accidental self-portrait with st. john the divine and the (day after the) end of the world

springtime shedding? (87th St.)

chromosomes

I sold a shawl yesterday to a lovely Brooklyn woman who made the trek all the way up to Morningside Heights to take a look at my work. We parted ways thrilled: she heading south to go home, pleased as punch to have the perfect shawl to complete her Easter outfit; me heading north to meet my boys, tickled pink to have enough cash in hand to treat us all to drinks and have plenty left over for a little self-indulgence.

We had a few drinks and a delicious dinner and then headed east on 125th toward our respective trains. At some point during this walk it was made clear that Nick had his drum sticks stashed in his bag. Evan demanded he fork one over, and promptly began running it along a metal fence and a brick wall and whatever else we passed.

I demanded one too and found the ensuing noise most satisfying. Apparently I found it so satisfying, in fact, and proceeded to make a clackety clack clacking ruckus with such relish, that Nick turned to me and said, "Clearly, Em, you should have been born with a Y chromosome."

For some reason this made me smile all the way to the train station.

bookends

I was dreaming Sunday morning, in that cold gray light just before dawn, about the end of the world again. Remnants of the previous night's movie* had sent tendrils, slithery nightmare tentacles, twining through restless sleep. (It doesn't necessarily take a lot to set me down this path. Sometimes it feels like a much too regular thing.)

Later that day we went to see a friend sing with the Renaissance Street Singers in a vast and gorgeous Chelsea loft, resonant with hardwood floors and enormous wood pillars and ceilings so high there was room enough for voices to mingle and intertwine and soar.

I'd forgotten, until that afternoon, until sitting there in that overheated and crowded loft, how much I'd once loved this kind of music. I'd forgotten how my parents and brother and I, early one autumn Sunday morning in Paris, had traipsed over to visit the Musee de Cluny, only to find that we had forgotten that Daylight Savings Time had ended the previous night and the museum was closed for another hour.  We wandered across the river to Notre Dame to kill a little time, and as soon as we went inside we could hear the singing, and it was the most beautiful thing my thirteen-year-old self had ever heard.

Almost every Sunday morning after that I would wake up early and head out before eight, either alone or with my father or with one of the many visitors we had throughout that strange and beautiful year. I would walk up our street to Rue Dante and then follow Lagrange to the Pont au Double and over the Seine.  And I would stand there for a moment facing the entrance to the Cathedrale, gathering myself, before walking in as quietly as possible to find a seat in the back and just sit there and listen until the music ended.

This is what I have been wrapping around myself these last few days, in the wake of yet another irresistible bout of apocalypse.  It was the closest I've ever come, I think, to believing in God.

*On the Beach

knitted lace bridal shawls

Now offering made-to-order wedding shawls

innovation at work, library style

When it rains, it leaks.
And when it leaks,
put a plant under it.

early morning signage

npr music tiny desk series

I'd never even heard of this until today and now I can't stop watching these wonderful little performances. Not a bad way to spend a quiet Saturday at home nursing a cold.

Beirut
Craig Finn
K'Naan
Josh Ritter
Dave Douglas Brass Ecstasy
Hilary Hahn
Adele
Horse Feathers
Goat Rodeo Sessions
The Decembrists
The Civil Wars
Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes
Lisa Hannigan
Basia Bulat (again)
Trombone Shorty
Steve Earle
Red Baraat
Tallest Man on Earth
Gogol Bordello

friday night

The discordant chorus of coughs ricocheting between us, the sniffles and snorts and ear-blasting throat-clearings, are enough to wake the dead (or at least enough to chase the Llama-monster into safe retreat beneath the bed in the other room).

This is our Friday night: each of us curled at our respective end of the couch with box of Kleenex strategically placed between us, honey-ginger or peppermint tea forgotten at our elbows, and one last episode of Community playing so that we can at least say we didn't go to bed before ten o'clock.

It's a good thing the promise of house-guests this weekend has not come to pass.

flustered

I did not sleep well last night. In fact, at least in the way of sleep, I've been all over the place this week.  After a bout of food poisoning over the weekend I think I slept about sixteen hours Sunday, then was pretty much asleep by nine o'clock Monday and Tuesday. Now I am sick with a cold, but not nearly as sick as poor Evan, who kept us both up much of last night coughing and sniffling and being generally miserable.

