Month: August 2010

I was prepared to do something more drastic, but they gave me a bob. It’s great and it was FREE!! FREE. FREAKING FREE.

I think I will go back in three months though (you can keep going back every three or four months) and go for SHORT. I was ready.

Something like what Ellen Degeneres has.

But I’m not complaining.

Here I am with my happy face, because I was scared and now I’m so relieved.

I couldn’t decide which shot I liked better so I’m posting them both. I’m also in a contest with a friend who got her hair cut today. We’re going to see which haircut was better — the free one or the $$$ one. This is the face of FREE.

The Census is winding down and we’re no longer working on the weekend, which means the days off I thought I had today and tomorrow have been changed and I have to go back in tomorrow (if I want to get paid for a full week that is). And, next week is probably my last week.

So today is going to be a seriously packed day. I’m a little freaked out. BUT!! I’m going to get a free haircut in a couple of hours!! I’m so excited and scared. I’m going to let them do something drastic. My hair will be cut by students learning how to cut hair for Bumble and Bumble. Sounds scary, but I’ve heard nothing but great things about this program. The teachers hover over the students making sure they don’t screw up your hair and if necessary they step in and save the day. And, you get a haircut that would normally cost $150.

They asked me if I was willing to lose a lot of length and I said yes. So we shall see! I’m either going to be back here in a little while in tears, or showing off pictures of my new do.

It was raining yesterday morning, and here are the pigeons all lined up and waiting for me to feed them.

Their rally wasn’t held on the block of the proposed community center, it was a block away, and closer to the WTC site. I went with someone from the Census. When she asked attendants where the mosque should be they were silent.

Said by one of the speakers at the rally: The sections of the Constitution about religion refer to Judeo-Christion religions only.

For the record, from George Washington, “The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.” (I know the first argument would be that what happened on 9/11 was hardly decent, but we don’t persecute an entire religion based on the acts of an insane few.)

From Benjamin Franklin, “Even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service.” Thomas Jefferson owned and studied the Koran. I could go on.

Heard at the rally: “They have a secret agenda.”

They chanted, “liberty!” without a hint of irony.

To the man below, what if people said, “Everything we need to know about Christianity we learned from the KKK, Oklahoma City, the Crusades, our history with American Indians …” (I could go on. For a long time.)

A moslem man who lost someone on 9/11 asked: Why can’t I visit the site, like you, and then walk a few blocks away and pray?

These are our neighbors people!!

– Go through science articles. Organize which scientists to contact.

– Find out: Do most people like to sing?

– Go to New York Historical Society for choral society archives.

– Make a list of questions for fellow choir members.

– Research musical hallucinations. Are they scary?

– Was there are thing in the 60’s about reviving early music? Find out.

– Find best articles/papers about conducting.

– Organize questions for John (the choir director). Did I get the Bernstein connection from John?

– Email Michael Jawer about hearing and feeling music in a distributed way throughout the body.

You get the idea. I found this picture in the New York Public Library’s image database. Thank you NYPL!

I took this just a few minutes ago, walking by in front of the Magnolia Bakery, the bakery made famous by Sex and the City. I usually work it so that I’m not on this side on the street, but sometimes the universe isn’t in my side. I have to squeeze through crowds like this to get home.

It kills me when I want to mail letters. People like that guy on the phone are usually on the other side, and I’ll walk up, letters in hand, and say “excuse me!” It always takes them a minute. Then you see the dawn of understanding. “Oh! This is a mailbox! You want to mail something! People still do that!”

It’s funny when that happens, actually.

There’s a big demonstration at the proposed Islamic community center tomorrow. I feel ill at the thought of it, but I don’t think I’ll be able to resist stopping by and taking pictures. I work just a couple of blocks away.