Speaking for Sarah

I thought about going out tonight, but when I stepped out in front of my building at seven o'clock, the heat drove me back inside. It was well into the 90s, still, and the air was heavy and humid. The air-conditioned surroundings in my apartment seemed much more appealing.

Being forced to stay inside, I have done a few useful things around the apartment, like making dinner and washing the dishes. But it also seems like a good time to catch up with the blogging a bit.

This has been an interesting summer so far. I am still in that strange, uncertain place of not having full-time employment. And in the summer, I don't have my part-time teaching gig either. Despite the constant, internal hum of anxiety about how I am going to earn a livelihood (and of course I have been pursuing various leads, talking to people, scaring up free-lance work, networking like crazy--more on that later), I have been actually enjoying having the time off, the length of the days, the freedom to do what I want. It feels like some foray back into childhood, when one did have summers off.

One thing I have been doing is having lots of visitors. In May, my cousin N., who is my lifelong pal, confidante, and partner in crime, came for a quick visit. She was with two friends of hers, a couple. They all live in a small city to the north about three hours away. They arrived in Manhattan in the afternoon, at the hotel where the couple was planning to stay. N. was going to come home to Brooklyn with me after we went out to a jazz club and also--possibly--out dancing. When they got to the city, N. texted me, "Do you want to meet us at the hotel and get dressed here?" She added, "We're getting decked out."

When N. says we're getting decked out, I take her seriously. I brought two complete outfits with me in a shopping bag that I carried on the subway. I tried on both, she advised, I got dressed. We took lots of cute pictures of us. It was a glorious, late spring New York evening and it was Saturday night. Lots of people out. We had Indian food, walked around a bit, then went and got on line at Famous Jazz Club. Inside, we opted for seats scrunched up right against the stage. The group, a Latin jazz band, was fantastic. The main guy played both saxophone and percussion. Once in awhile he would pull out a wrench and little sheet of metal and tap out some beats on that. We all thought that was pretty funny.

When we left we were exhilarated in that way you are after hearing really great music. We had this plan to go out to a club that usually has Brazilian or Latin music and we stopped in there but then decided we did not really like the band. By that time, we were all pretty tired--especially the three women, since we were wearing heels--so we made our way back to the hotel. N. and I changed out of our finery, and, Cinderella-like, took a taxi back to Brooklyn. We stayed up talking as long as we could and then crashed. In the morning, N. had to go back to the hotel pretty early and meet up with the others to drive back to where they lived. So, yes, a quick visit but a really fun one.

Maybe a week or so later I had another visitor, West Coast Musician, a blogging friend. I had fun showing him around the city a bit--and hearing him play. We had a nice, dramatic-sky day in Coney Island, one of those days where it kept looking like it was going to rain but held off. Here are a couple of pictures:







My latest visitor, Upstate Friend, left only a couple of days ago.

So, probably any of you who know me in the blogosphere know Upstate Friend also, at least virtually, so I don't have to tell you how great she is, but I will say that she is a most tolerant and forgiving and delightful houseguest. She arrived the day after I got back from the Chicago trip I referred to in the previous post. I apologized for the fact that I had only partially unpacked and there were things still strewn about from the packing frenzy that took place before I went away for a week. Not only that, but all of my kitchen things were out of the cabinets and in cartons, because I had taken the opportunity of being away to launch an attack on the cockroach population--which, unfortunately, had returned after the last incidence (which some of you will remember reading about).

Upstate Friend was really interested to hear about my war on the cockroaches. While she was busy sending a text message or something like that, I said that I would take the opportunity to sweep up some of the boric acid and dead cockroaches in the kitchen.

"No, you should let me help," she said. "I want to see the dead cockroaches."

Now, that is a rare friend indeed.

Besides examining dead cockroaches (and, no, I did not let her help), this is what we did:

--walked around in my neighborhood and in Manhattan
--drank tea
--talked
--ordered Thai food, which we ate out on the terrace as the sun went down. Marveled at how we had ordered exactly the same dishes the last time she visited me.
--tried to remember how many times she had visited me in this apartment and in my previous one
--ate huge portions of hugely satisfying food at Touristy Deli near Famous Concert Hall
--read a 10,000-word e-mail from her 21-year-old son describing in detail the events of their visit to me (and New York) in January. This was the trigger for more reminiscing.
--sat in the backyard of the neighborhood bar for another sunset

Upstate Friend took lots of pictures. I took this one, which is the view from some rocks we were perched on in Central Park:



So that's it for now, my summer recap. I am happy that is not quite July yet--lots of summer left. Will keep you posted.

So here I am in Chicago, a city that I always enjoy, even when the temperature goes up into the 90s, which is where it has been the last few days. I came here to go to a publishers' conference and also to visit a dear friend and her husband who are celebrating their birthdays and their anniversary this weekend. It's been a bit of a whirlwind, staying in a few different places and feeling generally emotional about things. The conference I went to was one I used to go to regularly before my job situation changed. I went there to resume some professional ties and try to make new ones. I think I had some success in both ventures, and overall I had a great time, but it was also a somewhat bittersweet experience, because so much has changed.

Now I have moved on to the part of the week that is about visiting my friend and looking forward to the party she and her husband are throwing over the weekend. They have a lot of people coming from out of town, so tonight I am staying not with them but with a nearby friend of theirs. Today my friend and I and one of the other out-of-town guests, a college roommate of my friend, went to the salon to get manicures and pedicures in preparation for the festivities. That was fun and relaxing. More momentously, we later went shopping and I bought a new computer to replace the little netbook that had shockingly expired a few days before I left, taking with it a lot of data that I really would have preferred not to lose. Egged on by my friends, inveterate Mac users, I finally took the plunge and am now the proud owner of a petite MacBook. I am figuring out how to use it as we speak. There are things happening that I do not understand. Like once in a while as I am typing, this big white arrow appears on the screen, along with a funny noise. It seems to have something to do with the shift key.

If you have any pointers, do let me know. I'm headed for sleep.

More when I can.