Miserable on 34th Street

Last year, when I went downtown to see the Christmas decorations, I was seized with a bout of Scrooginess and jumped ship after taking a picture in front of the tree at Rockefeller Center. It was too cold and there were too many tourists. This year, however, things were different. Maybe I've gotten used to the icy winds and the crush of people that typify the holidays in New York. Maybe I'd been charmed by the garlands, trees, and other decorations around the city.

Bryant Park, where there is now an ice rink, a series of stalls selling handicrafts, and a temporary winter restaurant (really).

Plus, I'd already seen the Rockefeller tree with Shannon a week before, and, while it had been a crowded nightmare, it was over. My friend Chrysta was taking the train in to hang out for the afternoon, and so while waiting for her I decided to go to Macy's to see the windows and whatnot. (Plus I had to exchange something.)

The tree.

The crowd that arrived to gawk at the tree.

My Scrooginess didn't take long to return. The windows, done in a yes-Virginia-there-is-a-Santa-Claus theme, were nice and all, but I couldn’t get a very good picture of them because of the glare, and people kept bumping into me. One woman actually hit me with her stroller in her enthusiasm to get her one-year-old closer to the displays. I'm pretty sure the one-year-old did not know the back story about the letter to the editor and was not interested in the explanation either.

Yes, Virginia, there is a reason people avoid department stores the week before Christmas.

Inside Macy's, I was dismayed to find that there was a one-day sale occurring, and what was usually a busy crowd of holiday shoppers had been whipped into a frenzy. The decorations were indeed spectacular, but navigating the crush of people occupied so much of my focus that I hardly noticed them. There was, I learned, no section dedicated to returns, and I was told by an unsympathetic security guard that I would have to take both items back to where I found them. "But they were gifts," I protested. "I didn't find them anywhere." He pointed me in the vague direction of the Monet counter in the jewelry section. It took me over 15 minutes to find it, even though I wasn't far off, because the crowds made it difficult to move or even see very far in any one direction. The employees I asked didn't seem to know what I was talking about. There was a long line when I finally got there, and I kept getting pushed aside by women who wanted to paw through the boxes of baubles arranged along the counter that were going for 50% of their usual sale price.

Finally at the front, I was told that I could return only one of the two things there because the SKU code had been ripped off the second item and the woman didn't know the original price. She gave me a store credit, then sent me to the "gift" section. I had to go down a set of stairs to get there, which made the impression that I was descending to another circle of Hell even more vivid.

The gift section was a nightmare. It was even more crowded than the jewelry department because the sale prices were even more dramatic. I waited in a line that had no more than 5 people in it but that took 20 minutes to pass through. At one point, a beaming saleswoman approached me. "If you're just buying one item, there's an express lane," she chirped. "I'm returning it," I said. "Oh," she replied, looking tragic, and drifted away.

Finally at the front of the line, I passed over the box and heaved a sigh of relief. Next stop: bathroom. The cashier pointed out the missing SKU sticker and looked accusingly at me. "I didn't take it off. It was a gift," I explained. "And you don't have a receipt?" she asked. "No. That's funny, I could have sworn I just mentioned that it was a gift..." She consulted several other salespeople, but because the ravenous crowd of shoppers had cleared the shelves of all similar items, she didn't know how much it had cost and therefore couldn’t accept it back. "There are no more on this floor," she said. I'd now been waiting over half an hour, and I wanted to tell her to make use of the phone that was sitting inches from her keyboard to talk to someone on another floor and figure it out. Or else to guess. Or do to any number of things that might have persuaded me that, if given the choice between having either me or a rat infestation in their store, they'd pick me.

Instead, I took the wooden escalator down a level to find the bathroom, where the line reminded me of Splash Mountain at Disneyland. And that is when I left.

Deep Thought

Maybe we've got pigeons all wrong. I know they're supposedly rats with wings, but I wouldn't bathe outside when it's 20 degrees. Something to think about.

