A few more pics of day out with 2 work chums

http://www.flickr.com/photos/debrooze/sets/72157632609287775/

Just posted some pics on flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/debrooze/sets/72157632476935168/

Bits and bobs

Americans don't say "bits and bobs".

More unusual names of people I have met (of white folks)
Gidgeon, Jarrad, Bradford, Yaselle, Denise (not exotic but I never met a Denise in UK).

"New York - tolerant of your beliefs, judgmental of your shoes" storage advertising campaign.

A saying: "got your back". Very sweet this one. Just before my gradshow for musical improv level 1, the cast of improvisers, 12 of us, are waiting in the wings to go on stage and make up a show. And so people typically give each other meaningful touch, thumbs up, break-a-leg type blessings. This time a number of people came by me, gave a quick hug and said "got your back bruce....got your back matthew....got your back kathleen....". "Yeah and I've got yours heather". Which I guess means I am looking out for you, I'm sailing right behind kind of thing. I liked it.

Had our annual reviews today at work and I did ok! I always expect the worst but we got a pay-rise and I got a thumbs up. My boss' boss during the 'meeting' said "understand that with the rise comes greater expectation of you..." My boss (who I knew in UK too) said "welcome to America" with a grin. Nobody ever put that sting in the tail in UK.

Met a guy called Ed at at party who puts his arm vertically in the air when cycling in the city here. He said he assessed that many of the high up trucks can't see a cyclist in front of them hence he puts his arm up. As we made are way through the traffics to share Indian lunch - he's a colleague from networks - he did a little 'traffic calming' indicating to drivers that they need to wait their turn as we crossed.

I've been trying to work out what makes some women look quite so New Yorkish. Is it the way the outfits are complete? The shoes? The air of independence? The impeccableness? Something impossible to determine imbibed by the lifestyle I ask as I stop to watch a very white and silver salon on 60th street. It is full of women being groomed - in particular a spotless woman pleasuring her ipad distractedly as the stylist ties her hair into twists with foil or something.
So yes I think I worked out the key thing and I have now been on a dinner date with one of these New York types - having been on quite a many dates. It is indeed the hair. Always long, often like a thick shimmery curtain, voluminous, shiny, of the furcoat ilk, or some biblical middle eastern rare gifted commodity like frankincense - natural looking but at the same time very "done". A weapon! No doubt generated by costly green-goddess juices and smoothies and raw food sugar-free versions of cheesecake made with flax, cashew and raw cacao at $12 a slice.
So my date Audrey had straight red hair, meticulously parted, just above the shoulder length and it swung perfectly around her head with a slight curve at the ends as she ate her medjool dates wrapped in bacon and then excellent almond-crusted chicken....Her dress was body hugging black with dramatic white amoeba shapes all over it (but didn't look like a cow or a camouflage), tights and black knee boots, long chainlink silver dangly earrings. All very accomplished and glamorous but it's the hair that brings the formidability for better or worse.
She was ridiculously able. We sang songs on her 'stoop' with her guitar later on as the evening weather was so mild, and has continued to be. Stoop is the railed staircase area leading up to a brownstone front door. We certainly did hit it off and yes still, no.

Oh Lordy! It's MACY'S PARADE!

I'm kind of quite settled now here in the city - in a way as restlessly content as I was in London, only with added curiosity to explore where I live. It's a curious thing: I can see myself belonging here, I have   a lot of zeal to go and explore the rest of the states, slowly, but ultimately still see myself returning to UK - but to do what? Very strange. Love seems the only thing that could occupy that hole. And that leaves me now, feeling like I'm just having fun until I leave - that is not a nice feeling. But in way that is life no? Ha.

In any case I am certainly ticking the boxes. I ticked a box this last week which I didn't no existed: Macy's amazing Thanksgiving Parade.

Mona suggested we go and watch the parade's balloons be blown up on wednesday night, a classic romantic thing to do apparently, and on the upper west side, which is an area I don't get to that often though I do like it for it's classy avenues and blocks, the ayurveda centre, cosmopolitan-ness and Cleopatra's needle for free jazz. And I thought "hmm I don't think I need to watch balloons being blown up" and I opted for the early night.

Thursday was thanksgiving day itself and so a welcome day off work. And happily I could answer the frequent question "what are you doing for thanksgiving?" with "having dinner with a friend's family downtown". And this was to be in the early evening. Joanne's e-vite "Dinner with the Millers" had said "we will serve dinner at 6.30". I took this to be a note on promptness rather than formality (although the two are related I guess). So I wasn't late, but, what to do in the morning? Well it was a gorgeous sunny blue-skied cooold morning and what with things being closed and the city feeling a bit quiet, I took out on my bike at 8am thinking I might check the parade, which begun at 9am. And I must admit I wasn't really sure what to expect though I know I do like a marching band and I do like cheer-leaders and tight tight marching choreography very much. So after queuing for my splendid coffee beforehand I made my way to 772nd street, upper west to see...

