To Buffalo

My Grandma Anderson passed away yesterday at the age of 84.  It's difficult for me to pinpoint an exact cause of death - no one seems to know, exactly.  I'd like to believe that she died of old age, but part of me knows that she more or less gave up after taking a spill down the stairs in her home last fall.

It is my belief that she simply didn't want to continue trying anymore.  She didn't want to take part in physical therapy, preferring instead to confine herself to a wheel chair.  No matter what reward was set in front of her, she simply sat, and waited.

And so it is with mixed emotions that I will travel to Buffalo today for her services on Monday and Tuesday.  I am sorry that her life was so full of sorrow that she decided to bide her time, passively waiting for death to come.  At the same time, I am glad her life is over, because that is what she wanted most of all.  It's what she's wanted for years.

I'll miss my Grandma.  She was always very kind to me.  She always spoke to me as a human being, and I appreciated that.  I know that children deserve to be addressed honestly and openly; that is something my Grandma taught me.  I hope that, in the end, she was able to find her peace.  She deserved that, in the very least.

Day's Adventure in the Big Apple

Yesterday, I actually had an adventure in NYC.  Given the title of this blog, you would think that I would be participating in a great deal more shenanigans, but my life is actually rather mundane.  In any case, given the rarity of yesterday's fun, I feel that I should blog about it, just to ensure that "Day's Adventures" keeps its quota of 10% adventure, 90% banality.

Because it is finally getting warmer, a couple of friends and I decided to meet in Central Park yesterday.  We began in the Southeast corner of the park and headed upwards, into the center of the park.  There we scrambled on a few rock faces and generally lounged in a hidden spot, where we could spy on passers-by below.  

Afterward, we wandered around until we saw a temporary roller skating arena.  It was amazing!  There was an extraordinarily gifted skater there who could balance a water bottle on his head while skating at any speed in any direction.  It was a sight to behold - and I cannot bear to tarnish the memory by poorly describing it further.  I wish I had a picture to share, but I was far too dumbfounded to think about pulling the camera out of my bag at the time.

Afterward we strolled the mall.  The trees were just budding, which gave the walkway an impressionistic feel, as though the trees were surrounded by vague images of leaves.  Pointillism.  

We then came across a truly grassy knoll, with actual grass.  I'm disgustingly excited to see real, actual grass anymore, now that I exclusively pound the pavement.  Actually walking upon dirt and grass and nature and stuff just feels so good, just like in my memories of a time when I used to take grass for granted.  

After sitting on the wonderfully green and healthy sod for a good long time, watching a small dog play with a pink bouncy ball, the next mission became clear: find a bathroom.  Luckily we were near 72nd Street so it was relatively easy to walk to the Barnes and Noble near Lincoln Center.  Those are my favorite public restrooms, since I believe that many people don't think to remember that they're available - you know, in there with the books and all.  There is a Starbucks just a block down, and Starbucks in NYC have become synonymous with public restrooms, which further adds to the vacancy of the B & N restrooms.

In any case, darkness had fallen by then, and so we decided to eat burritos and drink beer.  Luckily Harry's Burritos was nearby - although we had just missed happy hour by 5 minutes.  A few beers after an afternoon adventure was just the ticket.  Surely the best possible ending to a rather enjoyable afternoon

The Fame Whore World

The Real World is back on air, in its much anticipated 20th season.  This time they're taking on Hollywood and have recruited cast members who have hopes of succeeding in the entertainment business.  Which means that, for the first time in a long while, these roommates might actually exhibit some ambition.

I watched the inaugural episode of this season.  To be honest, I was really struck by how awful some of these latest cast members seem to be - one guy flirted up a storm with a female roommate, until he found out that she happens to be a stripper.  Then he "confessed" that it is impossible to have any real relationship with strippers in general, and so immediately began giving her the cold shoulder.  

Two of the other male roommates got into it after one of them called another a "weirdo" for wearing a t-shirt in the jacuzzi, after which everyone got all riled up into a tizzy.  Seems the name-calling roommate has worked everyone's nerves in just the 48 hours covered in this episode.  The troubling part was that the offending roommate disparagingly called the weirdo roommate a "female" for overreacting at the name-calling incident.

Misogyny abounds.  

This shall certainly be a season of hook-ups and general sluttiness (when's the last time this show wasn't about sex and alcohol?), featuring seven total strangers and complete fame whores.  I guess the interesting part of this will be observing which of the cast members will actually work on their "art" in order to break into Hollywood, and which believe that they deserve to be famous, because EVERYONE is famous these days.  

They can't be far off from the truth, thanks to these terrible unscripted (reality) televisions shows.  They're ruining society, I tell ya.

La Awesome

Today was a relatively rough day at work.  It's bound to happen when you work in one place for years and years that you get a little bit sick of things ever now and again.  At least, that's what I've discovered since working in a full time position at a company I respect about 15 months ago.  Probably that's a lesson that was obvious to everyone else!

Anyway, I decided to go out to dinner to de-stress.  We are fortunate to live about 9 blocks away from one of the best restaurants in Queens, called La Flor.  There are several positive reviews floating around in the archives, and it also gets mentioned in Time Out New York, if that even matters.  

