July 2002

I’m tired. I guess it’s no surprise–the last week has been busy, with my interview on Wednesday, going with Tim and Christine to see Twelfth Night on Thursday, the drinkup on Friday.

The drinkup. Lot of drinking at that drinkup, but I guess that’s the point. I met Todd at his workplace on Friday afternoon. We schlepped my bags back to his apartment in Brooklyn, he changed clothes, and we headed back into the city. We stopped off for slices of pizza before joining the crazy kids at Ace Bar. The Ace kids were loud and funny and drunk and flirty and funny and drunk and loud. Which is pretty much everything a good drinkup should entail, no?

We left Ace around 3 and since Todd and Lauren were hungry, we headed out with Molly and got slices of pizza. Molly knew another place, so we ducked in there and ordered a pitcher of beer. It was kind of a dive, but it was fine, and we sat and talked. Todd flirted with Molly and Lauren; I just sort of watched it unfold in my own little haze. When the bartender switched off the neon and upturned stools onto the bar a little after 4, we knew it was time to go home. Molly lives around there, so she walked back, and Todd, Lauren, and I grabbed a cab back to Todd’s apartment.

Next day, got up at 11. We washed as much bar smell out of us as we could and swilled cocktails of filtered water and Advil. We met up again with Molly–and a guy named Slippery Pete–for brunch. Biscuits and sausage gravy. And coffee and coffee and coffee and coffee. A large picture of a smoking cat gazed over us as we fought to take in all that food before us. The plates, I fear, won. I think Lauren put away most of her omlette and home fries, but the rest of us left a lot behind.

Molly went one way, Slippery Pete another, and then Todd and I saw Lauren off at Penn Station for her train back to Long Island. We later met up with Josh for a late, late showing of Metropolis, followed by beer and pub grub at a Greenwich Village bar. Stumbled back to Todd’s, collapsed at 3:30.

Got up at 7 to haulass back to Indiana. Subway to Manhattan. PATH to Newark. NJ Transit to Newark International. Tram to the terminal. Kludged heavily to the gate, with 45 minutes to spare before the flight was to leave.

Suddenly from my backpack, a cell-tone rendition of I Walk the Line. I fumbled open the zipper, rummaged around for the phone. Elizabeth, calling to apologize for missing me twice last week. We caught up on the rest of my week and the unfortunate disasters that plagued hers, and made tentative plans to get together when I get back.

Buoyed by a nice call from a pretty girl, I boarded the plane. Uneventful flight to Detroit on a sparsely populated plane meant room to stretch out and nap. My connection to Indianapolis was almost immediate, so I rushed down the terminal to my other flight, just in time. I’d rather rush from one gate to the next than sit like a toad for an hour waiting for a flight. Sparse again with room to unpack my legs and doze. At the Indianapolis airport, I collected my stuff and waited for the shuttle back. My iPod handed song after song to my ears on the trip back to Bloomington: Springsteen, Costello, Waits, Dylan. Prince, Madonna, Ella.

I dread travel days, especially those like yesterday: four states, four modes of transportation, navigating unfamiliar stations and airports and ticketing systems. What I once saw as adventure, I now view as tedium. But with the call from Elizabeth, the relaxing flights, and the relative compactness of the trip (just over three hours from Newark Int’l to Indy), it wasn’t so bad.

Blogging on the run.

I’m in Times Square again, at EasyInternetCafe, which I just love the hell out of. These cafes started in London as an offshoot of the EasyJet empire, and they have cafes now throughout Europe. I think NYC is their only American outlet, but I’m not sure. I dug the hell out of them in London and Paris, so finding one here was a relief. Terminals at the hostels I’ve stayed in are horribly expensive–on the tune of 15 bucks an hour. EasyInternet offers a sliding scale, based on how many customers are in the store. A buck will buy you anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour, so it’s very much worth the trip into Times Square–which, truth be told, I really fucking hate.

I’m off soon. Probably gonna join the tourist throngs at the top of the Empire State and gaze out over the city.

A friend told me in e-mail that she’s not surprised I’m exhausted. She said I’m basically on a work trip–my interview on Wednesday, learning the city, learning more about finding housing, finding my way about the subway system, and so on. I think she’s right. I’ve already started to think of this city like my new home, which is funky, if you think about it.