Just Another Day in the Life

Last night, after my last tutoring appointment, I went out to Brooklyn to hang out with a college friend who recently moved to New York. After spending a few pleasant, uneventful hours there, I was headed home when I got a text message from my friend Jeremy inviting me to come hang out with him. It was 12:30 and I was a long way from home, so I said I was probably going to pass. "Come on," he said. "I'm hanging out with international male supermodels." Right. But then he said he was in Brooklyn, not too far from where I was, so I figured I'd stop by. He gave me the address, and I took the train, then walked a few blocks. I found myself in front of a nice building and called Jeremy to get the buzzer number. "Hit 4," he said. I was buzzed in, and I rode the elevator, somewhat annoyed that he hadn't told me the apartment number. I knew only that it was somewhere on the 4th floor.

I was partly right: He wasn't somewhere on the 4th floor, the apartment where I found him WAS the 4th floor. The whole thing. The doors opened into a huge, airy living room. To the left, was a kitchen with granite countertops. And sitting at the granite countertop was a grinning Jeremy and the two most handsome men I have ever seen in my life.

Danny Schwarz, 9th most highly-paid male model in the world.

Jaime Jewitt, not doing too badly for himself either.

Re-enactment of the dignified way I conducted myself upon entering the apartment.

One of them cheerfully stood up and shook my hand. "I'm __________," he said in a British accent. "I'm __________," said the other in an equally British accent. "Want a beer?"

After about five minutes, I collected myself enough to actually listen to their names. Throughout the night, Jeremy filled me in on their backgrounds. Both have been featured in billboards, magazines, and websites for top designers like Hugo Boss, Calvin Klein, etc. Danny was on a billboard in Times Square and can now be seen on the side of the red double-decker buses that tourists ride around in to see the landmark sights in New York. He was a very well-known DJ in England before Jaime pulled him into modeling. They joined Jeremy's acting class, and he found himself out for drinks with them somewhat unexpectedly and decided to invite me along for the ride, for which I will be grateful to him until my dying day. Ten minutes after I arrived, we were in a cab headed to some swanky club in Manhattan, with both models talking a mile a minute. They're really very nice guys, quite personable and funny. They had to pay me back for the cab ride later in the evening because all they had were piles of $100's - Jeremy says they're both multi-millionaires - which the driver didn't want to take. At the club, we got a prime table immediately and I didn't pay a dime for one of the most fantastic, surreal nights I've ever had. We closed the place down, heading out at 4:00 A.M., and both squeezed my hand, told me how nice it was to meet me, and kissed my cheek as we said our farewells.

Just, y'know, another Thursday night in New York.

Frozen Harlem

When I got out of class on Monday night, I headed to Harlem to visit my friend Ferran before he headed off to Spain for a month for the Christmas holiday. Last year, we were together for the first big snow of the year, and so to honor what has become an unintentional tradition, we went out to take a few pictures.

Believe it or not, this is the least blurry picture of me that Ferran was able to take. It was very windy and absolutely freezing, and I couldn't hold still for even a second.

We were just about the only idiots not huddled up inside.

As you can see, there was no diving into snowbanks for us. Ferran did manage to make a snowball, but it took a while and resulted in a large patch of naked sidewalk. The roads were all salted the next morning, but it hasn't been warm enough for anything else to melt, so it's still on the tops of cars, bushes, and trees.

Crossed Fingers, Lasts, and Firsts

This afternoon, I submitted my application to ISS, the placement company who will help me find an overseas teaching post if they accept me.

Then tonight I attended the last instructional class period I'll have as a student at Teachers College. Near the end of the period, I started to feel sort of fluttery, and looked around to share the sentiment with someone. Every student in the room had at least one semester to go, and they looked detached and distracted.

And later, leaving school to head home, I was sprinkled with the first snowflakes of the year, which settled on my black coat so that I could see them clearly in all their crystal, feathery perfection before they disappeared one by one.

