One Week From Today

I fly to New York on a redeye.

I am so very ready.

I was writing about that this morning, how ready I am for some vacation time, a break from clients, a get out of dodge, celebrate my Master’s degree, be away from the landlady scene and situation and just have some fucking fun.

I am very, very, very excited.

I just have four more days of work and one more day of supervision before the fun begins.

Work was pretty mellow and I had a late start, which was nice.

So, yes, I did sleep in.

However, today was it for sleeping in.

The rest of the week I’ll be up early doing therapy tomorrow before work.

An early music class for the baby on Wednesday and who knows what Thursday and Friday look like but I’ve already gotten the heads up that my help will be appreciated.

There’s a lot to do for a family of five traveling to Europe for five weeks.

So I’ll probably go in early on Thursday and Friday.

But really.

I am just fine with it.

It’s the final push before the down time starts for me.

I have a fairly light schedule this week too with clients, so it’s not too bad, going in early a few days, not bad at all.

Considering, as well, that I’m paid for the full five weeks that they are gone I have no qualms with the extra helping.

Besides, it will make the week go by faster.

I figure I will also sneak in a little extra doing the deal, tomorrow I have a client cancellation so I’ll hit something up at 8 o’clock near my hood.

It’s always a good thing for me to do, get in a little more recovery before I travel and also when I am busy, keeps me in balance.

Plus.

I will be getting some personal things together, planning my outfits for the trip and my accessories and toiletries, et al.

I almost bought a new suitcase last weekend but did not as they didn’t quite have what I wanted at Nordstrom Rack.

I don’t really, really, really need a new suitcase, but I’m a touch concerned, and have been for the last two trips, that one of the wheels on the suitcase will soon be meeting its end.

It might be a good idea to look into it.

I’ll be downtown on Saturday getting a hair cut, so maybe I’ll poke around.

I’ve got my shoes, dresses and accessories pretty much sussed out in my brain.

I’ve been watching the weather and it look like low to mid 80s.

Which is perfect for me.

Warm.

But not too warm.

Just about perfect.

I’m envisioning lots of walking around in sandals and sundresses.

Not something I would have done here today, super foggy this morning and cold and windy now.

Hello summer in San Francisco.

The warmer weather is definitely a draw for New York.

And the art, and the fine company I will have, and the culture, friends, recovery, warm air at night.

Heh.

And the big ass bathtub at the Air BnB.

I am taking myself some bubble baths, let me tell you.

Depending on when I check in I figure I will be making a trip to Whole Foods, stocking up the place and then going out and exploring a little, maybe do the deal if I can connect with a friend of mine early enough.

I need to hear back from the Air BnB host as to when I can get in.

The check in on the site is listed at 5p.m.

I get into JFK at 10:30 a.m.

I reached out and asked and the host had said it was not a problem to do an earlier check in and we’d connect closer to the date.

I figure I’ll reach out in the next few days and see what the deal is.

If I can’t get in as early as I would like, which is basically when I get there, I figure I’ll be there by noon at the latest, I want to be able to at least drop my luggage off.

I think the late check in has to do with making sure the unit is cleaned for the next guests, my suitcase should not get in the way of the place getting cleaned if that’s what needs to happen.

Anyway.

I am quite sure I will be fine whatever happens.

I feel really quite happy, I have to say.

Good dreams last night.

Feeling settled about what next actions I have to take regarding my living situation.

Four days away from a five-week vacation from work.

And though I will have clients during that five weeks, only for the two weeks in between New York and Paris.

The down time will also be good for me getting prepared for the private practice internship.

I have my next meeting with my new supervisor July 11th.

Very exciting.

Life is exciting.

Wonderful things feel like they are happening and I am no longer in dread about going on vacation knowing what I know from all the foot work I got to do regarding my living situation.

Happy.

Joyous.

Free.

Four days from my real summer vacation.

The count down has begun!

I Could Get Used To This

Having a little down time that is.

I mean.

I still got hella shit done today.

Two loads of laundry, recycling, grocery shopping, food prep for meals for the week, fresh sheets on the bed, shower, morning yoga class, breakfast, coffee, updating clients on upcoming vacation, writing, meetings with two different ladies.

I got shit done.

And.

I also sat outside and ate a late home cooked meal for lunch and let the sunshine hit my face and light me up inside.

