Today
I don't post here often enough anymore. Here is an expanded version of my latest from Facebook. Because it deserves to be remembered. And I bet that you have stories of your own. I'd love to hear them.
Kind of an extraordinary day. Woke early to the manhunt on the radio. Was glued to TV in the morning, needing to see photos of my old Watertown stomping grounds in extremis - as I wrote earlier this morning:
Watertown, Cambridge . . . . I was stunned to wake up this morning to the news of so many streets and neighborhoods I know well & love in Boston area being at the epicenter of all this. I'm watching on TV, just to get a glimpse of Watertown Mall, the diner on Mt. Auburn St.... As with Copley Square on Tuesday, they look just the same as they did when they were part of my boring, normal life for so many years there working there for WGBH-FM. A friend in Watertown says she's had a SWAT team go through her apt.! I was living in Somerville (Porter Square) the day the planes hit NYC on 9/11. I felt such a need to come be with my Other City! Now, I am with you, Boston.
Tried to get office work I'm behind on done, mostly succeeded only in making lists before I had to leave to meet my friend Joel Derfner in E. Village coffeeshop. (We met online - no, really! - as fans of each other's work. I love his book Swish. We talked about his new project, and it was deeply satisfying.) I had my annual malted milkshake & a few of his french fries.
Twitter revealed that Neil Gaiman was nearby, so we arranged to meet up & walk through SoHo to his 7pm gig near Washington Square, stopping at an ice cream truck where he treated me handsomely. (Gotta say his hazelnut was better than my pistachio - and I know this because he was equally generous in letting me have a taste.) Talked about Life - walk not nearly long enough.
After dropping Neil successfully off (and thus, I hope, redeeming the time I got utterly lost in Boston about a million years ago & made both him & Dave McKean horribly late to their signing! First & only time I've met McK - deliberate??), I hastened to the Rubin Museum to meet Delia so we could see Janis Ian perform at an intimate concert there [part of their series called NAKED SOUL: Unplugged but totally Connected] which I highly recommend!]. But first I had a plate of Brussels Sprouts in their lounge, Delia having already eaten all the salmon.
Janis told stories and answered questions and sang songs in a compelling . . . Then D&I went upstairs & looked at Tibetan art of gods and saints and monsters, came back down to hug & chat with Janis (whom we got to know through the SF community - what a lovely woman she is! and a voracious reader), stopped in at Loehman's on the way home because it was open at 9:30 at night and how could I not? and bought Useful Things, got on the subway and now we're home and am I still a little jazzed?
Uh, yeah.
Would love a nice, peaceful weekend, but that will have to wait til Sunday - tomorrow is a birthday lunch, a few hours' heavy labor with our new office assistant, and then dinner w/Charles Vess, who's visiting to do an event at Books of Wonder.
I will say it's keeping us nice & distracted and away from brooding overmuch on this week's upcoming surgery (4/24) - which we are SO ready to have be done already!!!!!! So. Very. Ready.
Many thanks for all your good wishes for Delia. I'll keep you posted.
Kind of an extraordinary day. Woke early to the manhunt on the radio. Was glued to TV in the morning, needing to see photos of my old Watertown stomping grounds in extremis - as I wrote earlier this morning:
Watertown, Cambridge . . . . I was stunned to wake up this morning to the news of so many streets and neighborhoods I know well & love in Boston area being at the epicenter of all this. I'm watching on TV, just to get a glimpse of Watertown Mall, the diner on Mt. Auburn St.... As with Copley Square on Tuesday, they look just the same as they did when they were part of my boring, normal life for so many years there working there for WGBH-FM. A friend in Watertown says she's had a SWAT team go through her apt.! I was living in Somerville (Porter Square) the day the planes hit NYC on 9/11. I felt such a need to come be with my Other City! Now, I am with you, Boston.
Tried to get office work I'm behind on done, mostly succeeded only in making lists before I had to leave to meet my friend Joel Derfner in E. Village coffeeshop. (We met online - no, really! - as fans of each other's work. I love his book Swish. We talked about his new project, and it was deeply satisfying.) I had my annual malted milkshake & a few of his french fries.
Twitter revealed that Neil Gaiman was nearby, so we arranged to meet up & walk through SoHo to his 7pm gig near Washington Square, stopping at an ice cream truck where he treated me handsomely. (Gotta say his hazelnut was better than my pistachio - and I know this because he was equally generous in letting me have a taste.) Talked about Life - walk not nearly long enough.
After dropping Neil successfully off (and thus, I hope, redeeming the time I got utterly lost in Boston about a million years ago & made both him & Dave McKean horribly late to their signing! First & only time I've met McK - deliberate??), I hastened to the Rubin Museum to meet Delia so we could see Janis Ian perform at an intimate concert there [part of their series called NAKED SOUL: Unplugged but totally Connected] which I highly recommend!]. But first I had a plate of Brussels Sprouts in their lounge, Delia having already eaten all the salmon.
Janis told stories and answered questions and sang songs in a compelling . . . Then D&I went upstairs & looked at Tibetan art of gods and saints and monsters, came back down to hug & chat with Janis (whom we got to know through the SF community - what a lovely woman she is! and a voracious reader), stopped in at Loehman's on the way home because it was open at 9:30 at night and how could I not? and bought Useful Things, got on the subway and now we're home and am I still a little jazzed?
Uh, yeah.
Would love a nice, peaceful weekend, but that will have to wait til Sunday - tomorrow is a birthday lunch, a few hours' heavy labor with our new office assistant, and then dinner w/Charles Vess, who's visiting to do an event at Books of Wonder.
I will say it's keeping us nice & distracted and away from brooding overmuch on this week's upcoming surgery (4/24) - which we are SO ready to have be done already!!!!!! So. Very. Ready.
Many thanks for all your good wishes for Delia. I'll keep you posted.