I love to blog at the airport

It's true. I do. What the hell else is there to do when your flight is delayed by a minimum of 2 hours? I'm traveling to Miami (by way Fort Lauderdale) to participate in a workshop with Anusara founder John Friend and visit my parents when they return later this weekend from visiting my brother in Providence.

It's possible that the guy whose smashing white ensemble isn't emblazoned with the word "UNGAR" on it is my brother (it's also possible that the "UNGAR" guy is, but that seems unlikely). This photo appeared when I googled him and he is an Ivy League fencer.

The trouble with airport blogging, however, is that I infrequently have anything of interest to say while stranded in a noisy terminal. In fact, I have already blogged about Aunt Butchie's, a peculiar and perpetually closed vendor situated in the Jetblue retail nexus. I don't index my blog, though, so it appears impossible to search the blog archives for that riveting installment (undoubtedly made under similarly inspiring circumstances).

I have already eaten a salad with tuna and a luna bar and I remain absolutely, positively, menstrually ravenous. But it's 10 pm and I will do nothing but sit around in various positions for the foreseeable future. Energetically, I don't feel up to it; but it occurs to me that should I find myself in this situation again (and I surely will), I might try to start a group asana practice. That would be a great thing for a bunch of fidgety, airport-bound people still *waiting* to sit on a plane to do, no? Spontaneous "kula" and all that.

There's cute couple immersed in a heated game of backgammon behind me.

Well, I've got a grant application to finish, the Yoga Sutras to read, and an endless bounty of people-watching to keep me engaged until the flight shows signs of departing.

does someone want to stick a lion in there or what?

Oh, and while you're inspecting my chops maybe you want to sign up for the foolsFURY adult intensive if you'll be in Northern California during November.

as always: http://www.foolsfury.org

two things related only by "huh?" and chronology

Thing #1: Last night the grassy plaza area in front of the UN turned into a wildlife park. As I rode past I heard birds - definitely not pigeons or sparrows - schreeching. It sounded like a jungle. I stopped, hoping I might see one of these:

or one of these


but I didn't see anything other than some grass and the FDR drive on ramp.

Thing #2: Today I received my first official invitation to see a show for free because of my blog. Blogs = the wave of the present.

The final performance of Zen Cabaret!

Check out our awesome review:

http://www.nytheatre.com/nytheatre/nyclown_rev2007.php?0=S&1=239

And more importantly, check out the show!

http://www.zencabaret.com

Sunday night at 8:30 pm at the Brick Theater

575 Metropolitan between Union and Lorimer

Buy your tickets in advance because we will sell out!

http://www.bricktheater.com/clown/

the perils of curb-hopping in the rain

I recently returned home from a thrilling 2+ hours stint at the Apple store and on the way home, my pedal caught the lip of the curb and threatened to:

1) injure me seriously
and, very nearly equally awfully:
2) undo all the accomplishments of the previous several hours

and this is why blogs exist, so I can moan about these things.

it's a city, but it still gets dark at night

that's something I miss from Berlin. It's funny - I was actually a little tentative sometimes riding from Friedrichshain to Neukolln in the middle of the night ... down Schlesiche Str. past Treptower Park* and down Elsen Str. turning into Inn Str. and onto Stuttgarter Str... through the deserted streets and carrying my heavy bike over a tiny footbridge above the canal with scant, dim lighting obscured by endless bushes. And, of course, some people told me not to ride alongside the strange, still pool in Gorlitzer Park at night.

But now I am back in Manhattan, midtown Manhattan, and I long for respite from the neon, the ads, the unrelenting street lamps, the light when I am riding home at night.

I am very fortunate and eternally grateful for the circumstances that have led to my living in midtown, but especially after the summer in beautiful Berlin. I am quite ready to move to somewhere in Brooklyn where a tree grows and someone remembers to flip the switch at night.

*I just googled Treptower Park and found this fascinating Wikipedia entry on the Soviet War Memorial in the Park (something I don't believe I've ever seen because it was almost always nighttime when I rode past the park and I never explored the park itself during the day).

"Women of the (East) German wartime generation still refer to [the memorial] as the "tomb of the unknown rapist" due to the mass rapes by Red Army soldiers in the years following 1945."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_War_Memorial_(Treptower_Park)

thesbians in Denmark

This photo was taken in the garden behind the house where Andrea (brown hair on the right), Sara (to the right of me), and I lived during Odin Week. The house and garden were beautiful. Unfortunately, our presence seemed to terrify their owner.

Iphigenia 2.0 at the Signature

http://www.signaturetheater.org/

It closes on October 7. There are still $20 tickets available every night. See this show. And be prepared to walk out in a weepy, heart-pounding haze. It was, for me, emotional and sensory overstimulation of the distinctively Chuck-Mee-mayhem-done-to-precision variety.

And also, go get yourself a ticket to Hotel Cassiopeia at http://www.bam.org/events/08HOTE/08HOTE.aspx if there are still tickets available. I love this play, as anyone who's read my blog or, uh, ever spoken to me knows.