Tag: daily photo

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Pulled myself out of the house yesterday evening, to meet with Fred, and a couple of other folks for dinner. I suggested Gobo, which did not dissapoint. In fact, as I was heading home I reflected on how much better my body was feeling after a day full of headaches, allergies, bloaty-ness and lassitude. I guessing that in part it was because there were very few carbs in the meal. The standout dish was a nori wrapped tofu in a thai red curry. It had bite and an undercurrent of smokiness. As for the company, it was one of those evenings where as we talked more, we ran across yet another person that we knew in common. It was one of those cases where we were much in each others lives, even though we saw each other rarely. Perhaps the fact that I didn’t have any real responsibilities in the evening helped to lighten my mood.

Today I’m teaching at the center, and then getting together with some more friends. It’s funny how elastic time is: when I start doing little tasks, I have plenty of it: when I worry about tasks it flies by and I feel like there’s not time to do anything.

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Maybe it’s the return of my annual hay fever, maybe it’s some other creeping crud, or maybe it’s the unrelenting stresses of the past week, but I feel bruised, everywhere, inside and out.

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We celebrated Mother’s Day by taking a prolonged walk through Prospect Park; my Mom, my sister, Lehigh and myself. We followed it up with an early dinner at Whiskey Sundays. Which was so heavy that I left me nearly incapacitated for the rest of the day. Laundry did not happen.

The walk was quiet, thoughtful. It was not a hugely celebratory day, even though things seem to be going alright for my Mom. I had the chance to introduce her to a couple of the people in the neighborhood that, like her, are fans of the pooch. Lehigh was basking in attention. There’s no nearby dog run however, so while she met a few playful dogs, she did didn’t have the chance to race around like a maniac.

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Around here, they give you a lot of fruit salad for three bucks. And you get to pick what’s in it.

Had breakfast with a friend this morning, someone who I’ve been getting to gradually know over the past couple of years. Like yesterday, when my mom stopped by, there were certain points in the conversation where I was awash in emotion. I have to ask, what am I protecting myself from? I’m engaged in a series of deflecting behaviors, all of which seem to involve some kind of insulating. I’ve been at this place emotionally before. Somehow these conversations have helped me to see that I’ve come there again.

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Are often difficult to manage.

Recently I’ve been writing down some thoughts on organizations. After a little more work I think I’ll be posting them here.

It’s been interesting to see the ways that my current job has become institutionalized, and how we’ve had to learn how to deal with that perception in the minds of our students and peers.

In part of my attempts to take a longer view of my current situation I’m a little hungry for a bigger art project.

And just after I finished typing that, my Mom dropped by my office. Boy was I happy to see her! I think it marks how disconnected and isolated I’ve been in the past few weeks that I had a deep rush of emotion at just sitting down with her.

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I curse you for locking me out of my house tonight.

But I love you, iPhone: thanks to your Google talk app I was able to get a local locksmith out to the house. Unfortunately, I got charged a hundred bucks for him to do basically what I told him to do in with a screwdriver for three seconds.

The lesson? Carry a fucking screwdriver with me at all times!

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Steps had to be taken to protect the art in Union Square from the rain.

Some folks on my frlist have been migrating to dreamscape or dreamworks or whatever it is. Which is all well and good, they seem like a nice company and all, but I’m the owner of a permanent membership here at LJ (silly of me, I know) so it will be a while before I totally jump ship.

As a precaution during the “LJ is dying” scare of the early part of this year, I did start mirroring this blog over on WordPress.com, (of course if you’re reading this on WordPress you already know all this) and in the subsequent months I’ve started to learn more about how to use that site, so much so that I’m using it to resurrect some of the functions of my supposed official site, naylandblake.net. The formatting is boring, but I am happy about getting some more content up there

All of this is to say that I’ve updated a couple of the pages on that site: the upcoming exhibitions page, the upcoming lectures page, and the selected works page. Because I have stuff coming up y’all. In particular, you Seattle folks might want to check out the group show at Lawrimore.

Closer to home, on Monday May 11, I’m one of the honorees at this benefit. Please, if you have the cash to do it, come and dance and bowl!

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Dear folks at the MoMA design store in Soho: my online dictionary has this definition of “curb”: verb:to cause to keep near the curb: Curb your dog.

and this one: noun:a rim, esp. of joined stones or concrete, along a street or roadway, forming an edge for a sidewalk.

So there is no example of the second definition next to your building.

If you want dogs to shit and piss elsewhere, you should just say so. If you want people to follow the first definition, no further embellishment is needed.

Sorry to be pedantic, but you did waste a lot of money getting all those new signs made up special.

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I spied:

The dapper retiree at the Atlantic Avenue bus stop carefully transferring the contents of a pint bottle of vodka into two bottles of blue Gatorade in anticipation of some kind of festive afternoon.

Long lines of Park Slope and Heights yuppies and their spawn at every boutique ice cream parlor I passed.

The lid of your laptop has become the pedestrian bumper, home to every sort of smash-the-state community-action-now sticker. This helps flashing messages of social engagement across the gulf of tables at cafes, even though the users of said laptops are only digitally engaged at the moment of use.

A guy with the logo to the Vin Diesel/Ice Cube “XXX” films tattooed across the back of his neck right below his shaved head. That will wear well.

After deciding to sit in back of the tumbledown yard of the cafe, my book reading was interrupted by rustling in the leaves next to me. I looked over and saw a grey, furred back churning beneath the foliage. It was definitely a rodent, but I decided that I didn’t want to stick around long enough to discern whether a rat or a squirrel. I gathered my book, my iced coffee and my groceries and beat a quick retreat.

All in all, about five miles covered.

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If I’m going to have sugar, make it sugar like Air’s Ce Matin-La off of the Moon Safari album. French horn, tremulous strings and a wah-wah pedal late in the game. iTunes has just played it followed by some Yma Sumac.

It’s beautiful outside, but I haven’t been outside in it. After last week’s excursions, I’ve taken the opportunity for anti-sociality. Solitude that is. What do I do with my days?

Through the window I see the leaves coming onto the trees. Just barely in the case of those trees on my block, but through their branches I see one that is fully flowered, and I realize that it’s a tree on the next block over that I pass every day when I walk Lehigh.

New York is responding to the increasing warmth by dumping more people out on to the streets. SO while feel like going for a walk, I feel a little iffy about encountering the crowds. Still it’s important to get out and see some things. And Lehigh could probably do with some more outdoor time.

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More puttering around the office. Just a few weeks left to the school year, and there’s a lot to get done.

Efforts at drawing last night yielded little in the way of results. Let’s hope that tonight is better.

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Spent the afternoon in a chatty bit of roof deck socializing with Thor, Ernie and Greg at the home of recent transplant Kaz. There were cigars, and burgers, and wine, and fresh fruit salad. The talk swirled around various ideas in aesthetics, why people liked the types of kinks they did, and worst scenes ever. The highpoint for me came when Kaz spoke about his decision to transition from Microsoft project manager to photography student: his reasons gave me a real insight into my own problems and shortcomings as a manager.

The weather was clear, but chillier than we all expected. Saturday lulled us into a false sense that spring had arrived.