Lots of fathers around with toddlers on their shoulders, one of whom I heard asking a street-bum how he liked his eggs. A fine kicking piles of fall leaves feeling around. Then I heard the voice on loudspeaker of a commentator which usually makes me shudder - oppressive, conformist and too loud and electric. This lead me around the corner to...a giant Sonic the hedgehog balloon bobbing facedown in the street with about 60 blue-suited humans beneath and around him pulling on strings which attached to him like in Gulliver's travels when he wakes up on the beach. BIG balloon - the size of a juggernaut (see pics below of course). What a thing! And funny to watch all the whistles being blown and co-ordination below to get the bobbing mono-expressioned game character edging towards Central Park West Avenue where the parade was processing.

Then I started to see the magnitude of the parade, which is in its 82nd year apparently and sponsored all this time by the family department store Macy's. So there are dozens and dozens of such huge balloons in gradual convoy bobbing above Central Park's trees, and the crowds (who assemble from 6am to get good spots), dancers, other floats and yes, majorettes trotting along like horses lifting those feet up waving first left then right in unison. Works for me!

Then the commentator, pointing out celebs like Woopie Goldberg on a pirate ship float and balloon characters just joining the parade from a tributary street like Sponge Bob Square-pants. Here is some commentary which I mind-snapped:

"and what's this! It's Sid the Centipede - the wildest insect in town! Over 70 feet in length and with no less than 30 controllers. He's capable of making some fun manouvres as he makes his way down the parade."

Once I remembered that I didn't like huge static crowds and that my bike was a major hindrance, I elected to try to race the parade on my bike down a parallel quiet avenue. This was actually more surreal. I would stop in the cool air and watch the space between 2 scrapers in the distance.

And lo! A giant crawling Spiderman would start to emerge between the buildings at about 6th story, above the park trees in the background. Very funny sight. And so it went on as I cycled and watched all the shapes, going in close towards the end so that I could see more bands and drummers.

And I made it back for 11pm for a parental skype. Somehow crazy, very American and traditional, not my thing at all in a way but definitely magical.

I wondered how far into a depression the US would need to be before a parade like that was considered an extravagance. Maybe they would do it anyway - who knows. Just such a strange juxtaposition when there are still 1000s of unliveable homes by the ocean after the hurricane. I'm not moralizing at all - just reflecting on the colo(u)rs life has.
I also now get how watching the balloons being inflated with good company, a slice of pumpkin pie and a flask of chai might make a fantastic evening.

In which I qualify as a New Yorker in one more respect

There has been a mouse in my house for about 6 weeks. After dark and I'm in bed, I hear her scuttling and gnawing behind the fridge area. I don't know what she does but I've gotten used to it. Sometimes I put in earplugs. We tolerate each other. But then! One day I came home to find...droppings under the grater on the counter! Now it's got serious. How does she get up there? And suddenly I can't eat at home until I've solved this one. And I'm biggest and I pay rent and I have artistic projects, so she has to move out. Now the hardware store offers the following methodologies: poisoned, twatted hard with iron bar on spring ("blood everywhere!" the Hispanic owner says triumphantly), or get stuck to gluey surface and rip off your fur/tail as you die of thirst or of squeaking. The internet has traps where they walk in to a plastic room and can't get out - sounded good but it got me thinking: can't I make one of those? Hmm maybe not. But surely I can trap a mouse....I use more internet and...

I get into bed at 10.30pm and start appreciating my memory foam once again and the newly applied duvet now that it is cold here. My mouse trap is set and I start to get out earplugs ready to cocoon off into slumber. Bang! My kitchen trash can receives a visitor landing from on high! "Dang!" I think, having only set it 4 minutes before. "I guess I set it much too teetering and its gone off on its own". But no! I hear intermittent scampering sliding little body sounds. My trashcan contains mouse! I get up, light on, absurdly slightly nervous checking out the can for my roomie. She's not there! Ah! But she is...and no bigger than my thumb and doing the stealth thing in the shadow of the corner keeping everso still. I give the can a shake. She squeaks and does several jumps up the can's plastic walls. I am glad I used the can and not my slow cooker now as vessel now that I see that a mouse really can jump 18" like the internet said.