I watched the ravens swooping over the back rows of houses behind the end of the fence marking the property line.

I closed my eyes and just was.

Then.

Holy mother of goodness.

I read a book.

Not a psychology book, although there were some interesting bits in it that were definitely psychological.

No.

I read for pleasure.

And it was so nice.

It was just the bomb.

I love reading and I believe that by the end of my last semester I was so read out that I wasn’t going to be able to pick up a book again for the summer and read anything.

I was burnt out on reading, text books and online articles and doing research and underling bits and pieces and this and that.

Going over readers with hundreds of articles and emptying out my closet of stacks of books to write that final big thirty page paper.

I actually just got back the comments on that paper today.

I had this moment of dread when I saw the e-mail.

There had been this bit in the syllabus that said if you didn’t do all the points of something in the paper it would get returned to you and you’d have to rectify it.

For just a moment.

I kid you not, even though I had framed my diploma today, which means that the grades were turned in, I got an “A” for god’s sake, I thought, shit, I fucked something up and I’m going to have to re-write that fucking paper.

Hahahaha.

Ugh.

Thanks brain.

I really could have gone without that thought.

But no.

The paper comments were quite nice and I got a lot of compliments for my understanding of psychodynamic theory and how I’ve integrated that into my sessions with clients and I got huge thumbs up for the case presentation part, both the presentation I did in class and also the write-up of the case, my professor was very effusive.

That was nice to read.

And yeah.

I did, as a matter of fact, frame my diploma today.

It looks really cool.

It’s hanging in my little kitchen above my sink.

It wasn’t exactly my first choice, but as it turns out the fancy frame I bought was literally 1/2 an inch too big to put it where I wanted to with my undergraduate diploma.

The only other place in my in-law that had any room was in the kitchen.

I like it though, I can turn my head and see it and there’s something about the placement in the kitchen, at least for now, that appeals to me.

I did a lot of self-care during my three years working on my Master’s degree that had to do a lot with cooking and making meals and trying to eat well and take care of myself.

I realized at some point that roasting a chicken was a really nice thing to do on a Sunday when I was writing papers.

It would warm the house up and when I was finished I would have a hot meal.

It’s some how apropos that my diploma is in the kitchen.

It makes sense.

One day, and not too far way either, it will hang in my private practice office.

I’m excited to be getting tiny baby steps closer to that goal every day.

I really feel like I am on a career trajectory towards making a real income and having my own business and supporting myself as a therapist.

I actually can see a time, in the not so distant future, when I will hang up my nanny clogs and bid adieu to working as a nanny.

I’m ready for that.

Of course, until then, I do have the best family to work for.

I’m so excited too for this week.

A week from tomorrow I fly out of SFO to JFK.

I have one more week of work and then five weeks.

FIVE.

Of paid time off.

I can hardly breathe with excitement.

I am not going to pick up a lot of extra client hours either.

Maybe a few here or there.

But rather, I am going to go do the deal a lot, I’ve been asked to speak at some afternoon places that I wouldn’t normally be able to do.

I’m going to have lunch dates with friends.

I made one tonight with a dear friend who spoke up at my commitment.

I’ve never been to his work and he’s been on me for ever to come down and have lunch at the office with him.

Done and done.

I went over my calendar and saw a few days when I can get in an extra yoga class.

I will also be doing some research for my paid internship, that meeting with my new boss and supervisor will be happening on July 11th.

So much lovely stuff to look forward to.

It’s going to be a fantastic week.

I can feel it.

I also only have five clients this week, so I don’t have to do an extra hour of supervision.

And!

Oh yeah.

I’m finally getting a hair cut next Saturday.

I’ll be all sassy for New York.

I’m so ready for that trip.

I’m so excited.

Glad I had down time today.

Grateful for sunshine, meals on the patio, pleasure reading, framing my diploma, making homemade food, friends and lunch dates.

Grateful for a life full of love.

So much love.

Almost There

In fact.

24 hours from right now I’ll be landing at JFK.

Eek.

I am so excited.

I am also a little nervous.

I’m on my own.

But.

I know how to take care of myself and what I want to do and I know that I am a big girl and can handle my own self.

It’s my second time to New York and really my first time there completely on my own.

Yeah.

I’ll be seeing a friend or two, I do have plans to see a friend in Williamsburg, but nothing air tight, everything is loose and flexible.

