I got a Dissertation Fellowship! YAAaAaaY! This is the school's way of saying that the work I am proposing to do for my dissertation is so damn interesting that I should quit my job and just devote myself to it full time. Okay, quit one job (there is not that much money at this school). Lemme tell you but I cannot wait. I love my dissertation project so much.
Me and New York been having some troubles lately. The construction demolition NOISE outside my apartment at 4 am (I want to wake up in the city that never sleeps... at about 8 am, thank you badumpum), the endlessly waiting for the subway (to take me to my next job), the taking of the subway, the obnoxious people who BUMP INTO YOU or won't share the sidewalk... Yesterday was getting to be one of those days, until an errand sent me into the Yorkville Diner, where they insisted on feeding me (you thirsty? you hungry? you want something? a sandwich, okay, you sure you don't want something hot? you want something to drink besides water? soda or juice or something?) for free. I ate at the counter, me and Pancho hang out, talked about the city, teased the line cook.
Dale Chihuly had an exhibit at the Phoenix Botanical Garden. I could write my Kant paper on this - on the relationship between art beauties and natural beauties, the way his glass sculptures both imitate and parody nature, but in their juxtaposition with it, make the natural all the more visible.
You rarely get a chance to feel your own mortality, am I right Heidegger? Even those of us who eat street meat. We took a drive through the Snake River Canyon, where cars regularly fall off the nedge of the cliffs, and they simply leave them down there.
Things started off good when some friends helped keep me up until 2:45, drinking beers and watching me pack, until it was time to take the A train to JFK. I slept open-mouthed the entire plane ride, but I had the presence of mind to grab my seat-back copy of Sky Mall before disembarking, because this, babies, is the most entertaining publication I have ever read.
Click to enlarge, of course.
I have been keeping myself busy by eating Newman O's (mint, of course), and drinking whiskey and beers at Max's bday party last night.
And something pretty crazy happened last night, so please follow closely. I'm attaching pictures, for clarity's sake. LOOK AT THEM IN ORDER.
Okay, I walk into Lakeside Lounge, a bar in eat village, for Max's bday. I've been there a lot before because that bar hosts a lot of bike race parties. *See first attachment, that's me at Lakeside, in November, at a bike race party.
Next, I see I grungy looking guy who looks really, REALLY familiar, and I of course assume it's because he's a grungy cyclist friend. So I smile at him, trying to figure out who he is, and he, noticing, smiles back at me, making the same look, which was, "I know that person, how do I know that person?!" Okay, so it wasn't a grungy cyclist, it was Kevin Corrigan, the actor (Superbad, Pineapple express, The Departed, Buffalo '66). *See second and third attachments.
Okay. Next is the kinda crazy funny part. Almost immediately, he walks straight up to me, in front of Tito, Janna, etc. And he begins to say something to me, then stops and says, "You know, I thought you were the actress, Clea Duval"... *See fourth attachment. 
I got so embarrassed for having smiled at him like an idiot in the first place, and with everyone staring at me (they had already figured out who he was) and didn't have anything to say, so I said, "Yeah, I thought you were someone else too"... And then he took a drink of his drink and sat down with us and began talking to Max's band mate Josh. He never looked at me again.
HAHAHAHAHA! Okay, first of all, Grace, you look exactly like Clea Duvall. Wtf? Who is that? How is this possible? JUST LIKE HER.