Here is the trap:

1. Make a long cardboard tube.

2. Wipe blob of peanut butter on inner lip of end of tube.

3. Teeter tube over edge of kitchen counter.

4. Place trashcan beneath counter and tube.

5. Go quiet and wait.

Mice love a) peanut butter - oh yes they do! 4 minutes!  b) tubes - they just gotta do a nice tube if they see it!

So I put a tablespoon of water in the can and a little more peanut butter (pilfered from dandy 'olde' style peanut butter machine at work) to see her through the night. She jumps all night on and off - I shout "you're not going to die! Get some sleep..." She jumps and slides more.

In the morning smell of piss. I try to coax her into empty olive-pot for transportation but she is extremely skilled at fast slither manouvres though squeaks a few times at possibility of failure. So...she comes on my trip to work with me in the open-top trashcan. I resist introducing her to fellow pedestrians at numerous traffic lights. I walk 6 whole avenues to reach Central Park where she now resides. I place the can horizontally angled down a bit on the wall. She comes sliding off like a bmx rider and plops on the leaves a few feet below. She scuttles and sniffs. I take in her teeniness compared with the big bad city and of course...she finds a little pipe, a little hole, and I get why mouses love tubes. Safety! They can't be got.

The night is very quiet without her. I fantasize about her finding her way back from Central Park to her gnawed kitchen home. But so far the counter top is disinfected and sporting guacamole, sourdough, pickles and salads again....all for me.

Public chats of no small amusement

3 older women.

There was Carlotta who sat next to me on the bench outside nearby coffee shop of a sunday afternoon. She wore copper chords and tall boots, a long tawny merino cardi to her knees, Raybans, a little purse-bag - subtle green old suede with a big solid silver fastener, lots of blond hair, immaculate. Must have been nearly 60 and looking well. She used dowsing to sell paintings, was a health consultant (private) and was currently dowsing for gold in Colorado as a project. Her mother told her on her deathbed never to give up the pendulum. She came across sane but certainly eccentric. She said there were 6 rodents for every human in the city when I told her about mine. She believed life was too short to buy 'nack-offs' or copies of designer items. We celebrated Wholefoods.

Patricia, over 60, sat opposite me in the big well-lit cafe upstairs of Wholefoods near where I live with a big smorgasbord help-yerself cardbox box of raw stuff. A cold day, I was glad of choosing hot macaroni cheese and hot provencal white beans with some roasted tomatoes. In her brown broad shouldered suit and stretched tight facial skin and small eyes, she owned a Broadway theater and nonchalantly said she'd just bought Charing Cross theater in London with joined pub and was offering membership deals to the PriceWaterhouse-Coopers employees who worked in the stories above it. She didn't smile once but seemed to be enjoying things. She told me that Romney promised to make women   into prisoners if they had abortions. Why are women voting for him she exclaimed - I dont understand! Crazy times.

Adele I met on a bench outside the library. A character full of humour with a worn serious face. We enjoyed bitching about the miserable library staff, one of whom had told her off for being loud when she had a stern word with a child who was being loud. They are a funny staff. Adele must have been 70 - loads of rouge and black eye-liner and copper died hair. Black velvety outfit on her teeny frame sitting there with crossed arms and legs unamused by it all. She had worked in PR all her life and said they were all sleaze-bags. They had tricked her out of an artistic career. I described Madmen to her and she nodded. She added that PR were way ahead of advertising. I described Downton Abbey to her and we seemed to agree, based on my descriptions only, on its superiority owing to the couple of redemptive characters in it - who were kind and noble and interested in justice. I mentioned the wife in Madmen as a victim. Fascinatingly she took real objection. She closed her eyes and shook her head and said 'dont call her a victim - it's far more complicated than that.' I laughed and we chatted on. When I handed her my book 'The joy of living dangerously' (which I'm not yet but have made in-roads there) she held it one INCH from her good eye and scanned the title letter by letter. Her advice on buying a card for a pretty woman at work who only wears black ever and who I don't know, was not to risk a colourful card. She said she might freak out. I agreed.

John, my musical partner pointed out that the closeness of everything in Manhattan/Brookyln meant that you can get a lot done in a day in the way of meeing people, short trips etc. Made me think how that coupled with the ease of public chats must do a lot for business and development.
Carlotta claimed that staff in stores are expected to bring in clientele - a bit like having your own business but she dowses for Gold in Colorado.

Photos just uploaded!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/debrooze/
I just began using my flickr account. Now it has pictures from trip to Portland, Oregon and Cold Spring, New York.
Will post some writing soon.