the final countdown

This fabulous image comes courtesy of the very talented Darren. I was trying to attach it to my blog template as a permanent feature but it got shrunk and ruined, so it's going here instead. And it certainly captures a few things pretty essential to this whole experience: a frequent feeling of glee; flightiness; being on top of the world; etc, etc.

I have about five days left! And jammed into that time, I have a whole lot of people to catch up with, a bedroom full of stuff to sort out and pack up, a tiny bit more shopping to do, at least one more museum and a show to go to, an article to finish, and perhaps one or two more rounds of late night bar stumbling. It's probably a good exercise in making the most of things, something I'm not the best at doing instinctively. And I've been thinking a lot about what I'm going to bring back to Sydney of this experience, in terms of the kind of person New York encourages me to be. I don't want to lose the sense of adventure that I've restored here and slide back into boring habits at home. At least, only until I move back to New York...

The highlight of last week was going to see Kiki and Herb, the fucked-up, queer, crazy cabaret duo. I hadn't seen them before (as had Ben from Sydney, who I went with) but I will be making a beeline in future. Brilliant! One of the best live performances I've seen in ages! They were so funny and very very talented, despite the carefully produced appearance of anarchy and drunkenness and general messiness. Who knew the song "Total Eclipse of the Heart" could be so moving?

And last week's celebrity spotting: Rufus Wainwright. I was sitting in a restaurant in Chelsea and he walked by outside some distance away so I didn't get a decent gawk at him but my eyes were drawn to the fuschia scarf draped around his neck.

work it, own it

I was sitting on the steps of the Public Library on Fifth Ave this afternoon, fiddling with my phone, when a charity worker approached me and started his spiel by saying "Excuse me for interrupting your GQ look". I think he meant it as a compliment and I think I was flattered. He said it was because of my hair and sunglasses. Perhaps having a model in the building is rubbing off. What's also funny is the idea that my look might be interrupted - not my text messaging but my look. I know that image is an on-going process of production (performativity, anyone?), but was I being that obvious and conscious about it? Perhaps by coincidence (or then again, perhaps not at all), I head off on a brief round of shopping after this. I need to make sure that I don't leave in ten days feeling that I haven't bought enough shoes and outfits. Regret is a terrible thing.

Last Saturday afternoon, I went to the theatre to see a play I'd been meaning to see since I got here. It's a play based on the recent memoir written by Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking, starring Vanessa Redgrave. Because of her superstar clout, tickets were pretty ridiculously priced. Clare found me one on craigslist from someone with a last minute spare they wanted to offload. It was an excellent seat and I reckon I paid about half-price. Being a matinee and the kind of play and actor, I was easily one of the youngest people in the audience. A very Upper East Side crowd. As someone said to me about this neighbourhood, a lot of ash blonde going on. Anyway, I had read the book recently and loved it. I don't know that the adaptation to the stage worked so well. I kept thinking I could see it better as a television or film piece. Redgrave has a very commanding stage presence but for me she's more interesting in close-up. But she was still pretty amazing - it's basically a 90 minute monologue and she's on stage and performing the whole time. So that's my High Culture out of the way. Somewhere else on the culture hierarchy, on Thursday night I'm off to see Kiki and Herb, the crazy cabaret duo, which should be a lot of fun.



And it seems strangers are reading mifflog! Don't ask me how I found this out, but someone has linked my blog from a posting on a Patrick Wilson fansite. They were very excited that I'd spotted him on the subway, as reported a few weeks ago. Then someone else responded to this post, saying how lucky "she" (ie. me) was to see him in person. I know Miffy is a girl and everything but really! So if you're reading this, Patrick Wilson fansite person, pay more attention!

winding down

Now that I'm resigned to having to go home to Sydney in about two weeks, my head must be allowing my homesickness to make itself more clearly known. On the subway today, I got teary thinking about seeing my special people again. Luckily I've embraced the completely pretentious New York habit of wearing sunglasses on the subway, which is of course also a great way to check people out without being too obvious. Good flirting practice.

Once again, the weather has been superb this week, making it very hard to concentrate on getting work done and also on the idea of going home. On Saturday, I walked from home over the Williamsburg Bridge into Manhattan and spent the afternoon meandering around the Lower East Side, where there are some very cute shops and cafes, and the East Village, where there were some very cute boys. In the evening, I had an abortive attempt to catch up with Raquel, my friend from Baltimore, at a club deep in Brooklyn but I bailed once I saw the line down the street. So we met up the next day for afternoon coffee instead and workshopped the general theme of unavailable men.

