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"The Love Unlimited Orchestra"

(New York City, Sun, Sep 21, 2003, 2:28 AM)

I've had some wonderful individual days during my time here on the East Coast; a perfect day in DC, a couple of memorable days in Provincetown, and days like today in New York. It reminds me that I have a great capacity for enjoyment, which makes me wonder why I A) allow myself to have rare (they're the exception rather than the rule) weekends like the last one and B) berate myself so harshly when it does happen.

Last week had been a hard one at work. Boy, the analogy of a hurricane is a good one for this project. Because first it sucks everything in - every week brings a new face on the project. And second, it cuts a path of destruction, primarily on our personal lives. Twice last week, I was in the office until after ten in the evening. And before long, I'm almost certainly going to have to work a weekend. I've never seen a project so badly run. And they seem incapable of learning from their mistakes. The middle of last week, they called an 8.00 a.m. meeting to announce some changes. And it was typical that despite the early hour of the meeting, nobody in the leadership roles had thought that, hey, it might be nice to provide coffee and donuts. During the meeting it was announced that the tech-lead of my project had been unexpectedly replaced. So now we have to use up our precious time helping the new tech lead, who's completely new to the project, get up to speed.

It wasn't until I returned to my desk that the thought suddenly occurred to me, how come they hadn't asked me to be the tech-lead? On the one hand, I was glad, because who would want to be a manager on such a doom-laden project. But I also felt a dose of chagrine that I'd been overlooked. When I inquired, I found out that it was because my impolitic mouth had let me down again. I'd been making small-talk with a member of our client's team, and had mentioned the enviable 35-hour work week that's the standard for our company (except on this project) And that had been all it had taken to rule me out of the management slot on the project. I'm so glad I committed that indiscretion.

Despite the work pressure, I made time last Thursday night to go see the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center. Of course, it was because Mahler was on the program. I can't help myself. I feel I should open myself up to seeing other works, but I find Mahler irresistable. It was the Fifth Symphony. They're a competetent enough outfit, the NY Phil, I suppose. But I found the ending horribly rushed, which left me just the tiniest bit deflated.

Then on Friday night, I took Chris out to see "Take Me Out", on Broadway, for his birthday. I knew absolutely nothing about the play except that it was something about a gay baseball player. You started off thinking that the play was about the gay baseball player, but ended up realizing that it was actually about his gay business manager, a character whom in this performance at least was the result of one of the best collisions of writing and acting I've seen in a theater.

(New York City, Wed, Sep 24, 2003, 8:12 PM)

The last few days at work have been particularly draining. For the first time, I've been feeling so fed up with things that I thought about asking if I could be taken off the project. There was a lot of dissension in the team, particularly today.

Shawn, my longtime ex-boyfriend who now lives in D.C. was visiting me this weekend, and we had a really nice weekend together. He's so easy to get along with, and I enjoy his company now just as much as I used to when we were involved fifteen years ago. I love that he's so curious about things around him. Although he's far from being unworldly (he lived in Turkey for a few years), there's almost a naivety about him; his ears perk up as soon as he hears a foreign accent on the street; his face sprouts a smile when he spots a New York character.

The weather was gorgeous this weekend, and we spent much of it outside. On Saturday, after a run in Central Park (well, to be accurate, I ran, and Shawn sort of half-walked - I kept having to loop back to make sure he didn't get lost), we went over to 9th Avenue for a huge brunch at a place called Route 66, and then took a cab to the Guggenheim on the far side of Central Park. I'd drunk slightly too much coffee at brunch, and my enjoyment of being with Shawn combined with the bubbly, excitable caffein rush, put me in fine form as we explored the permanent exhibition of modern art installed in the rotunda. As you ascend, you move from the early 1900s to the 1940s - late Picasso. Then suddenly, on the last ring of the rotunda, you're in the 1960s, where modern art ceased to be. It's odd how my affinity for art between the years of 1890 and 1940 holds not only for painting but also for classical music. My taste in literature on the other hand is mostly pre-1900.

Looking up the rotunda at the Guggenheim

Looking up the rotunda at the Guggenheim

Shawn outside the Guggenheim

A gorgeous late Summer day on the Upper East Side

A gorgeous late Summer day on the Upper East Side

We took the subway down to the East Village near dusk, and sat for a while outside Starbucks in Astor Place. I love the East Village, in all it's sprawling, colorful, bohemian diversity. Later, we explored as much of it as we had the energy for. As we were crossing the street, somebody called my name from a passing car. It turned out to be F, the ex-boyfriend of my former best-friend Paul, with whom I had a big falling out a few years ago now. It was good to see him, but I have mixed feelings about seeing Paul again. I used to adore him; spending time with him was like Christmas; but I felt so hurt by his behavior that prompted our falling out. I told F to "tell Paul I said hello ... I guess."

Saturday evening, we had dinner in Chelsea then took the L-line over to the East Village to go bar crawling. Our first stop was a thoroughly unpretentious place called the Urge Lounge. Unlike Chelsea, the bars in the East Village contain normal looking people with normal bodies, and there's not the same level of fierce athletic territorialism. We almost immediately fell in with conversation with a cute guy, wearing a half-unbuttoned shirt. He was one of the few guys there who would have looked at home in Chelsea, with his smooth chest. We ended our evening at the awful "The Cock", a dark dive of a place where the public-space smoking prohibition is openly flouted. Even the bar tender had a cigaretter dangling from his lips.

Another, even more beautiful day on Sunday. We got up late and had a meagre brunch at an overpriced place in the Meatpacking District. A strange, fascinating, riverside neighborhood South West of Chelsea, where you'll find roadside offal and cow dung, sheeshy clothing boutiques and expensive restaurants all on the same block. We lounged away the rest of the afternoon in the nearby, newly developed Hudson River park, parts of which feel as if you're on a gay beach. Shirtless muscle boys in jeans or black speedos as far as the eye can see.

Meatpacking District vista

The scenery in Hudson River Park

And that was really it, apart from seeing the movie "Lost in Translation" (which I heartily enjoyed), and going out Monday night to a stylish hustler bar (we didn't know it was a hustler bar!) where all the (mostly) middle-aged customers wore blazers. What a weekend you can have in New York; all the art, nightlife, and beauty that's fit to consume.

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