Baryshnikov

  • Picked up sign at 1211 Ave of Americas. Kinkos appears to be a front — workers in purple shirts asking customers if they need any help, but when customers say yes, the worker walks away to do something else entirely unrelated and to ask another customer if they’ve been helped yet. Sign is in good shape, but takes 15 minutes to get for no apparent reason.
  • Stopped to get OJ and pastry, spilled OJ all over myself in a fit of “I’m not cool enough to not live in NYC.” Point proven.
  • Dropped everything off & changed. Went to pick up shirt at dry cleaners and snacks for hotel room. Love the Amish Market down the street though it’s not exactly ordnung. Bought apples, granola, chocolate, and my favorite tea, which isn’t being sold in Austin any more.
  • Met C. for lunch at a place called The Crooked Knife, which pretended to be an English pub, only it served salad. I’ve never been to an English pub that had an unfried vegetable.
  • Met K. at 401 Projects to see Baryshnikov dance photos/coffee afterwards. Photos were excellent except for the 2 “recapturing the heyday of 70s video art” red pieces. Love the piece above and this, which I’d pair with a photo I have of jellyfish at Monterey Bay Aquarium like this. Not as connected to the people I knew in my 20s as K. is to them now–interesting to see them through her eyes, which didn’t experience them in the “young & stupid” years. Keep forgetting that people are still going to Burning Man en masse.
  • Raced to get ready for the cocktail party. I’m always so nervous before these events–what if no one comes to the party? After enough parties, I should be over that by now, but no.
  • Dinner with the entire team after with a sweet goodbye toast from my boss and her boss and tasty blood orange fizzy drink. I hope we’re done with the goodbye dinners, because I don’t think I can take another one without getting publicly sentimental/sad. Return to the hotel to find it infested with 14 year old Canadian kids on a school trip. I took that trip when I was 14. I am sentimental, while also knowing I better get some sleep tonight. Tomorrow comes earlier and earlier.