Second, "Yeah, I thought you were someone else too" is the new "Go fuck yourself." Seriously, so funny. I don't know how it came out of your mouth, but in my brain it's "Fuck you. In your face." [swig]
I'm riding the train, and I swear there's a ring under the seats opposite me, but it can't be, no, it can't be - and you can't just dive, crow-like, after everything that glints, because you end up picking up a lot of tin foil and washers and looking like a jack ass. But after a long, long look (I am riding to the end of the line) I determine that no shit it really is, it's a fat, men's gold ring with a setting (how do you lose something like that? I guess you're playing with it and it drops and there is only so much you can look and look between everyone's knees during rush hour 
and besides it's your stop and you have to go to work and you didn't hear it hit the ground so maybe it fell into your attaché case after all). Aaaaand (where was I?) and so I am on the train and we are nearing the end of the line and now there aren't that many people on the train so I could go for it, I would just have to deal with getting my prissy lecturing clothes dirty but JUST THEN a mean, mean old man gets on with his granddaughter and they sit right across from me (she is turned around in her seat, looking out the window at the passing city and singing quietly to herself and he tells her to turn around and shut up and she obeys, neither fearful nor pouting because she is used to him by now), the two of them sitting right there above my ring, and he's catching my eye every time I try to steal a glance at it and glowering at me and god knows I'm not going to crawl beneath their legs but maybe, just maybe they will get off before I will, but they don't, they get off at my stop (which is, I admit, not quite the end of the line but the second-last stop), and maybe I can grab it after they get up but no, there's no time, it's my stop and I have to go to work.
This week New York is covered in a thin layer of grease. Yeah no, it isn't normally yuk yuk. It's especially apparent underground, on the tile floor of the subway platforms (danger), but if you pay attention you can detect it on the sidewalks too. It varies somewhat from neighbourhood to neighbourhood. In fact, in some places it feels simultaneously slick and tacky. Maybe it has to do with the salt that was put down after the snowstorm - I don't remember this stuff before Monday.
Are you watching the golden globes? drew BARRYMORE has Marianne hair.
eat it like the commercial!
a family of tourists just asked me if i was toby mcguire from spiderman
i just watched a whole movie on lifetime. im a bit vehklempt.
Deglaze
that doesnt count. ill talk to the money shabbos rabbi for you
was that a typo or are we going to something called 'the mother'?
i am covered in menthal cream and now its 20 degrees colder
hippocrates g apostle?
This Day Has Been A 4 out Of 10 so Far. grr.
Of too! Notice i can't write of.
Oh man... per our conversation of women i would fuck even tho they might be bitches
Meet me near St Marks in the East Village and I will buy you an affordable lunch of your choosing.
Yes. I'll let you know when i get close to getting off.
[Ed. note: TWSS]
RIP . Union square carrot peeler guy.
You are both naked and shaking your boobs around.
o my god you killed a super ego demon!
Well sometimes I sub-sist but the key is to always per-sist.
the fuckin commercial is on again
Break free you sad caged bird, BREAK FREE!!
i dont want other people to save you.
your what grammie hall likes to call a real new york catholic. annie hall just arrived by mail.
Damn you woman! Damn you AND your bananas.
Hi! Why does Kant call the relationship between under- standing and imagi- nation 'objective' when the judgment is determinative?
Sure, is veuve cliquot okay?
A big screen was set up in front of the stock exchange. And they rang the bells of trinity church for bout an hour afterwards.
no! the guilt is the best part! its likw the dark meat!
Yes and i liked its playfulness too. great coordinated movement, good storytelling.
Now. Im surrounded by really good art .
Friend and I both feel like we have visibly aged since we got to New York. Relax, scientists, we understand that it's been two and a half years. But this is effing remarkable. Now, friend got married and had a baby in the interim, so that's fine. I, on the other hand, have mostly ridden the subway a lot, and written two term papers. I'm not saying I think I look bad, I'm just saying that I look like the aunt of the woman who started this blog. 
Oh man. Oh, this is the greatest. Snow day! Hahahaha. No lecture tonight, babies. School is officially closed. Possibly no lecture tomorrow (c'monnn Westchester County). Oh wow, this just opens the whole day. (Seriously I usually lecture until 10 tonight and again at 9 am tomorrow in Yonkers.) This changes the complexion of my entire week, even. Woot! "Four inches of show, shut 'er down." Hello, Y&R old friend. Helllooo, sushi delivery.
UDPATE: I am so effing bored and cabin-feverish.
