I'd say summer is officially over in my little corner of the Northeast. In the last three days or so, trousers, cardigans and blazers have now crept back onto the ladies fashion scene. It's gone from the 80s to the 60s and the sun sets pretty close to 7PM. So long summer. You will be missed.
This last week has been a busy one personally and on a city-wide level. This Monday kicked off NY's bi-annual
Fashion Week. I work two blocks from Bryant Park. Without fail, the white canopies went up in the park and the Spring runway shows were scheduled. With Conde Nast and HBO corporate headquarters around the corner, flimsy fashionistas trotting around in skinny jeans, dresses and vests have been pretty common sight. I don't live in an extremely hip and trendy section of Manhattan, so I don't often get the paparazzi flocks that sometimes crowd the streets of the Villages, SoHo, Tribeca or points south of me, but they were in force at the runway shows. When I would go out to get lunch, it was always an exercise in sidewalk defensive driving to get around the crushes of photogs. Last Fashion week I nearly got run over and hit by a cab as a gaggle of photographers chased a fashion designer across 41st St and 6th Ave.
Across the street from me is a small plaza called Grace Plaza. Usually, it's just an empty promenade with some pretty potted trees and park benches in front of the office buildings on the corner of the block, but for Fashion Week they set up a temporary exhibition space for a Valentino costume show called
The Read Thread to celebrate Valentino's iconic career. When I get in later tonight, I'll post some pictures I took of the dresses they had displayed. It was pretty cool and, although open to the pubic, I did not actually go in to ogle the dresses.
Today is September 11th. When I woke up this morning and turned on NBC, I was greeting with the annual reading of the names of those lost 7 years ago at Ground Zero. It was a teary wake-up. I was 15 on 9-11. I was in AP European History and watched the tours hit and collapse on one of the school's few classroom TVs. I remember the panic to get out, my parents getting me and driving up to Albany as we watched the smoke billow off the Towers from the Verazzano Bridge. My dad's cousin was a First Responder. We didn;t hear from him those first three days of recovery efforts. A kid I went to elementary school with was starting his first week interning there when the Towers fell. He didn't make it. My good friend's wife was killed. Gus went down to give blood that first night... So many memories, most of them filled with death and fear. As some of you know, I did my thesis work on St. Paul's Chapel, which became an informal memorial and relief center following the days, months and years after September 11th. As a New Yorker, student, person... it doesn't matter how much time passes. It still hurts just so.
The last three nights I've been out and about enjoying my evenings. All of last week I was at home toiling on fic, so I'm taking a break to enjoy RL. Monday evening I met up with my friend from school. I hadn't seen MS for about 2 months, so it was good to catch up. She's currently in the process of trying to find an apartment and a job - no easy feat in this economy or with NY's housing market. We went to a local wine/tapas bar by my place called
Mamajuana's. It went in while I was away at college, so this was my first chance to try it out. Great atmosophere and service. The drinks were pretty good if not rather exhorbidently priced. MS stayed over at the apartment we're renovating, since she had a job interview in the Bronx the following morning that was closer to my place than to the one she was staying at. That's the thing about getting around in NY. It always takes awhile, especially if you live in a different borough than the one you want to get to.
Tuesday evening I met my parents after work at a Greek restaurant called
Niko's on the Upper West Side to have dinner with our friend Almira. I stayed with her in Sedona, AZ when Gus and I went cross-country this summer. She hadn't been to the city on 6 years and hadn't seen my parents in 10, so there was lots of catching up to do. I've always really enjoyed time out with adults. There's something about adult vs. peer conversation that makes me feel at ease. Our waiter was also a riot. He kept injecting himself into our conversation so that the topics veered off into 1970's New York when my parents, Almira and the waiter would have been in there 20s.
Last night I went with my boss and a bunch of acquaintances to
Caroline's, the famous NYC comedy club, to see a show by a troupe called
FUCT that we're familiar with. While the show was fairly mediocre - the space is much smaller and dumpier than their usual theatre downtown, and the drinks and service were blarg with a side of blarg - it was still an alright time. After the show we headed off to
McCoy's, an Irish pub in Hell's Kitchen, and settled in for the night. I went fairly light on the drinking and ended up chatting more than anything else. Tonight, I'm going out with Gus to have dinner at a yet to be determined location.
It's been a pretty busy week for me so far, but hopefully this weekend I'll have some time relax and work on a fic that will feature some original characters. I also would like to push around an older fic I was working on months ago with Faith and Dawn. Too much Spuffy gets me antsy. I want to play with some other voices at the moment.
Hope all is well with you guys!