Penultimate: Journey to the End . . .

New Mus window artist with phone gazer in leather.  Please note the book on the table.

I did everything I wanted to do today (given the fact that I woke up quite sick)--including visiting the New Museum for the last day of the Bowery art and artists show.  The show included adorable little pen and marker drawings by members of the Ramones (Dee and Joey, respecitively) that I badly wanted to photograph.

So tomorrow is the last post of our GITP year.   I can't tell you what a privilege it has been to blog with Lara all year.  As I've said before, I merely ride on her coat tails.  

Btw:  this is our 666th post.  

Tights:  black with polka dots

Inspiration:  Ramones-inspired biker jackets, Bowery street art

Looking forward to:  blogging with Lara tomorrow for the last time in 2012

The view from the street

Keith Haring's old red door.  Don't touch.

Someday you might be famous enough the museum goers will only be allowed to look--not touch--your door.

A touchable door near the Yippie Museum

Christmas is now today's trash.  Sad

ExistentialLIST

1.  Started the day at The Secret City.  The theme of "Ancestors."  Katherine Gleason presented her work on Alexander McQueen; Susan Birnson had everyone taste her canned cherries and apricots (lemongrass, etc--turns canning on its head); we saw Toshinori Hamada present traditional Japanese dance; we listed to Andru Bemis and his banjo, and The Secret City Singers sang Sweet Honey in the Rock.  

2.  Went from there to the dramatic conclusion of the marathon Moby Dick reading.

3.  Headed to the New Museum for the vintage Bowery artists exhibit and Rosemary Trokel exhibit.  Have you heard of her?  I hadn't.  And I have a hard time finding a good link to her online.   There was also a tattoo artist tattooing humans in the New Museum's window.  

4.  The conclusion of our year-long GITP blog experiment looms.  I'm still not sure what all these posts have added up to, if the daily blog practice has helped me in any way.   Still feel in so many tight places.  I still haven't accomplished many of the goals I set on 12/31/11 with Lara.  In fact, I feel like I've barely made a dent.  

Boys are Back in Town

Earlier I was with Lara's husband, C and C's bro-in-law, G.  They are both in from the west to play the Monk marathon at Spectrum tomorrow night.  This was taken at Mission Chinese.  After that we went to the New Museum, then Il Laboratorio Gelato, Culturefix, then the Angel Orensanz Center.  I can't wait to see them tomorrow night.  (Guess what, Lara?  G knew our waiter from the music scene in SEATTLE?!)

THEN later--I met up with an old friend from Utah, J.  I met J the first semester of grad school at the U--Fall '88.  J was a film major from Ogden.  Now he's a recruiter for a law school in San Francisco.  Here he is with his boyfriend, R.  J bought me a cone at the Big Gay Ice Cream truck.  Before that we'd gone to my favorite Vietnamese place on Orchard and had edamame salsa with a big sesame cracker.  (I also took them up to Spectrum for five minutes.)

I never do this much on a Friday, never hang with so many boys, never eat so much food.  I feel like I've already had a very full weekend.

Big Open Writing Spaces

I don't know why.  I can't write at home.  I've never been able to.  I'm easily distracted by what I'm too familiar, I suppose.  For years, I've written outside of my home, mostly in cafes.  I've spent thousands of dollars, no doubt, since I was an undergrad reading/writing/doing homework in cafes.  And that's probably really dumb, although I can feel proud about supporting my local small businesses.  The story I'm writing today has to do with someone opening a cafe in Provo, and students using it to work in.  Clearly, I'm obsessed.

I also don't like going back to the same cafe, for fear the staff will tire of me?  Not sure.  

This morning, I wrote morning pages on the bench outside of Organic Avenue and drank the above pictured turmeric elixir.  

Later, after doing this YouTube yoga video (good narrative, good lighting, no distracting crashing waves, and not too easy or hard!  I recommend!):

I took my computer to the New Museum lobby pictured below.  After I wrote for awhile, my kid showed up and we took in their new exhibit.  Tonight there's a member's party to which I've been invited.  I'm not going, however, because all guests are required to wear white (it's called White Party)--and "festive white," and I don't own a single thing in white, let alone festive . . . other than my boxed up wedding dress which is hundreds of miles away.  All those white clad guests will look luminous against all the white art and video streams, however.

This quinoa and dark chocolate cookie promised to be better than it was.

Subway Tights (6 pm); Plus, a To-Do LIst in Tribute to Lara's Awesome To-Do Lists

Tights spotted on the L Train last Friday during rush hour.

The owner of the tights wore a Sgt. Pepper-inspired jacket.

Something about the tights wearer's face reminded me of this Lucien Freud painting.

Lara's "To-Do" lists are little works of art.  I don't know how she does it.  Mine below is wholly practical, born out of the anxiety that I will something if I'm not careful.  (And it also cracks me up that the things on my list that are there for pleasure and edification become anxiety inducing.)  This week I need to: 

1.  See the Ungovernables at the New Museum with kids this Thursday.  Closes on Sunday!
2.  See the Whitney Biennial, which a parent described this morning as underwhelming, but I don't care.
3.   See friend's boyfriend's band Pak at The Stone on Tuesday night.
4.  Finish midterm grading.  This has stretched on and on.  And there's more grading to be done after.
5.  First week back at work:  Finish my Crime Fiction LibGuide!
6.  Check in on the current performance artist in the Abrons Art Center main gallery.
6.  Gather recipes for spring cooking.  (Although I threw together a stir fry--broccoli, pineapple, cashews, tofu, ginger on white rice--for my kids last night and they hated it.)

What's on your "need-to-do" list this week?