Yesterday, Elisa coaxed me back up to Riverside Park to hang out in the sun. It was so warm and sunny I had to put on sunscreen, something I didn't plan for at all on this trip. She'd just handed in her last paper and wanted to play, and I'd had a productive morning writing, so who was I to refuse? And it was lovely. Lisa came and joined us at the Boat Basin where we drank Coronas and discussed the politics of dating. Another very stressful afternoon, needless to say.



Other cool New York moments today:

A busker in a subway station playing "If You Go to San Francisco" ("be sure to wear flowers in your hair") on a Chinese violin to a synthesised backbeat.

A skater dude in Columbus Circle wearing a t-shirt saying "Do I look like a fucking People Person?"

A very sexy and muscular cop on duty in the subway with a faux-hawk and hot tattoos all down one arm.

who knew?

Two things I discovered about our building tonight, after living in it for over two months:

1. There is a rooftop with amazing, panoramic views of Manhattan and Brooklyn.

2. This man lives downstairs. He frequently wanders around his backyard with no shirt on. He engages in manual labour in his backyard with no shirt on. All of this I've witnessed (my bedroom window looks directly over said backyard) and I knew he was a model. But it seems he's the real thing.

man with a problem?

I just saw the delectable Patrick Wilson again in the street, this time at Columbus Circle. The man is clearly stalking me. I wasn't fooled by the sunglasses-wearing and phone-fiddling routine. God, I hate being followed by celebrities! Just because he's gorgeous, talented, creative, wealthy, a New Yorker and unavailable doesn't mean I'd be interested. Move on!

la-la land

An almost perfect New York weeekend: shopping, friends, drinks, MoMA, Central Park, dinners, movies, sunshine, blossoms, more drinks, dancing and boys! Could this get any better?

After a couple of false starts, spring seems to have finally arrived, and it's just gorgeous. I took a stroll through Central Park with Christina on Sunday afternoon and the trees and blossoms were so pretty. We sat by the lake at the Boathouse and had a g&t as the sun slowly descended over the apartment buildings of the Upper West Side. Amazing. Earlier in the week, I'd had a margarita and dinner with Elisa at Riverside Park (where Detective Munch from Law and Order SVU was also eating). Apparently, I'm all about stylish drinks by the water at the moment. And why not?

Earlier on Sunday, Christina and Clare and I went to MoMA and had a great time at the Jeff Wall exhibition. We stood for ages in front of each amazing, huge, crazy photograph and talked about all the random stuff he packs into each one. I've rarely felt so engaged in an art museum before. And then later that night, Clare and I went to see a couple of documentaries at the Tribeca Film Festival which were interesting but not great. Much better was the programme of short films that I went to this afternoon with Lisa. I should have been writing but I feel like I have to take these opportunities as they come up. After all, I may only be in New York for another month, which is starting to make me very sad! I know I'm living in a kind of fiction at the moment, but I don't want it to end.

not in kansas any more

So it seems that due to a last-minute script rewrite, Dorothy was beaten to the Emerald City by a week, but the main thing is she followed the yellow brick road and of course looked fabulous in her ruby slippers (care of John Fluevog in Soho). What movie she ended up in is harder to say. Possibly Bambi. Squirrels, rabbits and jayhawks frolicked gaily around the pretty suburban streets of Lawrence, Kansas where I just spent the weekend visiting my friend Jorge who I had met in Baltimore at the start of my trip. And after week upon week of late winter in New York, bright sunshine and temperatures in the high 20s made Kansas something of a relief. And it has to be said that Jorge played the perfect hostess, driving me to see local sights, making breakfasts and cooking a very yummy paella. On the Friday, I pottered about the town which is actually really pretty and quite interesting in a mini-Berkeley kind of way. Lots of kitschy antique stores, cafes, second hand clothes, all catering to the large student population. And as you can see from the picture of Jorge's house, the streets have this classic American charm that looks to an outsider like a movie setting.

Saturday, we went for lunch and window-shopping to Kansas City's hilariously faux-Spanish but authentically aspirational shopping mall (complete with a small scale replica of Seville's landmark tower). Amongst a whole lot of beige men in beige shorts and teased-up bottle blondes in platform slides, Jorge and I didn't quite belong. But there's nothing like being the most stylish two in the crowd. By far. I got a serious up-and-down-and-up-again checking-out in Banana Republic - twice - by a straight man who was there with his wife. Or perhaps he was just deliberating where to aim the first shots of the hunting rifle he probably had back in his Hummer.

