Black Umbrella Parade

Rainy days in the city.  Are.  Terrifying.  

It's nearly impossible to maneuver through the crowded streets on an average day, but in a torrential downpour streetwalkers must fend for their lives.  It is imperative to wear waterproof over-the-knee goulashes to keep from wading in a cold, wet soup of gasoline, sewage, and aluminum foil hot dog wrappers.  The taxi drivers have made quite a sport of full-speed swerving through curbside puddles merely with the intention of drenching innocent pedestrians.  And I've nearly had my eye poked out on more than a few occasions by some shuffler's pointy umbrella rod.  Standing at the large window of my fifteenth-floor office this morning, after no less than three near-death experiences during my commute, I looked out over the Hudson which was nearly opaque with fog.  Down below on the street, I could see thousands of black umbrellas crowding the sidewalks and shuffling here and there.  It struck me how much all of the pedestrians reminded me of little marching ants following each other up and down 25th street.  They all seemed so vulnerable and not nearly as menacing from my perspective.  I had a latte and changed my shoes, and actually felt quite triumphant at my

domination of the deluge.  Today's forecast: snow.  Now that's a different story altogether.

Now for the filling-in-on-my-life part.  Well, there was a huge flood in my dorm room so I had to move last week.  It's been interesting (to say the least), but I'm not in the room much anyway.  School and work have been moving along nicely, though I'm still bombarded with critical texts, essays, and presentations.  Midterms are over, but that just means I'm closer to finals, so no relief there.   However, there have been many very worthy distractions, such as fall festival (see cowboy photo), pirate party (see pirate photo), and my first ride in a taxi; which, as it happened, was to the emergency room.  A few Saturdays ago, out of the blue, I swelled up like Violet Beauregarde and I couldn't breathe.  Teneka threw me into a cab and we sped to the emergency room at St. Vincent's Hospital.  Saturday night + Manhattan emergency room proved to be more frightful than the haunted house next door to my gallery.  Every bed was full (mostly homeless or drug addicts) and the staff was positively negligent!  One man was moaning audibly and the nurse (the same one who was in charge of me) was mocking him, saying, "la la la la, I can't hear you!" as she rolled her eyes and rolled him through on a stretcher.  Another nurse was speaking to a male patient who had just vomited all over the floor: "Too many drugs will do that to you."  There was also the moustached man who kept removing his IV and waving at me across the room, nodding.  I felt like I was an extra in the Halloween episode of Scrubs.  Luckily, I survived.  I guess I'm either allergic to Starbucks Pumpkin Spice lattes or Central Park chrysanthemums, both impossible to avoid.

Last night, my friend Maura and I decided to go to an off-broadway show called Rock of Ages, recommended by one of our professors.  We were so proud of our savvy selves when we scored 75% off tickets at the booth right before the show.  We were even more delighted when we discovered that our seats were in the sixth row!  

The show was great, I don't think I've laughed so hard since Napoleon Dynamite or something.  It was basically a love story set in the '80s and all of the songs were rock gems, performed by brilliant actors clad in jorts, lycra bodysuits, and pleather miniskirts.  Sounds awesome, right?  The lead male role was played by Constantine from American Idol, and he was actually kind of great.  All in all, totally worth it.  

Well, I could keep going but there are quite a few volumes of required reading perched menacingly on my desk.  I'll update soon; stay tuned for Halloween pictures!

Bringing sanity to the city since 2008,

Ariel