It's easy to fixate on something that is just beginning, something I'm leaving behind, or something I'm hoping might lie ahead. Getting all three within a few hours of each other makes one realize that, actually, they're always happening at the same time; something is always coming to an end just as something else is beginning and something even further down the road might happen. Life is, indeed, good.

Out: Old, In: New

Ch-ch-ch-changes.

Yesterday I finished the last final paper I'll have to write for TC, and after an exam on Tuesday night I'm done with grad school. It feels both like it's been a long time coming and that it crept up on me. When I come back to New York in January, after a two-week trip to enjoy the blissful dullness of Visalia, my day-to-day life will look pretty different.

No school, obviously, so I'm going to be filling my hours in different ways. I wrapped up my practicum work with Miguel (he made great progress with me, but I've come to think that he might have a long term memory deficit and wonder how much he will retain before he begins work with a new TC student in January) and one of the kids I tutor is moving to Seattle.

I've added two new kids to the roster, however, and I'm really excited about both of them. One, Andy (pseudonym) is a darling sixth grader who wants to be an actor when he grows up; he's rehearsing for a production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in which he'll play Puck. Apparently he has problems with reading comprehension. After our initial assessment yesterday, I decided that he's not great a picking out details, but there don't seem to be any glaring problems, so our hours together should be pleasant rather than frustrating. The other, Eddie, in 7th grade, needs pre-algebra work. Luckily, I know just enough math to be very slightly ahead of him. He's a sweetheart, and when I asked him what he thought after our first session he said, "That was fun!" Fun? Algebra? God help us. I'm delighted to spend an hour a week being handsomely paid to work with such fantastic kids and their parents, who are just as lovely. Another perk: both kids live blocks away from me. It's great to leave the house 15 minutes before I'm supposed to be anywhere - a rarity in this city. I'll probably pick up at least one more kid in January, and I'll most likely start seeing one of my current clients twice a week, so that'll keep me at least somewhat occupied. And it's coat check season again, which fills my Friday nights/Saturday mornings with, well, coats.

There's marathon training to fill my hours as well. I'm taking about 10 days off because of a tendonitis flare-up in my left foot. While I miss my daily training, it's 28 degrees out there at the moment. This happened very suddenly, and I think I need a bit of time to adjust. I saw the first snowflakes of the year on Monday afternoon, but they didn't stick. We'll see if we get some of the real stuff in time for Christmas.

Gee, Again

Yesterday I decided to get a bit nostalgic about my time at Vanderbilt and went to a talk by E. Gordon Gee (pronounced with a hard g like "go," not a soft g like "giraffe") at Teachers College. Gee was chancellor at Vandy during my four years there and now he's the president of Ohio State. Turns out Gee is an alum of TC, having earned his Ed.M here many moons ago. I always liked him at Vandy, even though many of my friends wrote him off as a phony. No question, he's got the air of a politician about him. But I've read interviews with him and heard him on the radio and like what he has to say about higher education. And it's hard not to like him the second you see him. He has a high, cheerful voice and a face that can only be described as elfin. He's always cracking jokes, and bow ties are the only kind he will wear. At Vandy, we had an annual bow tie tying competition in his honor, and he used to hand out bow tie-shaped cookies each Valentine's Day to all the students with a heart frosted in the center where the knot should be. Honestly, what's not to like?

The room was packed, although mostly with older audience members. During his 35 minutes, he had a lot to say about what the role of the American university system should be but hasn't been recently. In his opinion, it's broken. He said universities should not be run like businesses, and that they need more partnerships with the community and other institutions within the community. He's in favor of abolishing departments and changing the role of tenure. He said community colleges are the most important educational institutions in the country.

He delivered all of these controversial statements with a lighthearted tone and a steady stream of jokes, but from what I know, Gee's track record is pretty serious. He's not afraid to put his money where his mouth is. He's gotten a lot of heat for this kind of thinking from the press, and cheerfully brought up lots of it during his talk. For example, one of his biggest quests upon arriving at OSU was to take an axe to all the bureaucracy that he felt was unwieldy, inefficient, and expensive, and a lot of people weren't happy about the changes he made within days of beginning his new post. He said that leadership requires three things: a thick skin, a sense of humor, and nerves like sewer pipes.