Then that night we met up with two of Jorge's colleagues, who were an absolute hoot, had tapas for dinner, and then hit the town (if that's not too grandiose an expression here). First, we went salsa dancing at a Latino bar in a strip mall where there were approximately six other patrons but, unperturbed, the four of us got up on the caramel-tiled floor and worked it out. Earlier, Jorge's friend Yajaira had concluded that I was "the right kind of white", but even though I had some serious snake-hip action going on, my stomach muscles and I started to wonder if I was in fact the wrong kind. A quick Salsa 101 tutorial from Yajaira and I was working a pretty efficient, if basic, set of moves. I'm not sure if the Latino guy staring at me suspiciously would have agreed. Next, we jumped back in the car and went back to the centre of town and, on a whim, snuck into a nightclub via the back door to avoid the $14 cover (Yes, $14. In Kansas.) Within two minutes, a staff member had busted us. I should add at this point that Jorge and his friends are all college professors in Lawrence and all the staff at this bar are students. I guess this is what academia can drive us to.

Back to NYC last night where the weather has finally turned decent. Everyone has been going a little bit mental with the late winter but in the four days I was away, the temperatures have risen from 8 or 10 degrees to high 20s and blossoms have magically appeared on trees everywhere. And I feel very confident the spring is going to bring more well-earned positive changes. Stay tuned.

the met

Yesterday, I played tourist. I've hardly been to any of the museums or tourist sights this time so I decided a Saturday afternoon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art would be fun. As did about five million others. But the place is so huge that the crowds don't so much matter. I went to the Met the first time I was here in 1999 and I knew that it was amazing but I had forgotten the feeling of being overwhelmed by how amazing. I was walking around sighing and gasping in some rooms. There was a beautiful and fascinating exhibition called Venice and the Islamic World which was perfect because I love Italian Renaissance art and I love Islamic design.

Then I went into the permanent collection of Renaissance work and worked on my fetish for religious iconography and portraiture. Lots of sighing and gasping here. Room after room of astonishingly exquisite pieces. I didn't want to leave, and must have spent close to an hour in this state of bliss. After I broke away, I wandered randomly through some of the other sections. Like at MoMA or the Louvre, there are so many major pieces of work that a kind of blurring factor happens and you just can't process it all. So after about three hours in the museum, I found myself gliding almost complacently through rooms full of Picasso and Rembrandt and Vermeer and Caravaggio. And this is only the European painting section. After the blur factor took hold, I started amusing myself taking sneaky photos of people in the galleries. It's kind of a cliche to go to a museum and photograph people looking at the art but it's fun.

On Friday night, I realised I hadn't been to any performances of any kind either, so I took myself to a contemporary dance piece in an old church in the East Village. Some of it was quite impressive - not much, I have to say - but I don't really know much about dance so it's hard to judge. There was a lot of running in circles around the stage, a lot of writhing around on the floor like a cockroach trapped on its back, and occasionally one of the performers would verbalise into a microphone. The one male performer's main role seemed to be to wheel a big pot plant around the stage a few times and then stand and reflect on it. But I did enjoy the experience of it. It struck me as very New York.

Very not New York, I imagine, will be Kansas where I go on Thursday to visit my friend Jorge, which I'm really looking forward to. I'll be sure to wear my Dorothy shoes.

presence of greatness

Today I saw Julianne Moore on the street, collecting her daughter from school over near the Meatpacking District. She has amazing hair.

boston and back

I'm gladly back in New York after spending Wednesday through Saturday in Boston. It's a whole lot more interesting than Baltimore but it's very definitely not New York either. It seems pretty conservative overall. Maybe I didn't see the more interesting neighbourhoods, but nobody seemed to stand out or do anything interesting with outfits. Lots of bad jeans, I seem to remember noticing. But I'm very glad I went - it's quite a beautiful city in many parts. There's obviously a real commitment to retaining and making a feature of its architectural history, especially the colonial buildings which are a big part of the city's very proud Patriot involvement in the Independence movement. I met Sam (from Sydney) for dinner in Harvard and he gave me a quick tour of some of the main buildings in the yard, including the library which is astonishing. It's not unlike the public library in New York in scale and grandeur - and this for students! Unfortunately, it was way too cold to be wandering about so my tour was brief. But the Harvard Yard (below) has a movie set feel to it - it's the classic, picturesque US campus setting that features in so many movies, many of which probably use Harvard itself. And sure enough, when I got back to my hotel room, Legally Blonde was on TV and there it was.

