Saturday, October 10, 2009

For Spacious Skies

So I didn't plan for my return after my unannounced, but very forewarned, hiatus (it seems like it's been way longer than a month and 10 days... a lot can happen in that amount of time I suppose) to happen when I was in such an odd and deep mood... but I did plan for the return to be today, so blame it on the man on the subway. Or just the shock my return to the New York City atmosphere has provided in general.

There was just something just so profoundly beautiful and sad about the little Asian man playing America the Beautiful on his Casio electric saxophone on the train, while a mother tried to control her five small, rowdy children and a bunch of teenagers yapped and fought. And then when the man ended, he stood there for a moment, eyes closed, as if deeply moved by his final high note (or maybe just out of breath). And all that was going on around him with people caught up in their own worlds, not paying attention to him. Though to her credit, one girl gave him some change. Not me.

{yes, this is actually him. I googled "man playing electric sax on subway" !}

There's just something different, and sad, about being back in the city. Like it's changed in the past 2 months since I was here. Which is silly... but maybe it's true. Or maybe it's me who's different? I will always love New York, but I just find myself more saddened and disgusted by a lot of what I see than I have ever been before. Maybe I'm finally noticing the recession? Or maybe that's just an excuse.

Sorry, I'm not describing any of this very well... I'm not terribly poetic, I just needed some place to write it down. Perhaps that's one of the reasons I'm finding my playwriting class this semester so terribly challenging? The whole, not so poetic thing? hah.

Anyway, I had planned to post again today anyway for a few reasons:

1. I have missed blogging and the blog world so! Though I'm still poking around some foodie blogs now and then, it's not quite the same as when I'm posting and reading my favorite fashion blogs too.

2. Today was the first full day of my self imposed, elongated fall break. We do have this coming Monday and Tuesday off of school and I had been planning to come home, but I also have an audition (for that elusive abroad program... while a lot can happen in a month and 10 days, finding out about this was not one of the things that did) and was going to have to go back to school Tuesday evening, come back to the city Friday evening, and then go back to school again on Sunday o_o The number of hours on a bus (and yes, I get car sick) that would mean = not fun. And so, I have decided to take the whole week off! I firmly believe I have earned it.

{ShortLine buses: a necessary evil}

3. Today my mom and I also went to the Manhattan Vintage Show! It seems to have become a sort of tradition for us. Sadly, they don't allow pictures in the show, but I will have pictures of the bag and dress I bought sometime soon :) We did our best to be conservative with our spending but I'm really happy with my two pieces. You can also see pictures from some past shows here (if you look at the 8th picture in the April 2007 show -- I am the owner of that dress. I wore it to my high school graduation and that was not an example of conservative spending ;) haha) I think this is my third time attending the show, or fourth if you count the time my mom went and sent me picture messages of things.

{Inside the Metropolitan Pavilion during the Manhattan Vintage Show}

4. Somehow, according to sitemeter, my little corner of the virtual world had 472 visits last week! What? I haven't updated in more than a month... and even when I was updating, I never had more than 100 visitors in a week... often more like 40. Looks like a lot of people have been searching for pictures of sunflowers on google images lately. hahaha. Statistics are so very interesting and amusing.


Anyway, I keep saying that so much has happened in the past month... so, what exactly has happened?

1. My show opened, played 7 performances, and closed.


2. I auditioned for this show and didn't get in (don't worry, I made a fairly quick recovery)


3. I dropped a class (New York Women) and added another one (Costume History)

4. I took some tests, presented some scenes, wrote some papers, did a lot of reading, wrote part of a play, scrapped part of a play, went out a lot, stayed in a lot, pulled two almost all-nighters, made some new friends, saw a dance concert, a show (Love Song), and an improv show, signed my lease for a beautiful apartment to live in next year, finished my abroad application... and well, a whole lot more. This was really not as interesting as I intended it to be, but point being: I've been a busy bee. Also in just over a month: the weather can go from appropriate for sundresses/shorts/t-shirts to requiring tights/pants/jackets... we've had a frost advisory in Ithaca already folks, how insane is that?

{ok, so it doesn't exactly look like this yet, but you know}

5. A lot happened in the world too of course (Obama's peace prize anyone?). But we don't need to get into all that.

OK THAT WAS A LOT OF WORDS. Should I stop now and wait until I have interesting fashion-y content to share? I think so. Also, my apologies for all the random, uncredited pictures- I saw how many words I had written up there and knew I needed to break it all up a bit. haha.

I hope to catch up on some of your blogs this week too.

Kudos if you made it through any of this.

Regards,
Freddie

4 comments:

  1. I used to love NYC or the idea of it. even planned on moving there after college, but now living with my 24/7 NY roommate I'm definitely seeing the uglier side of things

    glad to have you back!

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  2. Hey Freddie! Thanks for the comment! Your classes sound so cool...so jealous!

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  3. i miss subway entertainment. you don't get random beauty like that in los angeles.

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  4. I'm glad your back to blogging! I like this post a lot. Costume history sounds like the best class ever.

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