catching up...
Catching this journal up...


Mid-trip Report, Thursday April 30:
Museums visited:
- The Museum of the City of New York (Awesome! This is a small but mighty place. Wonderful paintings of ironwork from historic brownstone front stoops; new miniature paintings and dolls from the Dollhouse; an exhibit about Dutch New Amsterdam and Hudson; and a big display of dresses from the Valentina line.  Oooh.)
- The Guggenheim (terrible - they had the entire thing dismantled to install a new Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit, so you couldn't really walk any of it. We paid $6 to see about 35 paintings in the two open side galleries and take photos from the ground floor.  Meh.)
- The American Museum of Natural History (Fun! We went to a planetarium show, I fangirled Neil DeGrasse Tyson, we petted the meteorite in captivity, we went through lots of amusing taxidermy and dioramas, learned about Human Origins, and saw dinosaur bones.)
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Pretty good. I went specifically to see Madame X by John Singer Sargent, but she had been taken out of her gallery. D'oh! So I visited William, as I do every time I am there if his gallery is open, and saw lots of other 19th and early 20th century paintings, skipped through some of the Asian art, zipped through European Deco and Medieval Art, lingered in the Classical Sculpture atrium, ran through the Greek and Roman galleries, and did something I have never done before - I went to the Roof Garden. Yay!)

Also trekked across Central Park by way of both open levels of Belvedere Castle. 
Result of the two days walking: two blisters, one on the bottom of each foot.  Ow ow ow.

I also got to have lunch with Carolina today, and yesterday I met some great tarot folks whom I will see again this weekend.
Last night was Liam's Birthday Quiz at the Baker Street Pub. We had a nice group of Squirrels out for it, surprising Liam, and we gave him a card from all of us. (Note to self: never go into the children's card section of CVS with E. Had we goten any more hysterical I'm sure they would have thrown us right out.)

Also, have eaten Vietnamese, Thai and Indian so far. No major stomach issues. Hooray!

Tonight is the Rocky Sullivan's Pub Quiz out in Red Hook, and I expect we will be getting in from that quite late. I am leaving in the morning for the conference in NJ.


and a Readers' Studio report:

It's a wow sort of weekend, Saturday, May 2:
Ok, you guys, the Readers' Studio is seriously blowing my mind. It's incredible.
And the people are wonderful.
I went to a study group tonight that was just amazing, with a funny, brilliant teacher who gave out *ribbons*!  Eee!  Plus one of the readings I did at the table not only blew my mind, but resonated with eerie symmetry with the reading of the girl across the table.  Egads!
Bonus, at the afternoon Master Class I got to play the part of Contessa Jadwiga the amazing and beautiful fortune teller with a funny accent (that varied between Slavic and Scottish, LOL), a huge ego, and a sensational attitude.  I'd never read cards like that before and it was totally liberating as well as raucously funny.
In short, I'm having a great time and trying not to spend all my money on stuff. Always a tough proposition, but I'm determined to make it through! Besides, so much is being given away for free I'll have trouble packing as it is.

Tomorrow is the last day, and then it's back to Manhattan for further cramming of social time with NY peeps.
And now, to bed.

Also, Happy Belated Beltane - we had a good time last night, so much so that I was out at Studio events until after midnight. Fun times indeed.


The finish of the Readers' Studio was great, and then yesterday I got to see Michelle and Andy and Milo and Vic and Ali for dinner, then E and I played the first half of a cutthroat game of Super Deluxe Double Scrabble, which has twice the tiles and a bigger board featuring QUADRUPLE letter and word scores. w00t!