My conference was a bit of a dud so I only attended two days. My paper went really well, however. I had a lot of really positive feedback and genuinely engaged questions. Who knows what, if anything, that will produce. But the standard of work at the other sessions I went to was not great, and in some cases terrible. So I decided I wasn't making a good use of my time and hit the city to sight-see instead. Again it was just too bloody cold to be spending too much time outdoors but I saw some great stuff. One clear highlight (thanks to Christina for the tip) was the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum which is the private art collection of Gardner in her home, which she built in the style of a Venetian palazzo. And it is amazing. The building is stunning and the collection is pretty amazing too - a Rembrandt here, and couple of Botticelli there, a few John Singer Sargent, etc. Then another unexpected highlight turned out to be the Boston Public Library which has a number of beautiful murals inside, mostly painted around the turn of the 20th century.

I had planned to see some Boston nightlife on the Friday, my last night, but the bitter cold and the pesky last remnants of my flu made me change my mind. So I went out for a quick Korean meal, then settled into the hotel and ended up watching An Office and a Gentleman on TV which is about as embarrassing as it gets.

I jumped off the plane from Boston on Saturday and wasted no time in getting back into NYC life. Megan's gorgeous girlfriend Lisa arrived from Sydney the weekend before to stay for six months, so the three of us went out for drinks Saturday night to celebrate. The end of the night is probably best forgotten but we had lots of fun until then! And it's wonderful to have Lisa here.

hottie alert

Finally! A decent celebrity sighting after a month in New York! He's not a major celebrity but he is a major hottie... Patrick Wilson, who you've seen in Angels in America (the gay Mormon), Little Children and Hard Candy (which I watched literally three nights ago). We rode the subway together this morning. Well, he rode it with his friend and I watched. Very closely. My new very-black sunglasses were such a good buy! He even got on at my local stop, so we could be neighbours! It actually took me a few minutes waiting on the station to even notice him, let alone recognise him. He's kind of ordinary-looking in person and nowhere near as statuesque. But very good skin, and had he been wearing a suit, there may well have been some kind of incident. And it has to be said: the man knows how to fill a pair of jeans.

In other news, my flu has all but left the building and I'm back to venturing out and about and resuming human contact, just in time for some amazing spring weather. Today I actually wore too many layers (and I thought it was Patrick making me sweat). I had a hair cut too, thanks to the extremely well chosen gift voucher concept bestowed by Ancy, Sara, David, Zhan and Ro, in a lovely salon down on Bleecker St. Except for a glass or three of bubbles (I didn't think to say that, when they asked what they could get me), it couldn't have been a nicer hair-do experience. Not my Jasmin, of course, but a suitable temporary replacement.

I also went to a really great lecture at NYU this week by Sherry Turkle, who's a big-name cyberspace scholar. She talked about some of her concerns with how people are seeking more and more intimacy from their machines - mobiles, computers and especially blackberries (and you can't move for blackberries in New York). She managed to keep it away from "the machines are taking over" territory, so it was actually really stimulating. And at one point she got me all teary, telling the story of an elderly woman in a nursing home whose son had decided not to visit her anymore. As an experiment, the woman had been given some kind of robot as a companion. So on hearing the awful news, she turned to the robot and started stroking and comforting it, saying "Yes, it's hard out there" and so on. As Turkle said, it's very familiar for people to comfort others or their pets in their own times of distress, but what about when it's a robot that has, as she put it, "no idea what's going on"?

spring flu

Spring has finally arrived and the kids are out in Williamsburg this evening on their bikes, meeting on the street, eating outdoors. Suddenly with fewer layers, tattoos are on display everywhere. Meanwhile, I've been stuck inside for two days with a deathly flu, hardly able to move let alone frolic in the warm weather. Not happy.

silly shoes and other necessities

Another fun week and spending more money than ever, but only on bare necessities like shoes, expensive eyewear and alcohol. For my birthday last week, I took myself up to Saks and tried my best to buy myself gorgeous. I failed. Megan took charge of the situation during a shopping date in SoHo on Saturday where I achieved success: new sunglasses (I broke the old faves again, and they're two years old anyway!) and silly shoes which jumped out of the shop window at me. And they're really silly and a little bit Ronald McDonald, but in a cute way - bright red and blue and sneakery. God knows where I'll wear them but that's hardly the point. And I'm loving myself sick in the new sunnies. Megan's description was "elegant". And just buying something from Jeffrey New York (the super-chi-chi mega-boutique in the super-chi-chi Meatpacking District) was a joy in itself. Can anyone say "superficial"?

