Circuit in Cleveland. Lea and Katie among the most intelligent, hard-working people i know, and they are both dedicated to social justice issues and a liberal political agenda. i'm super lucky to know them and call them my friends :)
21.september.2004 :: the heat is on! the heat is o-on! or, as mr. baldwin would say around thanksgiving, the eat is on! he was one great teacher :) yay, mr. baldwin!
i mean it, though - the heat in our building just came on for the season. our pipes are making those familiar whining and tink-tink noises that mean winter's here. what's more, the market down the street has started stocking those funny bundles of firewood under the produce cooler.this town doesn't care that these are supposed to be the dog days of summer...none of that! this is new england. stop yer whinin'. arrrr-knarrr.
this morning on my bikeride in to jamaica plain the traffic was unbelievable. i finally ditched the roads for the bike path that goes out to the legal services center, but even then i caught the lights wrong the whole way in to work. as bad as the drivers around here are rules-wise (um, it's called don't block the box?!), it's still not as risky riding in boston as it is in places where most of the drivers have never entertained the idea that bicyclists have rights on the pavement, too. greenville comes to mind. i still feel reluctant to bicycle beyond the confines of our neighborhood there, though dad sometimes convinces me to take the short leg of the old farmville highway to the next subdivision for a change of scenery. what's worse for self-propelled two-wheelers: bad drivers or bad roads? i love my bike, but it probably doesn't like the abuse it gets on the pavement up here. geez. what was i saying about winter?
20.september.2004 :: happy birthday, zack :)
it was a nice weekend, despite a solid day of rain on saturday. evan and i took our first zipcar out for some errands. we'd been wanting to try the scion xB for a while, and it was definitely time to sign up for wheels when we want them...it definitely afforded a sense of accomplishment.
yesterday we both worked most of the day...i'm preparing my application for the Beagle Fellowship at NRDC, and am so excited about it that writing the requisite personal essay is harder than it should be. i still have ten days to tweak (phew!). last night, though, we got out the big electric blanket and snuggled in for a movie. nice way to close down le weekend.
15.september.2004 :: life in the arctic :: it's been getting chilly around here in the past couple of days. i rode my bike to my clinical at the legal services center in jamaica plain yesterday, and thought i'd be too warm on the way home with a fleece on. not. that says something...i don't think i'm in north carolina anymore...
yesterday was also the first meeting of my employment discrimination class. the professor reminded me of grammy :) or maybe someone i'd imagine grammy would have been friends with in williamsburg, or in the WAVES. i think it's going to be a good class :)
yesteray was also the state-level primary election in Massachusetts. i went to gund hall shortly after five o'clock in the afternoon to case my ballot (mostly for Alice Wolfe), and was the TWELFTH person to have voted there all day. granted, most of the candidates were running unopposed, but still...there were at least seven people there manning the polls. they must have been bored out of their minds. i hope we do better than that in november. please, please :: VOTE.
09.september.2004 :: as they say in the cigarette ads, "you've come a long way, baby!"
it's first day of class, and my desk is already invisible under a mountain of papers. i did 5.5 out of the 7 things on my list of things to do today. among them - buy some dance gear for the ballet class i signed up for that also started today. i'm finally getting back to it after nine years...all i have to say is this: it rocked. and maybe this: i remember a different reflection. rather than going back to something i did years ago, this endeavor seems to have more to do with learning something about who i have become since then...a healthy dose of self-discovery. psychological, yes...physical, too. the last time i saw myself at barre i was a teenager...a young one, at that. with long hair! no bun this time around. strange, isn't it? maybe this will finally put a halt to the recurring nightmare of arriving for dress rehearsal (odd that it's never the performance) never having learned the choreography. that'd be a bonus...
08.september.2004 :: i'm a schoolgirl again.
registration was today...there were a lot of section II kids out and about. i was super happy to see them all, especially Lea and Katie and Lisa :) and Lina, whom i adore. i could have spent all afternoon goofing around with little Katerina. i'm already stoked for her first birthday...
this afternoon i ran our 2.92mi loop around the charles in 25:23. pretty good for me, and i was marveling that that was a 37sec improvement over monday's time until it occurred to me that on monday i stuck to the gravel path by the river; today, expecting mud there, i took the shorter paved route off the elliot bridge. still, a good run, and happily accompanied by my new watch from evan. it's red :) today was a red day, for that matter.
next topic: my resume. somehow i managed to end up with two versions. i like this one better, but this one might be useful for certain occasions...
05.september.2004 :: dc to boston to new york to boston in three days...things move quickly around here! my last day at spiegel&mcdiarmid was friday. my plane to boston arrived at logan without incident, but it then took me 100 (count them) minutes to get home. first the shuttle bus, then the T, then a cab. i was crabby. understatement of the month...but then! evan was home when i arrived :) we ordered pizza from our favorite place, the harvard house of pizza. it was perfect, as usual.
we flew to new york on saturday for jennie and konrad's wedding. the ceremony and celebration were in the skylight ballroom on the top floor of the puck building. t'was a beautiful evening, indeed. myla, rob, gabrielle, monica, and melinda were there, too. it was nice to see everyone at once...check out the photos page for a sampling of the festivities :)
01.september.2004 :: seems we're making headlines at work. that article will only be up for the next week, but if you catch it in time, you'll get a bizarre look at my world of the past six weeks...
tracy and i are checking out how the website works :)