I ran into a friend tonight who used to live in New York and just recently relocated here, and he was like, “text me, you have an SOS or need anything, I totally know people.”

Plus he confirmed that I should definitely be going to St. Marks in the East Village.

I was randomly on facecrack and saw a friend who I had forgotten was in New York, of course I did, the only time I see him is at Burning Man, and I reached out and said, hey I’m going to be coming and where should I go to do the deal in New York?

St. Marks.

10 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Although I was tipped off to go hella early on Sunday to get a spot, I guess it’s a popular one and all that.

I figure I will do both the Saturday and Sunday, that will get me into the city early and set me up nicely to head off to my adventures.

“Go to the Frick too,” my friend told me when I listed off my Guggenheim, MOMA, Whitney ideals.  “You can totally do the Frick and the Guggenheim at the same time, they’re really close to each other.”

Sweet.

I’m glad to know it.

I also do think I am going to shoot the moon and try for a tattoo at Three Kings.

My idea solidified and now it won’t get out of my head, so, yeah, if I make it over there on Friday I’ll set up a consultation and go back on Sunday after I do St. Marks and the Whitney and the High Line.

Oh my God.

All the things.

So much to do.

I am so excited.

I could pee my pants.

But.

I won’t.

I do have to pack yet.

But I always pack day off.

I have traveled enough to know what to pack and what I need to bring.

My travel toiletries are all set and my suitcase is out on my chaise, along with an umbrella, it may rain when I’m there, but that’s fine, if it’s going to rain, I’ll be tucked up in a museum getting my art high on.

The only little fly in the ointment.

I can’t get my boarding pass to print off.

I’m not sure why, but my printer doesn’t seem to be connecting.

I checked into my flight though and I’ll just get my boarding pass printed when I go to SFO tomorrow.

I have set my alarm.

I will get up and do my morning routine and have a nice hot shower and eat a good breakfast and I will do my writing, how apropos that the last of my Paris journals is being filled up as I prepare to launch out into my next traveling adventure.

I’ll be re-upping my notebooks while I’m there.

There is nothing like have a journal with stickers and notes and ticket stubs from where ever I am traveling.  I love taking photo mat photos and sticking them in the notebook and subway tickets, train tickets, boarding passes.

I won’t actually bring my Palais de Tokyo notebook with me.

I will write one more entry for tomorrow before I fly out and buy a new notebook when I’m in Brooklyn on Friday, that way I have a fresh set of pages all ready to be filled with my adventures.

I also just pulled out my glue stick, got to have that too, in the bag of pens, to help stick stuff in that isn’t a sticker.

Heh.

Oh!

And before I forget, because I almost did!

I got a travel phone charger!

So happy I did that.

It’s charging in the socket as I blog.

It will hold two phone charges.

And it’s not super big.

My two friends who I traveled with, one in New York and one in Paris, both had the super big heavy ones that would hold like five charges.

I went with a smaller, lighter one.

I carry enough shit in my bag already.

I figure one big full charge on my phone and two back ups in my bag and I will be set for all my adventures and photos and oh, goodness, this is really fucking happening.

And what am I going to wear?

Hahahaha.

Same thing I already wear all the time, plus, maybe one fun dress to walk around in.

I tossed my Converse in the wash last night so they be clean and though not new looking not as shabby as they were.

I’m going to be walking.

If I was there being all pretty and had more time I might bring some sandals and I still might, I do have a cute ass pair that I wore yesterday, one of those few days in San Francisco that it was warm enough all day to wear sandals, at least in my opinion, but I’m going to be doing a lot of walking.

And since I’m there on my own, with my own agenda and schedule, Converse are just fine.

I don’t know why it feels like such a big deal.

Hmm.

Cuz maybe it is.

But.

I have traveled on my own to Paris numerous times, twice on my own, and yet, New York intimidates me a tiny bit, not a lot, I think I’m going to be just fine, I navigated the Metro in Paris and the subway, well, last time I checked, it was in English, it’s just something new and new can be scary.

Even if it’s new good.

New fun.

New amazing.

New York.

I’m coming for you.

See you soon.

EEP!

School’s Out For Summer!

I’m done!

I’m done!

I’m done!

Take that Psychodynamic Lacanian theoretical paper, I see you, raise you a parental confrontation, a castration complex, and further, you can’t squash my jouissance.

