In which it’s Day Two, and much of Day Three. Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all week!

Slept in. Hung out with Deboka and talked and had tea. She went to write a paper, I got online to upload images and read and write. (Not as much wi-fi as I’m used to around here, so I was out of the Twitter loop almost entirely.)

Deb went to school, and I finally got hungry and got cleaned up and went out.

Later, my friend Steven (Derby) from college sent a car for me and I went to his house to visit. My driver had no idea where I was going, and spent the half of the trip he wasn’t telling me about his wife and his lack of sleep talking to Steven about how to get there. “I know Brooklyn, but not Queens and not Greenpoint,” he said. (Greenpoint is in Brooklyn, so no, he doesn’t know Brooklyn.) And “I left my GPS at home.”

I had such a great time at Steven’s. I sat at the island in the kitchen while he and his partner nibbled on dinner, I got the tour (very cute apartment), I met the mini-mini daschund, I had cocktails, I listened to music in Steven’s studio. Fantastic people, fantastic evening, fantastic time. Around midnight I threw myself out because I knew my host had to be at work in the morning. He called me a car that dropped me at Deb’s door.

I went for a walk. It was midnight and raining, but I needed some exercise and to think. And I had an umbrella in my purse. And I’m on vacation. I got my feet wet. I pondered what it means to be “too hard on yourself,” because Steven said it to me – on the subject of my singing – at least three times. Clearly he was trying to get a point across. But what? Am I too hard on myself as a vocalist? He’d also said, “You’re making it too complicated” a couple of times, and I do know what that means. I’ve always done that. It means, The solution you cognized and rejected fifteen minutes ago as being too simple? That’s the one you want.

(I have a weird brain. I wonder what would have happened if I’d been educated by people who were good at education. Would I have turned out brilliant?)

When I woke up this morning, the apartment was empty. My phone revealed that if I could get to Deb’s school by eleven I could get awesome Chinese medicine action at deep discount but it was a quarter ’til. I got dressed and went out.

I decided to go out to Coney Island and take pictures. Yeah, it was raining, but I thought it wasn’t going to get that bad

It got that bad. I got off the train, walked around, took only a couple of cell phone pics to prove I’d been there, got drenched, and went back to the station.

When I got back to Deb’s neighborhood I stopped and ate. More falafel!

Got ‘home,’ de-drenched (I was freakin’ SOAKED from head to toe) and promptly took a nap. Now it’s seven and I think it’s stopped raining. I may go out for dinner, maybe see if there’s a movie I want to watch. My coat is still wet, and the shoes I had been wearing may be ruined, but I have a down vest and my Birk knock-offs so I should be alright.

Tomorrow I’m thinking will be museum and/or little India day. Friday will be VUBOQ! and Jake! and I’m soooooo excited to see them, plus maybe meet some other NY bloggers IRL on Saturday…