Been a short summer that flew by like a bird that I saw a brief moment and then it whisked away. All is well, although I caught a random summer cold that kept me in bed for 2 summer weeks. Sucks.

Past weekend, I spent planning some activities and a couple of trips. 3 days off next week for a Stay-cation - some coffee house musing, maybe a long bike ride up to the Cloisters before summer completely runs away. But I am also planning a week in New Orleans over Halloween - mmm....Creole goodness and powdered beignets, chickory and Hurricanes. Voodoo Fest, the Halloween Parade and even a bike tour through the Garden District.

I was just musing with a co-worker that life is good. We both got a promotion this year and were quietly celebrating our good fortune. From burning out to enjoying life....too happy!

The man-friend is away part of this weekend and I miss him. However, it does give me some time again to take care of things like laundry, cleaning out all the old cupboards and sweeping out the attic of my brain. It's odd, I realized today, I had forgotten the names of two of my ex-boyfriends.

Isn't life grand?

Guernica...I felt like a woman in this painting today.

Wonder.

I'll try to express the wonder and joy of riding home from work along the esplanade in Battery Park City. I was able to leave work before sundown tonight - (still shaky from my recent crashes), I rode more gingerly. I felt the crush of other madly joyful NYers shaking themselves out of down coats and big winter hats.

Runners on the path, large groups of strollers and...meanderers, kids running screaming races to imaginary finish lines...burly manly-men self-conciously stretching pecs and leg muscles. Warmth! Heat! A sundown that lasts two hours, as though reluctantly, the day didn't want to end. The sky went from brilliant blue clarity to sunsoaked yellow, salmon pink mixed with tangerine, then violet and royal blue to grey flannel.

Menages, the Economy and the Oba-Messiah

Weekend Past~

Cindie, an old friend from the Dmind Corp days, came into New York for the annual International Print fair, to set up her gallery space's corner in the Armoury on the Upper East Side. Halloween night in the city, we watched the "freaks" dressed up as naughty nuns and jail birds, Governor Palin and rock stars, ("...some girls should NOT be wearing those outfits, that's supposed to look good on her, right??") but we opted to skip the Parade of Ghouls downtown in West Village (it would be overrun) and caught up over ravioli at a nearby trattoria midtown near my apartment.

Next morning, looking out the window down 42nd St, we caught part of the practice run of the NYC marathon, also slated for the weekend. We had diner food delivered up to the casa for breakfast, and then she took off in anticipation of her day - friends from the fine art prints world, customers with the wherewithal to drop a cool $8K on a first edition....whatever. I shook my head, "Can't afford it..." I replied when she asked if she should leave a ticket for me at the entrance. "I am only at the 'Dogs Playing Poker' buying class at this time.'". While my friend was at Print Fair, I caught the downtown bus on 2nd Ave. to Union Square's farmers market, intent on finding a couple of houseplants to bring some life and air into my little space. A dealer from Long Island set up a canvas tent in the busy square. I came home happily with a rubber tree variant, and a larger ginger tree hybrid, with a grizzled- tough look and spice-red foliage. The trees made the air fresh in the apartment, cleaner, and when I open the door at night, it smells so good in there!

At night, we agreed on shrimp tempura sashimi and a film down at the Angelica after the weekend workday was over. I love the Angelica theatre, it's alive with artistically inclined folk in dark drapery and pale pallor, arguing philosophically but amicably over black cigarettes. Inside, tables and a small coffee shop let the movie-goers sit under artwork and discuss the latest arthouse offering. We caught Vicki Christina Barcelona, a visual homage to Barcelona's visceral fusion of art and urbanism ~ a debate whether passion is at odds with a "normal" life. Personally, hot though Javier Bardem is, I'm not tempted to overthrow a lasting, growing and committed relationship in favor of artistic passions, untraditional menage~a~trois, and the constant threat of gunplay and knife throwing. Over alcholic coffees at the King Cole bar in the St. Regis midtown after the film, Cindie was in favor of the Bardem, Cruz, and Vicki-Christina question.