I learned another reason to be a fan of his: He chaired the committee that decided to add a writing section to the SAT test. This was a sorely needed addition in my opinion, as one can learn a lot more about the way a student thinks from reading something they've written than from looking at patterns of bubbles they fill in. And its addition has ensured that ambitious kids and their often more ambitious parents don't relegate writing to the back burner in favor of vocabulary flashcards.

I had class immediately after the talk, but on my way out I shook his hand and told him I was a Vandy alum. He beamed at me and asked what year I graduated and what I was doing these days, then said it was great to see me again. I'm sure it probably wasn't. But the last time I shook his hand, it was on stage at the Vanderbilt graduation when he handed me my diploma with his signature on it, and it was awfully nice to relive that again.

Knitting in a Winter Wonderland

Baby, it's bloody freezing outside. This time of year, I find I have the urge to buy a bunch of sweaters. (Thanks to H&M, I can do this without plunging into debt.) I do not, however, have the urge to buy scarves and hats. This is because I enjoy knitting my own so much more, and I predict many happy hours curled up knitting this winter after I finish classes. I hardly knitted a stitch from about March until October, but now I'm back in full swing. I've been scouring websites for designs and have come up with a few of my own - still in the abstract realm, I'm afraid, so no pictures - based on what I see in stores and wrapped around people's heads and necks. I've drawn some chilly glances from fellow subway riders when they catch me staring at them, trying to figure out how to replicate that diamond pattern on their scarf or that fetching alternating stripe that zig zags down the side of a hat. I wonder if my health insurance covers subterranean fist fights...

So far, I've got just two completed projects to show off. First, in need of a simple scarf that I could wear with anything, I did this one in a seed stitch, which is one I've been wanting to try for a while. It was very simple to do, obviously, and required very little concentration on my part. No pattern necessary here, I just dove into it.

Detail of the seed stitch, and my super-cool tassels

I'm rather proud of this next one, which I finished just tonight. It was my first attempt at lace. I made tons of mistakes - one has to be very attentive when knitting a lace pattern and I mostly wasn't - but by a happy accident I bought yarn that was slightly too thick for the needles I used, which yielded tighter stitches which are harder to see clearly. In other words, even I can't tell where I messed up, but I assure you, there are many, many places. I love the way it turned out, but doing it was a bit of a pain because I had to refer to the pattern, which I found online, constantly the entire time I was working on it. I never managed to memorize it, even after repeating it 20-something times. So I couldn't do it while watching a movie or even talking on the phone because I needed to keep track of where I was. Still, I think the result is well worth it. I'm working on a matching hat now.

Detail of the lace scarf

Let it snow!

Marathon Training - Day One

I've found a marathon training plan I like the looks of - see it here - and today was my first "official" day of training! The National Marathon is on March 26th, giving me plenty of time to get through all of the training the plan dictates.

I like the fact that this plan allows me to do both speed work and distance work but that there won't be a heavy emphasis on the distance. I don't want to put too much strain on my joints, and so doing only one really long day a week is appealing. Also, I like the variety; day after day of the same long runs would probably cause me to lose motivation pretty quickly. I also like that the plan is free.

Today's run was a 6-miler. I did two miles at my goal pace, two at "tempo" (which for me is 8:34 minutes per mile according to the plan) and two more at my goal pace to finish off. In less than an hour, I was done! I found it really difficult to stick to my pace. I kept looking at my watch and realizing that I was 10-30 seconds per mile faster than I should have been - sometimes more! This is not good; I need to get used to the way my goal pace feels so I can relax into it on race day and not have to keep checking my watch every minute to make sure I'm on schedule. Today's run felt really easy at what seemed to be a relatively slow pace, but since I'll have to hold it for 26.2 miles, not just 6, that's a good thing at this point.

