Supporting the tiny New York art scene

Gallery opening! On the LES, and it was so small that it felt perfunctory actually walking over to a piece. And then taking one step to your right and looking at the next piece. And then rotating 90 degrees and looking at the next piece. Etc.

Movie premiere! At some theatre in Midtown. A black & white Polish film noir, the kind of thing I would never have gone to of my own accord, but really enjoyed. Not enough to stay for the Q&A with the director (instead: drinks at the St. Rege!), but still.

Book launch! Also on the LES, in a great little performance space. A friend had just published her first book of poetry, and read an excerpt (along with two other new authors). I even caught a reference to something that happened when the two of us were hanging out together.

"Gotta go - I'm meeting [friend] and [friend] for science and drinks"

Winter break was great. I mean, possibly the best Christmas I have had as an adult. It was all steak and crantinis and mimosas and crab legs and fried perogies and card games and hockey tickets. And the best gifts ever.* And it was great seeing my friends, and finding out I can still drive (150 km/hour), and being remembered by the salacious old bartenders at the Garneau. So I was reluctant to get back, where it's all argue-with-the-landlord this and shove-people-on-the-subway that. But tonight my friend reminded me of why we live in New York. First Wednesdays of the month at the Natural History Museum, admission is free in the evening, drinks are only five dollars, and a hip scientist-in-residence will tell you interesting stories about the fish in the Congo river. And the cute DJ will give you his card and the cute party photog will take your picture more than once. Haha.

*Absinthe. A $100 bar tab at both of my haunts. Caviar. New luggage. And something so funny I can only show/tell you in person.

Putting the super in...

When I got back to New York it was as cold outside as it had been in Calgary, and in that kind of weather my apartment is fuh-reezing. So I called the landlord and asked him to turn up the boiler and he ended up sending the super to my apartment. Actually, two supers - they often show up in pairs, and always Russian. I was in a bad mood because I had been putting out fires since I had arrived back in town (work, school, banks, credit cards, the Department of Housing, etc. etc.), and when they rang my doorbell I was literally on the phone with visa and unpacking and had the shower running (it takes a few minutes to warm up) trying to get ready for work. So I was kind of short with them. And they tinkered around with my radiators (which I had already told the landlord work perfectly fine) and spoke Russian, of which I could glean just enough to know that they weren't complaining about me. And then they wandered over to my sink and I rolled my eyes and shut off the shower and sat down and started catching up on emails. It turns out they were fixing my sink (again), just because they remembered that it breaks all the time. And they told me that the boiler in this building can't be turned up anymore, but they knew of an electric heater lying around somewhere and would bring it by this week. That kind of gratuitous niceness kills me every time.

T-boned

Starting the new year off right! My friend and I got smashed up at an intersection right by where I used to live, in Edmonton (while on a drive down memory lane). Because the streets were slippery with snow, we got carried sideways rather than absorbing the impact and so weren't ultimatley hurt. See if you can tell by our accident reports which one of us is a millwright and which one of us fancies herelf a philosopher and writer.

"Driving east bound on 100 ave. When driving through inter- section 103 st we were hit by a SUV that ran a red light. The vehicle was driving south."

"9:04 pm - we were driving east on 100th ave. As we entered the intersection of 100th ave and 103rd street, a jeep coming southbound crashed into us on the driver's side. We had the green light so he must have had a red light. Our light had been green for a while because shortly after he hit us I remember it turned yellow. He did not slow down or veer or react at all - just ploughed into us. I recall another car being stopped at the light, facing south on 103rd, in the right lane. This guy was in the left lane and breezed on by that stopped car. When the other driver got out of his car, he accused us of running a red light, but quickly retracted when he saw that we had a witness (a cab driver). We exchanged insurance info and he left before police arrived."

Club seats

Oooh, we went to the corporate VIP version of the hockey game. This means parking about ten feet from the door and dining on prime rib and crab legs and cabernet in the Avison Young club and then taking your front row seats where waiters come by and crouch on the steps and ask you for your drink order. And then skipping back to the Avison Young club between periods where you have another, pre-ordered drink waiting (they're really efficient about the whole drinking thing). From seats that close you can definitely tell which players are good-looking. Great vantage on the rhubarb, too.

I got an article accepted for publication!

It's a "postgraduate" journal (which I think means mostly student papers), but it is affiliated with Oxford! Yaaaay!

Actually, it's that paper.

Thanks to PSWIP, who helped me edit it!

So what did you do during the crazy snowstorm of '09?

I tried flying home early, which meant spending two full days at LaGuardia (and then one night in Toronto), and subsisting for two days on terrible coffee and sandwiches, and finding a nice corner of the departure lounge with an outlet, where I could drag out all my notes and articles on Freud and Derrida and write my Psychoanalysis and Deconstruction paper.

And in between those two days at the airport (with cab rides to and from) some friends came over with wine so I really didn't have to leave the house at all. I heard it was a mess out there, though.