And a lovely group of new and not-so new-friends joined me for birthday drinks at Therapy on Wednesday night where I supped on Freudian Sips - a gingery martini number. The night ended for me once again in everyone's favourite sleazy boy bar in the East Village which shall remain nameless in case my mother is reading this again.

After a beautiful hint of spring weather mid-week, winter came back with bitter vengeance by the week's end when we had a whole day of snow and sleet. It was kind of fun in theory - until I decided to trek up the street to the post office and almost didn't come back. The streets were covered ankle-deep in snow. Not one to refuse an invitation at the moment, I also ventured out on Saturday night in these conditions. On Sunday afternoon, the sun was out and I went up to Central Park for a wander. And it's true - it's absolutely beautiful after snow.



A few random observations of New York this week:

• More seems to be more when it comes to meaningless pleasantries. A simple "thank you" becomes "thank you so much" at the very least. I heard one woman in a shop say "You know something? Thank you" and she was actually expressing disappointment.

• Clunky, ironic-ugly black-rimmed glasses are big news in Williamsburg. Some new friends took me to a local gay bar The Metropolitan and every third boy was wearing them. Every other boy had shaggy hair and/or a beard, and several boys all three.

• Ethnomethodology is alive and well (thank you four semesters teaching introductory anthropology). I went to the enormous Whole Foods supermarket at Union Square at 6pm tonight where I was joined by about a million other people, most of whom were in check out queues. What would have taken over 2 hours at Coles Broadway took less than 10 minutes. They had staff dedicated to the smooth running of the queues which were winding around the store, including someone I will call the queue bitch because he had the supermarket equivalent of a velvet rope and used it to physically refuse people from jumping the queue, plus a guy holding a flag indicating the end of the line! At the top of the line, which had now branched into four, an automated system announced which of 20 checkouts to go to - in strict Line 1, 2, 3, 4 order. Amazing! For what could have been a social disaster of the widest proportions, nobody appeared to be agitated. Not even me, and I was in a serious hunger slump.
  

American self-mythology

One of the great things about New York is how many of the biggest people in their field are doing things here. Each week, I'm scanning through the listings in Time Out for lectures, theatre, art shows, etc. At the moment, Julianne Moore is doing something on Broadway, Kevin Kline is playing King Lear, and Vanessa Redgrave is about to open a play too. I may have to kill someone to get a ticket to this. Then there's all kinds of talks by famous or interesting people.

Last night, I went to a speech given by Larry Kramer - the controversial writer and gay activist. It was to mark the 20th anniversary of his speech (in the same location) that launched AIDS activism group ACT-UP. I've read and heard a few things about Kramer and was keen to check out if he was still as rabid. In a word, yes. I had a lot of problems with most of his speech, but it was a fascinating event. The man is like a god in that context, a fact which was partly addressed by the almost clerical robes he wore for the occasion, but mostly by the standing ovation he received before the speech, as he moved through the crowd to the stage (flanked by security) from the back of the room - an entirely choreographed movement designed for maximum theatrical effect. He basically proceeded to congratulate himself for saving the lives of several million people (I'm not kidding) and changing the face of human history (nup, still not kidding). Now I know that ACT-UP was enormously influential and successful in doing all kinds of things with public perception, drug companies, governments and so on. But "the most successful grass-roots organisation ever, anywhere. Period"??

I guess many Americans are not brought up to be modest.

never going home

Now that I'm settling into a kind of routine, I feel even less like I want to go home. I've been spending most of my days getting work done - writing and research either at the apartment (when it was too cold to go out a couple of days last week), at local cafes, or in the amazing Rose Reading Room at the New York Public Library. As someone one said to me, it's strange being in a place that is both functioning research library and tourist attraction. The other day, I wanted to take a photo when I was sitting there reading but I would have compromised my performance as serious researcher and as local.

Nights I've been busy catching up with various friends - Megan in Chelsea one night, Christina and Sam in SoHo another, John in Hell's Kitchen last night, all Sydney connections. Friday night, I had dinner with my old New York flatmate Jill, her sister Jen, and my party pal Kevin, and then Kevin and I relived many of our nights during my first stay here in 1999 and went to some bars and appraised the clientele. On Sunday, Benjamin and Barry's dear friend Matt and his boyfriend Nick took me to a really cute diner up the street in Williamsburg for brunch (that's them in the photo). It's in an old train carriage, or perhaps it was just built a long time ago to resemble one. Apparently Bjork lives across the street. I'd love to see her. Then they took me to the PS1 contemporary art museum in Long Island City which was lots of fun. It's in a converted old school, some of which still has a very punitive atmosphere - lots of long corridors in institutional pastel green and so on.