This morning, bleary-eyed but out the door by quarter past seven, I finished my book on the bus and was distracted by obsessing over which Nook book to read next and how to remove books I've read and so on and so forth. Almost missed my stop, jumped up and out the door and across the street and washed up against my corner coffee stand with two dollars in my hand and a tangle of words in my head.

And promptly ordered a large milk with sugar and one coffee.

He* looked confused. I was confused, and twisted myself in ever more tangled knots as I tried to correct my order. By then the cup was in the bag (I never take a bag) and I was too flustered to figure out what had actually ended up in the cup, or tell him I didn't need the bag.

Now, half an hour later, my overly sweet and milky coffee is beginning to kick in and I have been laughing over this with coworker Karen and hoping that tomorrow will go more smoothly.

*Not my regular coffee guy, but a very nice person covering while my regular coffee guy is away. My regular coffee guy knows how I like my coffee, and all would have been fine.

small things, or, you know it's been a good day when you love the MTA

I had good luck with public transit today. I mean seriously amazing good luck.

This morning, on my way to work, the bus pulled up to the bus stop just as I rounded the corner.  And there was not a shrieking child or a greasy odor emanating from a fast food bag or even a confused tourist asking interminable questions about where to transfer or how to get to the Met or why did this limited bus just pass his stop?

Then, after work, I managed to get from 117th & Amsterdam Avenue to Houston & 1st Avenue in thirty-five minutes. Thirty-five minutes! First the 1 pulled in as I got to the platform, and then the A pulled in at 59th Street just as I was walking down the stairs, and then, after a slightly precarious dash down to the lower platform at West 4th, the F arrived as if by magic.

And then, after an (as always) delicious bowl of ramen at Ippudo and a lovely walk back across town in this spring-like February weather, the uptown A pulled in just as I walked down the stairs and barely left time for hugging my dinner companion good bye. And I made it home in, yes, just under thirty-five minutes.

There are many days of not loathing the MTA, and even some days of honest affection, but it's the rare day that a person gets home grinning over the whole thing.

everyone loses their glasses (sometimes)

Monday morning it was a woman on the bus, suddenly running back to the front from the back (if that makes sense), asking everyone along the way, "Do you see my glasses? I just realized they're not on my face!"

Today it was a customer wandering through my bagel place, looking perturbed, and then a whispered explanation from the cashier that he had misplaced his glasses (again) and now couldn't see to find them.

Saturday evening it was my old friend Janey laughingly reminiscing about our freshman year in college, when she had taped a box to my dorm room wall with strict instruction to just always put my glasses in the damned box. (Janey is and has always been a great one for practical solutions. Except of course it didn't work.)

Evan just smiled at her knowingly. There's not a week that goes by without me dashing around the apartment at least once, looking frantically for keys or wallet or metrocard (I've gotten a bit better, in these intervening years, about my glasses at least) before heading out the door.  It's hard to be a scatter-brain sometimes, even if nine times out of ten whatever it is I'm looking for is just in yesterday's pants.

quite possibly both

My coffee stand man asked me this morning, after clarifying that I would like only one sugar in my coffee, if I am looking forward to the weekend.  I said yes, very much so.

I must have said it with a bit more force than I'd intended because he looked at me quizzically and said, "Very much so? Any particular plans?"

I mentioned that I would be getting together tomorrow evening with some dear old college friends.  He smiled knowingly and said, "Ahh, wine or whiskey?"

I laughed a little and said, "Well, given how it went the last time we all got together, quite possibly a little bit of both!"

He just laughed in return, and nodded, and said, "They must be very good friends."

They are, and I am looking forward to my Saturday -- a day of knitting on my chuppah commission followed by an evening with these old friends and their spouses and their little ones, filled with funny bits and delicious bits and yes, in the midst of all the revelry, probably a nip of this and a nip of that -- with a bit more than the usual Friday morning anticipatory weekend glee.

going home, 2.4.12