Here was the question: When you have a loving, traditional, growing-old-together-with-kids-and-grandkids, house in the burbs type of relationship, is it understandable to want a passionate sexual attraction to moody, crazed, romantic and rather...dangerously wild painters in a foreign country? Just, is it understandable? My own read was this: I had a million crazy passionate encounters, but a dearth of the real, loving ones. My opin: I would pay a million dollars for the real thing and to erase the scars of two decades of singlehood in 3 major cities. Cindie, on the otherhand, is experienced both sides, now in a loving committed and long term relationship in Conneticut. AND they are both artists too (like Bardem and Cruz in the movie...) Her perspective, well...passion for passion's sake.

I love the King Cole bar for late night champagne, the crowd is returning from some party or art opening, some gala ball or board meeting, and we swanked a bit with millionaires who earnestly debated their own concerns in Gucci and Prada leathers. It's a wonderful background set for our debate du jour. (d'Noir? du Nuit?)

Through last week~

Well, of course, we were all taken by the election and the possibilities for the future. Rockefeller Center ice rink hosted "Election Central" - a giant map of the country imprinted upon the ice, and updated minute-to-minute in red and blue as voting boothes closed and the counts rolled in. Anticipation and celebration lasted all night long in Harlem, midtown, and all boroughs on the warm evening, and we all knew what would happen.

Hope. And celebration. "I love you...Vote Obama," I would say in closing on the phone to my closest friends that week. In response from one loved one, "[blah, blah, blah]... the Oba-Messiah..."

"Yes," I said, "...but your voting platform is based solely on legalizing marijuana, so..."

And similar convos. An historic event, I'm glad to be alive now.

With the economy still tanked, I am holding off on major furniture shopping for the apartment and am still sleeping on a doggie bed on the floor. It's hard to commit to any kind of spending right now and I am willing to wait out the weeks until the money is there to buy the bed and chair that I need before this place is relatively complete.

I did get a print from the Met, though, a montage of photos and sketches of Christo's The Gates installation a few years ago in Central Park. At the time, NYC was again beset by a tight depression. I think I was in between jobs and life was scary and uncertain and cold. The Gates, a path of orange flags tracing a looping trail through Central Park, could be seen out my window from some major lawifrm I was working in, and I would think, in deepest, coldest winter, when I had no permanent job, and very little cash, it was art's response to...despair? Go outside, take a walk through the Gates, ignore the cold and all of the things that can worry a person.

And it was a really inspiring display.

"That's why people buy prints," Cindie replied.

Is it like Sex in the City?

I never watched Sex in the City before this weekend. Amazing, but I lived most of my life without cable; how could I afford cable AND Gucci AND Ferragamo AND Cole Haan...you get the picture. So, last weekend I watched the movie, 4 years later in the lives of the fabulous four and was fascinated.

I caught up on the 1999 series...what happened in 1999? Oh, yeah: late twenties, early thirties, maybe that's why Sex in the City is so appealing, they and I were the same age, and I DID collect shoes, run up ridiculous tabs at swanky watering holes, used to be able to compare the latest trend in restaurant decor, service, palate.

Casual chic, swingy hair, and difficult relationships.

What will it be like this time around? Currently, my apartment is unfurnished, I work late hours at the new job, and dip my toes gently into the cold rushing river that is NY social life.

I am 3 years older. San Francisco taught me large open spaces and fresh food - Boston taught me...well, that I hate politics - and how to move quickly out of sinking situations, and here I am again.

Maybe that's why I watched Sex in the City - I needed a primer.

Things are very easy now, but they are the same: friends are moving onwards, upwards...the boys are exactly the same; the clothes, well at least I know where to go shopping, (tho the current economic state taught me to be cautious in spending); food is great as always and delivery at 3am if I feel like it all week long....

My body is adjusting to the warmth in the mid-Atlantic. Warmer than SF, warmer than Boston.

It's perfect.