These are my sweet new running shoes! The Saucony pair I swore by has been changed slightly, and the new model doesn't fit quite right. While I was sad to move on - I was ready to buy pair #3! - these are working out really well so far. They're unbelievably light and I have yet to get even a threat of a blister, even after several long-ish runs with no duct tape on my feet. They're a bit less padded than the Saucony's, which is taking some getting used to, but all in all I'm happy with my choice.

As far as my pace goes, I'm really guessing here. I have no idea what to expect from the marathon. One thing I do know is that I can't simply double my half-marathon times to get my target full marathon time. There's the fatigue factor to consider, which will slow me down a lot. So I'm going into it with the goal of finishing in under 4 hours. 3:59:59 will make me very happy. As I get farther into my training, I'll be able to determine whether that's way too slow, way too fast, or just about right.

Although following the schedule is going to require that I use a bit more discipline than I'm used to, I'm really excited to get going!

P.S. Never fear, I will not be recording a daily journal of my training runs here. The only thing more boring than watching someone run 12 miles is reading about someone running 12 miles.

Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds

A few weeks ago, while raising celebratory glasses with Seint and Dave to celebrate a great two hours of rock climbing, we met Jackson, the bartender at the watering hole we'd chosen. He was great, and as there wasn't a lot of traffic in the bar - it being a Sunday night and all - he spent a lot of time chatting with us. As we were leaving, he mentioned that his band was going to be playing a few shows in the next few weeks and that we should check them out.

Normally, these words make me cringe. I've known a lot of people in bands, and for the most part, they're terrible. After spending at least 30 minutes of your life, that you'll never get back, enduring their performance, you have to deliver one of your own (which, one hopes, is of higher quality) when the person says "So, whaja think?" at the end of the set. Shudder.

I was not immediately turned off, however, because, of all the gin joints in all the world, I had stumbled into one staffed by a musician whose work I had seen before and actually loved. My friend Frank had a birthday party at a place in Brooklyn a few months before this, and there was live music there. Jackson's band, Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds, was the only one I really remembered because they were fantastic. The vocalist is his sister, and there's also a drummer, a bassist, a guitarist, a harmonica (Jackson) and a horn section made up of a trombone, trumpet, tenor sax and baritone sax. They've got a really incredible sound that is somewhere between rock and blues. I read a review that said they're influenced by music from New Orleans, which mostly fits, I think.

Anyway, it was a few weeks before I managed to make it to one of their shows, but I ended up going to two in a row. The first was a dress rehearsal of sorts for the release party for their first album, and I enjoyed it so much that I went to the release party the following night as well. I'd never been to a release party, and it was great. I had trouble deciding which band member I enjoyed watching the most - they were all having such a great time and were all so talented. Arleigh, Jackson's sister, is a phenomenal performer with a voice that I would literally kill for, and she writes most of their songs. The crowd was beside itself from the moment the band started to walk onto the stage, even before Bram, Jackson's cousin, hit the first few beats on the drums. I was settled at a high-top table next to the trombonist's parents, a sweet couple from San Fransisco, who beamed the whole way through the show. At one point, his dad couldn't hold back anymore and leapt off his stool, crewneck sweater, starched collar and all, and started doing a bizarre, swaying little dance against the wall. It was fantastic.

It was great to be able to go talk to some of the band members afterwards as well; I felt like quite an insider, although a lot of the people were there because they knew someone in the band. I highly recommend checking out their website where you can listen to clips of their music. They're much more fun live, and they've really matured a lot since they recorded the album a year ago (drama with the record label apparently) so check out the video clips which are more recent, particularly "Pound of Dirt."