Then, of course, there's been a fair amount of shopping. I bought the boots I've been thinking about and they were at least $120 off. And lots of wandering about, taking photos of interesting things, doing my best not to look like a tourist!

adventures in baltimore

Baltimore is not the most interesting place on Earth but it is quite pretty and has lots of beautiful old buildings, like this one in the picture which I think is the cathedral. But then, sitting in a hotel attending conference sessions is not the way to gauge how interesting a city is. Going out on the town on a Saturday night and bar-hopping is. So in the interests of fairness to the city and its reputation, I did just that. Let's call it research.

My first stop, The Grand Central, was a pretty nice gay bar with usual range of people - older, gay scene stalwarts at the pool tables, straight girls with handbags (and I mean that in a couple of ways), the self-styled centre-of-attention pretty-boy. And tourists like me and my spunky new Spanish friends Jorge (who lives in Kansas) and Raquel (who now lives in Baltimore). Raquel came up to me and said Jorge had noticed me at the conference, so I joined them and proceeded to encourage us all to have many more drinks across a range of venues. Gay nightlife looks pretty much the same in Baltimore as everywhere else I've been, so no great revelations or surprises. But learning that alcohol is not available ANYWHERE after 1am was a nasty surprise, which meant we had to take refuge in a late-night Lebanese bar which serves those enormous bong-like pipe things which got the three of us very gently stoned. Not even my hotel could help out with drinks. All in all, I think we did very well with limited resources available.

Next afternoon when Jorge had sadly flown home to Kansas, Raquel and I went to the John Waters neighbourhood Hamden which is very up-and-coming cool, like Williamsburg but smaller and with camp homages to John Waters movies everywhere, like in the photo below. I got the train back to New York and promptly went out for dinner with my new flatmate Derek and his friend Jimmy to the uber-slick Thai restaurant slash cocktail bar slash nightclub up the street, and it was here and later at a huge equally uber-slick Chelsea club called Hero that I proved to myself once again that mixed drinks in New York are generally at least twice as strong as in Sydney and that caution should be exercised. Perhaps I'll remember to do so next time.

first celebrity spotting

At least, I think... James Iha from the Smashing Pumpkins, near Astor Place, with crazy white hair. So it's not the highest calibre, but I'm impressed with myself for placing him!

For a very funny website in this vein: http://www.gawker.com/stalker
Totally compulsive!

new york seems smaller and quieter

It's my third night in New York and I think I'm starting to feel quite settled. I can't be sure if the hours I've spent laying awake in the middle of the night so far are about jet lag or something more existential - perhaps a bit of both. But the apartment is very comfortable and it's in a fantastic location in the middle of funkster territory Williamsburg. It's a little bit Newtown or Surry Hills with more Polish and Hispanic people and businesses. But plenty of skinny jeans types, an excellent bookshop, some decent cafes and surely a whole lot more I haven't found yet. And it's one subway ride to Lower Manhattan. I've located a place to do yoga, which I think I'll try out tomorrow. Swimming doesn't look so likely. There is an indoor municipal pool literally two minutes from the apartment but it's only tiny and I'm not sure I want to pay up for membership as seems required. Makes me realise how spoiled we are in Sydney for swimming options.

I got myself a new camera which takes great photos. I bought it from this enormous electronics store in Midtown staffed almost entirely by Hassidic Jewish men. I got a much cheaper price than in Sydney and the whole thing was a painless production line-type process where I ordered, took a ticket to someone else, then went to the payment counter where my merchandise was waiting for me. Unbelievably efficient. I've so far resisted buying the amazing khaki/green suede boots which took my fancy but needless to say it's only a matter of time before I relent. I got a couple of academicky books from the brilliant St Marks Bookstore, where I considered asking for a job. And then this evening, I went to a not-so-interesting talk at NYU by three trans-men talking about themselves in/and transgender porn in a room full of funky but earnest gender studies undergraduates and a few self-serving older people (including a very annoying woman who claimed to be some kind of drag king pioneer from twenty years ago - that's great, but shut up occasionally!)



And the most vomitous thing so far (except for having to face photos of Bush and Cheney on arrival at LAX after 12 hours in a sardine can) was the window display at a high-end chocolate shop in SoHo (see photo above). So all in all, a pretty full couple of days. I catch an early morning train to Baltimore on Friday for my first conference. More then!