I ordered the vegetable tacos, which sounds like a completely average item on any random menu, but they're not: grilled seasonal vegetables on homemade tortillas topped with freshly made avocado.  Served with a salad and homemade red and green hot sauce on the side.

It was pure deliciousness, and has almost cured the pain.  

Only one more day till the weekend...

Numerologically Speaking

I am loving the year 2008 so far, and not just because a couple of kick-ass things have happened so far.  I've been appreciating all of the interesting dates that have passed: 2-4-08, 3-5-08, 4-4-08, and now 4-16-08.  I just love the crunchiness of the math that has occured so far this year.

I know, I know, these types of things happen EVERY year.  But this time, 8 is a power of two, which somehow adds to the effect.

You're more than welcome to call me crazy, but I think it's great fun.

Speaking of my obsession with numbers, the idea for my second tattoo is finally in place.  Deciding on this has been a very delicate, years-long process, as I (like Craig Ferguson) believe that one must only ever have an odd number of tattoos.  

Plus, I am facing the issue of space on my body.  This is one that all tattoo collectors face, I imagine.  Trying to plot multiple tattoos on a body that is prone to aging and sagging takes a bit of planning.  Additionally, I have a small problem because my sole tattoo right now literally requires space: it is the constellation Libra.  

Understanding how to get to tattoo number three (which I hope will be elephants of some quantity and certain style) was really the issue.  So, tattoo No. 2 will have to be some sort of dividing element.  I thought I'd get a few lines of text, in order to both delineate the space on my back and also to provide some sort of parenthetic remark on the tattoo directly above it, like a placard at a museum, or a signature line at the end of a letter.

One thing I really, really love (obviously) is data and numbers.  Numbers that give you data.  I mentioned this to another NYC friend of mine, and he said that I should consider adding a string of numbers that represents my birthday in C-Time.

Sold!  That fits all of my criteria.  It is specific to ME, involves information that is not easily deciphered, creates a "horizon," and also adds a commentary to the first tattoo.  

I thought I'd add information regarding the longitude and latitude of the point of reference from which the constellation takes its inclination.  Problem is, Angelina already has a tattoo in that vain, and I do not want to associate my tattoo with Brangelina for the rest of my life.  Also, the hashes do not make for smooth number lines.

I decided, then (with the help of the same friend) to express the longitude and latitude of Silver Cross Hospital in Illinois exclusively in seconds.  These would also be rather lengthy numbers, and they would present factual, unchanging information.  The entire three lines put together would describe all that you'd need to know about the tattoo immediately above it!

At this point, I still need to beg someone with computer know-how to find out what 10-15-81 at 13:41 Central Times is in C-Time (which is the epoch of the Mac OS system and also the programming language C:).  I also need to sit down and figure out what the latitude of Joliet IL is in the first place, let alone what it is in seconds.

But there you have it. 

Oh! and one more thing about the numerological implications of this idea, which is what started me off on this grand explanation anyway:

Within 6 months, I will have two tattoos.

One of them will consist of three lines of numbers.

The other already consists of five stars.

All together, there will be eight separate elements that create these two tattoos.

Don't forget: 2 plus 3 is 5, and 3 plus 5 is 8.  It's the Fibonacci Sequence!  And also, 2, 3, 5, and 8 are prime numbers.  

Wonderful number crunchiness abounds.  Can't wait.

Where's Day???

Well, well, well.... it's been awhile hasn't it?  

I must admit that, for a while there I was contemplating living my life without ever writing in a blog again.  To be honest, despite the occasional spot of embarrassment after reading a six-month-old post, it didn't seem that much different.

For the past couple of weeks, then, I've been digesting the advice of a dear friend of mine whose mission it is to get me back into the Blogging Scene.  Apparently this friend of mine read an article in Southwest Magazine on an airplane and that article told him that people should blog in order to keep their beloved friends, family and random strangers informed as to the goings-on of their life.  Additionally, blogging is good for the maintenance of writing skills as well.  I can't argue with that.

So the goings-on of my life?  Some of that I can't tell you about - confidentiality and all.  But I CAN share my relief that my company survived a sale - and even came out ahead! - which is comforting.  No heads will roll, not even mine.

I also had the great privilege to perform The Rite of Spring with a very talented orchestra just this past weekend.  No, this wasn't a paying gig.  But it was great fun and quite rewarding.  The Rite is truly a masterpiece, but you already knew that.

Otherwise, my life has been filled with exercising every now and then, spending too much money on excursions with my growing circle of NYC friends, having a regular Saturday night movie date in a high rise on 38th Street, listening to J. wish for a better job, and worrying about the ills of society.

That last phrase pretty much represents why I've not yet taken the time to type my most current musings about life in NYC.  I live in a happy bubble of work and play, but there is definitely a sense of looming fear surrounding everything I do.  After all, I'm about 8 miles as the crow flies from Wall Street and all the symbolism that brings.

Nevertheless - if I can get over this sense of foreboding than I shall certainly endeavor to blog more often.  Maybe I'll even post pictures of kitty cats to brighten everyone's feed reader!