Ha!

I slay you paper dragon.

“That was fast!” my friend in cohort text me back after I gleefully texted her to let her know I had finished my Psychodynamic’s paper.

It was.

And still I am surprised at how fast I can write.

It doesn’t always mean it’s good, I’ve some modicum of humility, not much, but some, but it does mean that I am capable of doing the work in an efficient manner.

And.

Not to put too fine a point on it.

I had done the reading.

I had taken good notes in class.

I participated in class.

So when I needed to review the material and I did not know what I was going to write on, I did not in fact, write on the topic that I was going to, I google searched it and there were too many theoretical papers already out there.

So.

I used an experience from my youth and wrote about that.

I actually thanked God after the paper was finished for being able to use the traumatic event to write a positive piece.

I am amazed.

Constantly.

By how the wreckage and dreck of my past can be put to use.

“Carmen,” a famous writer once told me, “most writers would kill to have the material you work with.”

Meaning that I have lived a lot of life and have had a lot of experiences.

Some of them dramatic, traumatic and packed with pain.

Pain that I have been able to turn to something else.

If not gold, a kind of beautiful word garden that I can pick and choose what I will present in this bouquet of meaning and language.

I love poetry and words and sonnets and prose and sex and eros and flowers and life and apples and culture and French and travel and all these things add up to something, more than who I am and all of them inform me and build me and shape me.

I am so many things.

I am over the moon to be finished with my first year of graduate school.

I am officially a second year student now.

I am proud of the effort I put in and aware that I did not do any of it on my own.

It was with joy and humor that I spoke with one of my friends today from my cohort.

“Oh, don’t worry,” I said, so and so and I messaged and text and I know people are skyping, I’m totally fine with going over the take home with you.”

We did it together.

I had already turned in my final but I was more than willing to help my friend.

And when I think about all the help I had getting through this first year I am blown away with gratitude.

Friends who bought me groceries when I had to go down in hours at work and I hadn’t gotten my financial aid disbursement yet.

Friends who let me study in their living room when there was a kid’s birthday party here at the house with some many children it was like being inside a bouncy house trying to study.

Friends who bought me readers from Copy Central.

Friends who gave me rides to and from classes.

Friends who commiserated with me about the amount of work involved and how they did it, my nurse and doctor friends, my lawyer friends, my fellows in cohort.

My employers for being flexible and once a month letting me have off on Fridays so I could go to classes all day.

All the people who cheered me along the way and said, you can do it!

I did it.

Thank you friends!

I couldn’t, really, have done it without you.

That is not to down play the amount of work I did.

I did a lot of fucking work.

I showed up consistently, I didn’t miss a single class (which also helps me in writing the papers, let’s be honest, it’s a lot easier to stay on top of things if you are in the classroom, the importance of every class when it’s an intensive full time program taught on the weekend is huge), I did all my readings, well almost all of them, I may have missed an article here or there, but I really read all the books and texts and the majority, over 95% of the readers, I turned in every paper on time and I showed up for every project I had to present on time and prepared.

Yeah.

I know.

Fucking perfectionist.

“Now you can relax,” a friend text me.

Yeah.

Sure.

How though?

It’s going to take me a minute to unwind from all of this, I already know that, it feels very surreal to have all the work done when I consider that over the past year there was always something I had to be working on.

Going back to full time work is going to feel like a vacation.

Speaking of vacation.

New York in four days!

OMG.

I’m fucking going to New York.

I can finally get excited about it.

I have all my work done.

“That paper isn’t due yet, though, not for two weeks,” my friend text me when I said I was going to do the Psychodynamic paper today.

Yup.

Except that I will be in New York next weekend and I don’t want it over my head and I didn’t want to have to worry about carving out time after I got back from the trip either.

Although.

Heh.

I was a smart cookie.

I’m going to be coming back really early on Monday morning, flying out of JFK at 7:30 a.m.

What with the time change it will be 9:30 a.m. or something like that, and I asked off for the whole day from work.

Yup.

A full day to decompress from the trip and not force myself right back into the grind.

I’ll get to ease back in.

Super grateful I planned that out.

I have also made loose plans for the trip.

Friday I will get up and walk around Clinton Park, the area I’m staying in, grab some coffee and eat some breakfast and then make my way around Brooklyn.

I’m just going to wander.

I have an 8p.m. date with a friend to go do the deal in Williamsburg at Northside, so I figure  I’ll just mosey about Brooklyn all day Friday.

Hit the vintage shops.

Hit the coffee shops.

Wander around the Brooklyn Botanical garden.

Maybe pop into the Brooklyn Museum.

Go to book stores.

I’m very tempted to also hop over to Green Point and see if I can get into Three Kings Tattoo for some fresh ink.  I wouldn’t be able to get a tattoo that day, I’d have to go back after the consultation but they’re open late and I was thinking late Sunday I could get the work done.

It’s a thought, I have very tentative ideas about a piece.

I just like the idea of getting a piece done there, as I have in Paris now twice, it would be fun to add New York to the geographic map of my meandering travel life.

Then Saturday hit the city.

I want to go to the Guggenheim and the MOMA.

I know that’s a lot of museum to do in one day, but I’m on my own and I’m good company and I walk fast, I take the subway into New York, I hit the MOMA first, it closes earlier than the Guggenheim which will be open later, then onto the Guggenheim.

I drink lots of coffee.

I see art.

I buy notes books and take pictures of graffiti and get stickers.

I walk.

I soak it the fuck up.

I eat what ever I want.

Raw oysters.

I drink bubbly water till the cows come home.

I go do the deal somewhere if it makes sense to do so.

I plan on doing the new Whitney on Sunday and then walking the High Line Park and wandering around the little independent galleries around Chelsea.

If I decide to get a tattoo I head back over to Green Point and do that.

Part of me also wants to go to Coney Island.

But I’m not sure.

And I think that’s something to do with another person, ride the Ferris Wheel, go on the tilt-a-whirl, ride the Cyclone, seems like I would want a person to do that with.

Museums and walking about and exploring though.

That’s the deal.

That is my celebration.

I gave myself a trip to New York when I headed into the beginning of this semester.

I am so glad I did.

I am so excited to do this for myself.

I’m so grateful I made it through the school year.

Here’s to the beginning of my awesome summer vacation.

I have no idea where it’s going to go.

I just know I earned it.

And.

It’s going to be fucking awesome.

It already is!

Where Do I Begin?

Eep.

I did something today.

Actually.

Ha.

I did two somethings today that I have been thinking about doing for a little while now.

One thing came up this week, Saturday afternoon in fact, in a cozy little nook at the back of Tart to Tart it was suggested to me that I go home and do something.

It took me until today.

Part of that, I will blame on the internet, which FYI, is working smashingly.

My housemate re-booted the connection and I am back up and running.

When I couldn’t get online all weekend I did find myself getting frustrated I really wanted to be taking the suggestion, in fact, when I ran it by my next person I got the unequivocal thumbs up as well and a direct mandate, to yes at my first convenience, take the fucking suggestion.

Except.

Well.

Can I?

And then.

Heehee.

I did.

I just did.

I’m nervous, blushing, high color in my face, excited, happy, can’t wait to tell my people I took the suggestion, and a tiny bit overwhelmed by it.

But.

l did it.

I booked a ticket to New York.

HA!

Yes.

That’s right.

I’m going to take myself to the Big Apple this Spring.

Oh my God.

Peeing my pants.

Not really.

Why are pants wet?

Rain.

Please, people.

Although, yes, I am quite excited.

Also a little nervous, I won’t lie.

This will be my second time going to New York, but this time I won’t be meeting a friend there, like I did last time, I’m just going to go.

Granted.

The idea was not mine.

But.

I couldn’t get it out of my head.

And.

I thought, what a way to celebrate having finished my first year of graduate school?

I booked the ticket for two weeks after my final weekend of classes.

Just in case I have any final projects or papers that need to be done, I will have the time to do so before I travel.

I’m going to fly out Thursday afternoon, getting into JFK around 10:30p.m.

I don’t know where I am going to stay yet, I just posted on my facecrack page that I would be traveling, so hopefully a friend will say, hey, spare room, or yo, I got a friend who Air Bnb’s their spot.

I have time.

I’m not going until May.

It’s January right now and I have a full semester of school work to go.

That was also one of the reasons I was holding out on booking the ticket, I was waiting to make sure I had enough money to buy my readers for my classes.

But.

The damn things are not ready yet, the earliest may be on Friday, but I was told today most likely it will be Monday.

Which means, I will have another paycheck land in my account and I could use the money I have had earmarked towards books to get the plane ticket.

So.

I took a big, deep breathe and started hunting for tickets.

I found a good price, one that I could afford, though it leaves little in my account, I have nothing else I have to buy this week before Friday and pay day (I bought coffee tonight, really, what else do I need?), and I pulled the trigger.

Even though it means taking off an extra day of work, because the best price and what made the most sense for me to fly, was to fly out on Thursday afternoon.

I wanted a red eye, so I could work Thursday, but the cost was prohibitive and I thought, I’ll have the vacation time accrued, might as well take an extra day off to travel.

I’ll get there late Thursday eve, but have all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to walk everywhere.

Go to museums.

Oh, The Guggenheim, and the MOMA, and the new Whitney, to start.

That’s one for each day that I am there.

I am going to fly back early morning Monday so that I am back in SF and give myself the day to recover, lay low, get my ducks in a row.

I have found that it is really important to me to give myself a day to re-adjust after time spent traveling.

So.

Yes!

A trip to New York City in Spring.

I am pleased as punch.

Really I am.

I got just a taste the last time (my first time) being there and it was helpful to have a friend, though it was not as present as I could have hoped for, who was a pretty damn good tour guide and he let me crash at his place for free.

This time.

I won’t have a tour guide.

This time I’m on my own.

And.

Yes I will wear my big girl pants and figure it all out.

Suggestions, comments, thoughts, ideas, you throw them my way.

I’m open to it all.

Mostly, I am just excited to have given myself the permission to do something for myself and to celebrate my first year of graduate school.

Assuming I make it through this upcoming semester.

Ha.

And I shall be making it through the semester with a little something sassy to keep me going.

Heh.

I did mention that earlier, I was going to write about that first, but I got swept up in the whole, holy shit, I booked a ticket to New York thing.

I have an anniversary coming up.

I have a little spending plan allowance money set aside for a tattoo, I usually get something, but I realized that I don’t have to, I got one in Paris, which has healed up so well it’s rather shocking, but there is something else that I have wanted to do for some time and I told my person about it last night and well.

Here’s to taking more suggestions.

I’m finally getting my hair done.

Yes.

That’s right.

I’m fucking going blonde.

Eek a mouse.

I’m just going to do it once.

I can’t think that I can afford the upkeep, it’s going to actually cost more than the tattoo I was planning but I said, fuck it, I pull the extra from my clothing allowance and do it right the one time.

I’m actually going to have to go to the salon more than once.

I’m getting the initial cut and color done on one day and then I have to go back a second time to do the color again.

My hair is dark.

And I have a lot of it.

I may also be losing some of the length, I’ll find out when I go.

But.

I have always wanted to do this, I’ve written about it before and gotten close, I have highlighted a bit, but never the whole damn thing.

I figure I’ll do it the once, it might break my hair, but that’s ok, it’ll be hella fun, I can say I did it, instead of deciding I want to then not doing it.

Willingness without action is fantasy.

I took a lot of action today.

Even though, in reality, they were just small actions, they both felt really big.

One was to pick up the phone and call and make an appointment.

The other, to pull my debit card out of my wallet and commit to booking a ticket.

Small.

Tiny.

Wee little actions.

And yet.

Such big results.

It’s been a day.

Happy.

Joyous.

Free.

And soon to be.

Blonde.

In the Big Apple.

 

New York Dreaming

My friend is passed out in a food coma in his boxers on the queen size bed in the Air BnB he’s staying at in Brooklyn.

I am super tempted to take photos of him.

SUPER.

But after the amaze balls meal we just had this evening at Peter Luger’s and the fact that he footed the bill and the taxi ride back to the pad, well, it inclines me to be gentle with him.

Besides I love him to bits.

And today would not have been the day it was without his company and guidance.

I did not have to negotiate the subway system.

He did it for me.

I did not have to figure out what to do or where to go.

He knew what I wanted to see and do and we did it.

He asked me before I got here what I wanted to eat.

Steak.

And he made reservations at Peter Luger’s in Brooklyn three and a half weeks ago.

We still had the latest reservation one could have at the restaurant–10:45p.m.–but we got in.

He took me to a place I hadn’t thought to go and was thrilled beyond measure that we went.

Tavern on the Green.

I mean, it really was a dream of a day.

One in which I started out “late” from having needed to catch up on sleep missed from the previous days early up and at ’em after a long travel in from San Francisco.

I slept in until almost 10:30 a.m.

Late for me any way you slice it.

Late for me now, but I cannot go quite to sleep, I had more than one latte at Tavern on the Green, and I am wide awake.

Plus, my body is busy digesting all the tasty that was had at the steak house–iceberg wedge salad with blue cheese (the real stuff) and heirloom tomatoes, thick cut bacon, a half a medium rare lamb chop, a half of a rare porterhouse, a bottle of bubbly water–I am going to be digesting for the next week, I think.

But that’s ok.

The month of eating meat like it’s going out of style (three weeks Burning Man followed by this weekend in New York) and I will be going back to my simpler ways.

No.

I am not a vegetarian.

Although I have played on one tv.

I am just a simpler eater.

I like my food simple and clean and though it was not “dirty” to say the least, it was just a lot more full of meat than I normally eat.

But I am on vacation.

A short, sweet, quick bite of the apple, and then back out.

In fact.

I fly out in less than 8 hours.

My flight leaves JFK at 8:10 a.m.

Current time?

1:38 a.m.

Current location?

Somewhere in Brooklyn, just off the J line at Myrtle and Broadway.

I figure I am going to have to get up in oh, about three hours, get dressed, pack my bag and split for the subway, giving myself about an hour commute time to the airport, maybe an hour and a half (although I don’t think the trains will be busy, I just don’t know how often they are going to be running at 5 a.m.) and then the mandatory hour or so to make sure I check into my flight and go through security.

It’s almost late enough that I don’t want to go to bed, that I could just stay up and watch my friend sleep and listen to the occasional honk of the horn going by, or the whirl of the fan in the window.

It’s warm and sultry and it’s been humid.

Man, oh man, you should see my hair.

I have a lot of it.

It’s curly.

And it’s humid.

It’s like getting twice the hair in one shot.

It was pretty hot today, 91 degrees, but the humidity was so high that it felt like 100 degrees.

I got rained on a little bit, not too bad, just enough to have to dash underneath an awning after a late brunch at Ichabod’s down off of Irving and 3rd Ave.

I don’t know exactly how to explain all that happened today.

It wasn’t much.

But it was all a dream.

It was the fantasy made so real that I teared up a few times, wanted to pinch myself, and thought over and over and over, how is it that I am here?

How did this happen?

And I can trace the arc of it and still be amazed to be this woman, walking around Chelsea and the West Village, drinking an iced cold pressed coffee, dancing about the High Line Park, taking photographs of the skyline, and wearing a hat I bought on a corner from a street vendor who I bargained down to $20.

I felt like I was in a movie.

I laughed like I was in my own life and fulfilled and myself and I cried a little too, with joy, with gratitude to be walking with an old friend through a street fair on 3rd Avenue, eating watermelon out of a plastic cup and joshing with each other about going to that one place, on 19th and Dolores so many years ago, nine, now.

I got to be the woman sitting with an old lover at Tavern on the Green, eating olives with my fingers and watching the French couple at the bar holding hands underneath the ledge while Frank Sinatra crooned  a little song about New York over the speakers.

I watched the horses trot past pulling carriages and tourists and my heart-felt full and when my friend said, “you picked the right hat,” I knew he was right.

He picked it, by the way.

When the subway connections all fell like dominoes and we dashed up and down the stairs and made three transfers to get dropped off two blocks away from the steak house, walking in right at 10:45p.m. when the lighting flashed and the thunder boomed, and the skies opened up again, deluging the streets of Brooklyn with a wash of water from heaven, I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

And the dream.

Well.

It’s done.

It was a good dream.

And it was a lovely movie that I got to star in today.

Now.

Onto other dreams and other goals.

Now to settle my restless heart for a moment, catch a three-hour nap, and off to the airport.

I have places to go.

And planes to catch.

But New York.

I won’t forget you soon.

Though I may not dream of you again.

I am so grateful I got to live through this.

Like a bright stack of gold foil wrapped chocolates on Christmas morning.

You were sweet.

All Systems Go

Well, it’s on.

I got the heads up from my friend as I was editing my blog last night; the room-mate said cool, and he gave me the green light.

I think the exact words were, “book it bitch.”

Ah.

Friends.

I booked it.

Flying out of SFO to JFK on Thursday, September 4th at 4:37 p.m. returning JFK to SFO on Sunday, the 7th at 8:10 a.m.

We already have my first day pretty mapped out.

We’ll get up Friday morning, late morning I am supposing since my flight arrives at JFK at 1 a.m., walk to Manhattan and grab coffee and breakfast and head to the High Line, then Central Park, then the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

And that will take up most of the day.

Interspersed with food, hanging out, smack talking, and lots and lots of walking.

He asked how my ankle is and I don’t want to say it sucks, it hurts, it’s stiff, how can it still hurt this much, I don’t care for the whining, but by the end of today I was so ready to take off my shoe and throw down with some iced peas, I was near to tears.

I was also taken aback at how swollen it is again.

Seriously?

Come on.

Ugh.

I’m resting, I am going slow, I am taking it easy, but I am still working and going up and down steps and pushing a double stroller and it just takes time, so six more weeks of healing and I should be able to handle the mean streets of Manhattan.

I just got goosebumps saying that.

I do not know why it has taken me this long to do it, I suppose fear, but I’m ready and it seems all ready for me.

I have a dear friend who is going out there and will be a mere twenty-minute walk from where I am staying in Brooklyn, what are the odds?

Plus, a darling friend who I have known for 9 1/2 years, who lives there, but I have not seen much of outside of social media channels and a quick text or three around the same time each January.

We sort of share a special month anniversary you could say.

First thing out of his “mouth” when I texted that I was coming was, “do you need a place to stay?”

I mean, I always knew he probably meant that when he offered it to me the last time I saw him in San Francisco, he was with a gallery show, he’s making it as an artist, a fact that used to arouse jealousy and now just induces awe, go man go, make art and get your money!

He had said, we have a spare room, you can stay, you don’t have to pay anything, I’ll even show you around.

But I was afraid and never took him up on the offer.

Fear.

Such a silly emotion.

Necessary, I know, but often, in my case, overblown.

I also had a mad, mad, mad crush on him for the first year or so that he and I ran around the same circles, perhaps some of that still was in the mix.

None the less, thrilled to hear that he too is not that far away from where I will be staying and he offered to accompany me into Union Square, of all places, Saturday afternoon for a little get right with God.

I love that where ever I go, I am taken care of.

We’ll grab coffee before hand and catch up.

That’s all the planning I have.

My friend whom I am staying with said figure out what you want to do now since I am just coming in for such a short visit.

Aside from going to Central Park, seeing the High Line, and going to the Met, I couldn’t think of a lot else, just being in the city will be it for me, to get overwhelmed by it, absorbed by it, to see it, touch it, be in it.

I have a hankering to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge and to see the Williamsburg bridge, get my Soul Coughing reference on, I want to see the skyline at night, I don’t have much desire to shop (I’ll do what I always do, I’ll get a magnet from the museum store and a postcard and send the postcard to myself and I will get myself a cheap pair of earrings.  I almost always lose them, but while I have them, they will remind me every time of the experience.  To this day when I put on my little pink heart-shaped earrings I am reminded of Paris, of the brocante, flea market, of Square D’Anvers, of the foot of Sacre Couer.) but I will grab a few souvenirs.

I will act like I don’t care that I look like a tourist and I will take photographs with my camera.  I am will travel light, no reason to pack a huge bag or even my roll on.

I am going to go with two changes of clothes, a pair of Saucony’s, I’ll be walking and my ankle is not ready for sandals yet, damn it, my laptop, my camera, my phone, and a notebook.

Perhaps that is one other thing that I will get myself in New York–a notebook.  I do like having a notebook from the place I was visiting.

I have little journals, cloth bound, from Rome, I have numerous, at least seven, journals from Paris–all Claire Fontaine–and of course plenty of them from San Francisco.

I may not write as much, but I will try to absorb as much as I can, I don’t think I’ll sleep much either.

And, fingers crossed, I will have most of the playa scrubbed off me before I get on the plane.

I will have a day turn around from leaving Black Rock City to leaving San Francisco to New York.

I don’t know what to expect, except that I get to see two dear friends, and visit somewhere I have never been and be fucking jazzed that once again I leapt.

“It’s not a geographic,” I told her over coffee, “it’s a leap of faith.”

Thank God I can still take them with a shoddy ankle.

Look out below, I leaped again.