Marathon Madness

Sunday morning, after my friends had all headed back home after my birthday festivities, I left Dave snoozing on the couch to walk to the marathon course. The New York Marathon kicked off early that morning, and I got to the part of the course that goes along the east side of Central Park a little after 11:00. I heard a LOT of cheering as I approached, which sort of surprised me. Distance running is not known to attract overly zealous fans. I love it, but let's be honest, there's not a lot of edge-of-your-seat action. I understood the reason for the enthusiasm as the road came into view, though: I had gotten there earlier than I intended, and the first few runners were striding by. A woman on the sidewalk next to me told her cell phone that the first runner had passed them just ten minutes before.

I was a little bit bummed out, actually. I like watching all the "normal" people run, and I like seeing a steady flow. For the first ten minutes or so, a runner would go by only about every minute. I have to say though, it was pretty amazing to watch them. Sprinters take enormous steps to cover as much ground as possible, but distance runners typically can't do that - it burns too much energy when you have to do it for a sustained period. These guys were positively blazing by, though, taking huge steps and going at about the pace I struggle to maintain when I do a fast mile.

Obviously not one of my pictures, but this one of runners crossing the Verazzano Bridge was way cooler than any of the ones I shot.

Soon, more and more runners started to appear, and things got more interesting. Last year I saw a short, skinny Asian man running along dressed as Minnie Mouse (I'm talking polka-dot dress, ears, bow, and all) and to my delight I saw him again this year. Based on his position in the pack, he's a pretty elite runner, even in a dress. Although people's pace tended to be strong, none of them looked terribly happy and they were drenched with sweat despite the fact that I was shivering in my down vest and gloves. But we were standing somewhere along the 22nd mile after all, so I guess it's to be expected.

I enjoyed watching them, as usual, and later Dave and I walked past several people in running clothes with medals around their necks, hobbling home from the race course. I congratulated all of them - they certainly deserved it in my book.

Having said all that, this seems an appropriate time for me to make a related announcement: I have decided to run the National Marathon in Washington D.C. on March 26th. I'm alternately thrilled and really scared every time I think of it. At the end of each half I ran this year (6 for those of you who aren't counting) I'd think to myself that if I were running a full, I'd have to keep going and do the whole course again. Shudder. But I wasn't trained for it then, and, fingers crossed, I will be come March. I've got a great training plan that I'm really excited about and will begin in earnest at the end of this month. In the meantime, I'm doing a few long-ish runs a week and beginning to prepare myself mentally for this huge undertaking.

Good audiobook recommendations, anyone? I'm going to be spending a LOT of time with headphones in over the next few months...

Birthday Weekend

Last year's birthday was nice, but a bit dull. I didn't know that many people in New York yet, I didn't know where to go, so I ended up having a drink or two and heading home early with a small group of friends. This year, however, I was determined that things would be different. I planned dinner at a great Japanese place that is very authentic (and cheap!), karaoke at a place down the street with private rooms for groups, and follow-up drinks in the same neighborhood.

Alex, one of my best friends from Vanderbilt, flew out from Austin to spend the weekend with me. Another friend of ours from Vandy, Nate, lives in New York now, too, so we had a reunion of sorts on Thursday night. Dave bought both boys a beer and endeared himself to them forever. Alex had never been to New York, so we wandered around midtown on Friday afternoon, then went to the restaurant to meet the rest of the party. I was a bit nervous about whether everyone would get along. I'd invited people from Japan, from Teachers College, from Cate, from Vanderbilt, and everywhere in between. A few of them brought friends/significant others and that added even more variation to the group. I needn't have worried; it was fantastic. Everyone got along wonderfully, all 16 of us!

Dinner with the group. Ferran, in the foreground, is predictably ruining the picture.

After dinner we spent a few hours singing karaoke, which was great. My friends from Japan were old pros, of course, but the newbies picked it up pretty quickly, too. Eddie was, predictably, a hit, but my Spanish friend Uri was the real surprise of the night. I'd known he was in a fairly popular band in Spain, but I had no idea he was so spectacularly talented. He absolutely brought down the house. I thought Eddie was going to fall off his chair.

Nate and Alex wailing.