I had my first celebrity sighting tonight. I was with Christine and Tim at Shakespeare in the Park, watching Twelfth Night. Although there was a slew of name actors in the cast–Julia Stiles, Jimmy Smits, Kristen Johnston, Oliver Platt, and Christopher Lloyd, to name a few–that doesn’t really count. In the audience of tonight’s production was Topher Grace, star of That 70s Show. Very cool.

Greetings from Times Square. I’m sitting in a Internet cafe on 42 Street. I know I’ve been away, but I doubt it matters since there’s probably no one checking this page anyway.

I’m damned exhausted. These “vacations,” where I hit a city and try to pack in as much as possible in the time I have–I don’t know why I do this. My next vacation will be much more relaxing. I think tomorrow will be a day off. I’d like to find a little cafe somewhere, read and maybe write a little also. I might be lunching with my friend Elizabeth, which would be nice. Otherwise, I’m having dinner and seeing Twelfth Night (at Shakespeare on the Park) with Christine and Tim tomorrow. I’m looking forward to that.

This is probably the most social vacation I’ve ever had–at least the most social I’ve had when travelling alone. Monday night, I saw the aforementioned Elizabeth playing Irish music in a groovin’ pub in Greenwich Village. Our friend Kira joined us–I had a chance to really talk to each of them individually, and I enjoyed that.

Today, after an interview with a recruiter, I met my friend Anne R. for lunch. We ate at a Chinese place around the corner from where she works. She didn’t know me, immediately, because I was wearing a suit, which she wasn’t expecting. That was funny.

Ah, but it’s not all fun-and-games with the estrogen set, friends, although I’d be happy if it were. Friday, I’m meeting a group of people for drinks, and then we’re going out to boogie all night. As of Friday, I leave the hostel and bunk at Todd’s place Saturday and Sunday night. Sometime on Saturday, I still hope to squeeze in a viewing of Metropolis.

New York is a kickin’ place. I fell head over heels for, and was also very overwhelmed by, The Strand, billed as the largest used book store in the world. I can believe it, easily.

I could go on–the coffee shop I sipped at in the Village, the cute galleries I saw today in Chelsea, seeing the Chrysler Building and Grand Central Terminal for the first time. But I won’t.

Well, I was at Borders tonight, picking up a copy of the Village Voice, which had this image on the cover:

The look on the cashier’s face…. I’m not sure what the poor girl was thinking. I have to say, though, I was out of the store before the reason behind her bemused look registered with me.

Props to Anna, ’cause she’s kooky: She beat me to the thing on copyrighting silence. Now go see her blog, dagnabbit.

ILaw, a conference on Internet law, is held this week at Harvard University. Thank god Dan Gillmor and Donna Wentworth are covering this; even student registration was $1000. [Gillmore: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5; Wentworth]

I’ve read most of Gillmor’s first day, skimmed his second, lighly glanced over the third, and really only blinked at Wentworth’s coverage so far. There’s a lot there. It sounds like a fascinating conference.

In unsurprising news, 2600 Magazine and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have abandoned their appeals over the DeCSS ruling that forced 2600 to remove DeCSS and links to DeCSS from its site. [Press releases: EFF, 2600.] As Declan McCullagh points out, 2600 and EFF have only limited resources to pursue this appeal. The chances that the Supreme Court would find on their behalf are slim.

Some amazing science images released today: The first shows a supernova, as captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. The supernova is located in the constellation Cassiopeia, some 10,000 light years away. The beautiful oranges, greens, reds, and blues each highlight different chemical processes. The link offers the image in different formats and at different resolutions, allowing you to choose how the level of detail at which to view the image. Other amazing Hubble images are available as well.

Closer to home, the SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) project captured an image showing a huge plasma cloud poking out from the surface of the sun. In its description of the cloud [note: this is a volatile link: content will change on July 8], SOHO states that this huge cloud extends at least 30 Earths from the sun’s surface. Think about that for a moment. 30 times the diameter of the Earth….

Have a peek through SOHO’s archives, while you’re there. Scientists can use the Observatory to view light from the Sun’s at varying frequencies, to study different aspects of its behavior. You might recall from high-school science that when the frequency of light changes, its color on the spectrum changes as well. What makes that cool for us is that it provides us images like these: