Month: July 2013

I am so stressed out! But happy. A piece I wrote about singing for Slate came out today. I worked very hard on this essay and I’m happy with how it came out. So YAY!

Still, I’m stressed. My friend sent me this very soothing photograph of fawns in her backyard. Can you imagine living in a place where sometimes little guys like these show up? To me this is a picture of Heaven. I want to romp with them. We need kittens though. And some pumpkin pie, and: daisies, Love’s lemon scent perfume, puppies, what the hell, any baby animal pretty much, a hammock, a nice escapist beach-type read, maybe a light rain as long as we’re all under some trees where we won’t get wet, oh and I don’t know, a million dollars. Yeah, that just might do. Oh god, I seriously need to calm down.

I’m swimming later. In the rain it looks like. But that should calm me down.

Once again I’ve hit a wall and must rest. My pressing decision right now is: swim? Or watch tv? I’m up to 8 miles (and 10 laps) out of the 25 I must swim to get that free tshirt. Why oh why was I born with a competitive streak? And for what? A tshirt. I wonder what it even looks like. I just googled it and couldn’t find a picture of one. Please be awesome.

Oh for the love of god. I just read that the man and the woman who swim the most laps at their pool will also get prizes. Now I have to shoot for that. And I started late!

You know who can guiltlessly rest for entire days at a time? Cats, that’s who.

I don’t think I’ve missed two days of blogging ever. My every waking moment has been consumed with: sell books. It’s exhausting. But wonderful that I get a chance to step up to the plate and take a swing. Thank you universe, thank you Algonquin Books, thank you Choral Society of Grace Church. All the rest of you: please buy my book. Thank you.

People who know more about tv: is there any chance that Bunheads could be picked up by another network? What can we do to make this happen?

I forget where I found this photograph. The caption says it was taken in 1910, and it’s South Ridgewood Avenue in Daytona Beach, Florida. I want to go back in time and live there. This is my Willoughby. I’ll bet there are still places down south that look like this, no?

On July 23rd, aka next Tuesday, at 8pm, I’m going to be giving a presentation about the History and Science of Group Singing at the Observatory in Brooklyn ($5 admission). I’ve got all the photographs I need, I think, and today I’ll be making notes and practicing my talk. I’ll try it out first on these guys.

I took that picture when it reached 1,000 degrees in New York City. I’ll never understand cats. They don’t necessarily seek out the warms spots when it’s cold and they don’t sit in the path of the air conditioner when it’s 1,000 degrees out.

Anyway, come to my talk. The truth is, public speaking scares me a little so part of me is thinking, “No that’s alright, you don’t have to come to my talk.” But the people hosting my presentation would not be thrilled to read that. So come to my talk and I will explain, convincingly, why you should sing even if you don’t think you’re particularly great at it.

Note to Stephen and Michelle: Thank you for the cab ride home and the delicious dinner at Elephant & Castle!

I called the Swim Program of the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation to tell them they got the number of laps wrong for the pool at Tony Dapolito. The conversation went like this.

Them: We’ve been doing this for 12 years and 112 laps = 1 mile is what we’ve always used.
Me: But a lap at the Tony Dapolito pool is 50 feet (according to their own website!). If you do the math, that comes to 105.6 laps = 1 mile.
Them: We’ve used 112 for 12 years.
Me: But it’s wrong.
Them: It’s what we’ve always used.
Me: [Speechless.]
Them: Well, we’ll look into it.
Me: [Thinking in my head: no you won’t.]
Them: [Thinking in their head: Hahaha. Yeah. We’ll look into it.]

I also sent email, so we shall see. I’m going to try to swim a mile and a quarter each night, because I can’t always get there at the times where they keep track.

I saw this old prison window when I was downtown looking for the Chatham Street Chapel plaque. This is one of the places where prisoners were kept and where they died during the British occupation.