With Uri, vocalist extraordinaire.

Drinks followed, and I messily at the cupcake my friend Seint had brought for me while trying not to get frosting on my birthday cards, new poetry book from friend Chris, and "Gone with the Wind" DVD from Dave (which he was happy to buy me but refuses to watch). Late night pizza followed, and I don't think I was asleep until almost 6:00 AM! Who says you slow down as you get older?

Down the street from the karaoke place. Ferran is ruining this one, too...

If my birthday was any indication of things to come, my 28th year is going to be a great one.

Things to Avoid Having in New York (a List-in-Progress)

-a small bladder

-a tight budget

-a tight schedule

-blisters

-a weak immune system

-social anxiety/claustrophobia/agoraphobia

-a bad sense of direction

-a thin skin

-numerous, heavy bags

Rally to Restore Sanity - Washington, DC

This may be my longest entry yet! Fair warning: go get a snack and sit somewhere comfy. Ready? Ok.

As some of you may already know, I opted out of New York Halloween festivities over the weekend in favor of a trip to DC to attend the much-anticipated Rally to Restore Sanity. Jon Stewart of The Daily Show organized it as a response to Glenn Beck's earlier Rally to Restore Honor, also held on the Mall. Stephen Colbert, "representative" of the conservative right, was quick to announce his corresponding March to Keep Fear Alive.

I say that the Rally was "much-anticipated" because everyone I talked to seemed to have heard about it and to be jealous that I was going. Nevertheless, no one seemed to know what it would be about. Stewart was very cryptic in his promotions, saying only that it was not political and that he was just trying to get a bunch of people together because that's what rallies are. I figured, knowing Daily Show fans as I do, that it would be one heck of a party if nothing else and booked bus tickets. The night before the Rally, I enjoyed hanging out with Shannon, a friend from second grade, the night before the Rally, and got to meet her boyfriend, her good friend, and her bulldog.

The morning of the Rally, I had just gotten out of the shower when Shannon's phone rang. A friend of hers had just gone by the Metro station and reported that there was a line to get in. Yikes. An online search revealed that every Metro line was running behind schedule. Shannon, who was not planning to come along, called a cab company for me instead, and after being on hold for at least 10 minutes, we arranged to have one come as soon as possible, which was apparently in 30 - 40 minutes. After an hour had passed, however, no cab had showed up, and Shannon called again only to be put on hold for another 20 minutes. At that point, we started making plans for me to start the 4-mile walk to the Mall, with the hopes that I'd run into a cab on the way. Forty minutes after placing the call, still on hold, Shannon and I set out with Parker, the bulldog, in tow. She was going to get me started on my trek before heading back home. Shannon lives in a residential area, but unbelievably, within minutes of leaving her house, we spotted a random cab coming down the street. Shannon, who is tall and gorgeous, authoritatively flagged it down. It stopped, the driver looking a little bemused, and we asked if he could take me to the Mall. So away we went, the driver explaining that he was off duty and was actually on his way to the gym. Phew.

Minutes later, I was heading toward the Mall. I'll let the following pictures tell the next part of the story for me:

Early sign-wavers encountered en route to the Mall. I'm not sure I get the bacon thing, but the other sign is hilarious: "Progressive Agenda: Coffee, Cash Welfare Check, Brunch w/ Obama, Rally to Restore Sanity, Pray at Mosque, Cocktails!, Gay Sex With my Boyfriend." As you will see, one of my favorite parts of the Rally was photographing signs.

Crowds were already beginning to form, even ten minutes' walk away from the Mall.

Closer and closer.

"Stop the Insani-Tea"

There were LOTS of anti-Tea Party signs and t-shirts.

"The Price of Weed is Too Damn High"

Some people came with serious political messages. Others, not so much.

Kind of spooky twins with identical pro-Obama signs.

Finally on the Mall! At this point I realized there was little chance of my getting even remotely near the stage.

"Corporate Robot Says More Blood for Oil!"

Corporate robot needs to learn a thing or two about punctuation. I wonder if he wore those stilts for the full three hours.

There was no charge to attend the Rally, but Steward recommended that people with money to burn donate it to the preservation of the Mall. The grass was blocked off, and after Stewart's introduction in which he asked us to pick up our trash, be nice to the Mall, etc., people were very protective of the lawn. Occasionally, someone would hop the fence and cut across, only to get yelled at from all different directions. ("Keep off the grass!" "You're not special!" "C'mon, let's preserve the lawns, man!") But from the middle of the Mall, it was difficult to hear and even harder to see the show. The sound kept cutting out and the screens were too far away. The organizers had not expected the crowd to be so huge - I was able to count 300,000ish before I got tired of it - and were ill-prepared. So when someone finally knocked down a section of fence, all the grass protectors left their morals on the gravel and flooded the area. I did not, but I took advantage of the space they freed up and moved forward, very, very slightly.

"This sign makes an important point"

I saw several of these.

"Who would Jesus stomp on?"

"I believe in sanity" or "I believe insanity"? Hmmm.

If only I were actually this tall... This is what I would have seen if I could have gotten my head as high as I got my camera. Alas, I ended up admiring a lot of scapulas instead. Tall people around me chimed in from time to time with reports of what they could make out on the screens.

I may not have been too close to the front, but at least I had all of those people beat.

Not sure when/how he did it, but that guy sat on the stoplight for hours. From this vantage point, he enjoyed the show, took pictures, and fielded phone calls. Others climbed trees along the edges of the Mall. The crowd "aw"ed when someone attempting to climb slid down, and cheered when someone reached a good branch.

The show, from what I could catch, was hysterical and had some impressive guests including actors, musicians, and athletes. Some of my favorites were Cat Stevens, Ozzie Osbourne, Sheryl Crowe, Kid Rock, The OJs (all the aged hippies in the crowd started singing along with them), John Legend, Tony Bennett, Mavis Staples, and R2D2 (yes, the robot from Star Wars). This was not nearly everyone who performed in the 2-hour show. The guys from Myth-Busters led the crowd in a wave, which must have been really cool from the air, but wasn't too impressive from my vantage point. I managed to catch most of the audio, although I spent a lot of time chanting "turn it up" with my fellow ralliers.

Stewart's speech at the very end was about not allowing the media to make us afraid of things that weren't really reasonable. He encouraged people to get the facts, the real facts, and to get along. All of this sounds really simplistic, but it sure must be hard to do based on the amount of discord and crazy anxieties that are all over the place. It was a good message, one that I think is very relevant and which seemed to resonate with the crowd. And then things wrapped up and 300,000 people started trying to get back to wherever they were going. All at once.

Green: "I made a (c0)sine!"

I LOVE this girl, whoever she is.

The street lining the Mall, post-Rally.

One of many Waldos I saw throughout the day. Kinda clever.

Finally sitting down after hours of standing.

The view down the hill towards the Mall.

"Private health insurance is like a hospital gown: Chances are, your ass ain't covered."

One look at the Metro stations even several blocks away from the Mall told me I was walking the three miles back to Virginia's apartment in Columbia Heights. That was fine with me - as a New Yorker that's no big deal, and it was a gorgeous day. The sidewalks stayed full really until about half a mile from my destination. Along the way I passed Starbucks with 40-minute lines and jam-packed restaurants. I held out for Virginia's, where I was just in time for tea and a slice of cake. Love her.

Despite the fact that I didn't hear/see everything, I had a great time at the Rally. I thought Stewart's message was a great one, but what filled me with the most hope was simply the quality of crowd around me. People of all ages were engaging in intelligent conversation and showing the kind of wit, open-mindedness, and insight I don't get to see all that often. Sometimes I feel like there are precious few people around who really think about things, but I was surrounded by a whole bunch of them on Saturday, and I'm more optimistic about the potential for positive change than I have been in a long time.