Tuesday, November 23, 2004  1:58 am  <|>
<199> Happiness spreads: I just had one of the best weekends in such a long time and even though it was busy, it was still great somehow... First let me mention, there is a secret post unless some of you regularly read back a few entires... I had a post last week that I thought got uploaded but apparently it did not and because of all the transfering between computers I didn't check it like I usually do... so please feel free to read back a post. Some of what I was saying is outdated by now, but not all of it, and it's kind of funny to read it now already given what has happened since (all good don't worry).

Anyway, my weekend - Saturday Dan and I went to NYC - Brooklyn to be exact - for Stickerthrow and it was just AMAZING!! I had such a great time meeting people I've been talking with for over a year now and who I'm working with closely on Sticky Art now still. They are a GREAT group of people and I really had a blast! We got to NYC around 2pm and went right to the Brooklyn Museum of Art, our first stop of the day. We pretty successfully navigated the subway system... thanks to HopStop we had good directions - we've gotten better over our various trips there, but since we don't go all that often we get a bit rusty. I never use the subway system in Philly, it's terrible... and now tonight I found out they are cutting back on half their program... how can you cut back on already terrible service??? So the museum was pretty good, I mainly was there for their Egyptian collection - one of the world's largest apparently and it was quite impressive, though I'm always up for seeing more. I'm sure they didn't have all of it on display, but it was cool to see a couple key pieces that I have often seen photographed in books and things right there in person. Some of the other artwork there was good too, but the was they displayed a lot of it left a lot to be desired, overall I would still recommend it though! After that we made our way to the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn, where the show was being held. We grabbed some dinner at a little place called Raymond's - it was German food, but they had perogies (sp?), which was enough to fill me up. It was actually a very nice little place and meal, and it was great to be someplace in NYC that didn't feel like a tourist trap. It just felt like we were in a regular place, with regular people... I knew I'd like my first time in Brooklyn. We were about half an hour early for the show, so we walked around the area a bit and I took photos of some of the street art - mostly graf and stickers, that were up. I thought there would be more of it, but it was hard to get a feel for it since it most of it was abandoned/boarded up buildings that weren't well lit or little apartment buildings and houses. It didn't seem like a bad area at all, but it was rainy and cold, so we also were ready to get back to the show for it's start. Being there early was cool since I had my pick of the FREE STICKERS and oh there were stickers galore! It was just so GREAT! It got really crowded by half an hour into it and by an hour and a half into it, when we got ready to leave, it was more than packed. Like I said, I met up with some people there, including some from Philly and the guy who was running the show too who I know. It was overall such a great experience and it's only too bad that I can't see these people more often. We made our way back to the bus pickup area by about 10:15 and still had time to get ourselves some chinese food and chill out on the bus. We were back in Philly by 1am and back in our place by 1:30am. We worked on cleaning up the house just a tiny bit, but we pretty much decided it was better to go to bed and wake up as early as we'd let ourselves...

So Sunday came. Dan got up before me, yes I'm really bad at getting up in the morning, I hate it a lot of the time depending on the reason for getting up. He had actually gone to bed a little before me anyway, so he got the Tofurkey and turkey going and cleaned up his studio area and things a bit. I joined him around 11am and cleaned most of the rest of our apartment. We were cooking and cleaning up until 3pm, when everyone was supposed to start arriving, but we somehow pulled it together - yes we are just that good ;) Our place was full of people by 4 or 5pm, though not everything went smoothly. The turkey took a LOT longer to cook than it should have, but we figured in the end our oven just wasn't ready to handle a 20 pound dead bird, poor thing. And because the oven got turned up all the way when my tofurkey was just reheating, it got all burned on the outside before I knew it was even in the oven.... so I saved as much of it as I could, but it sucked because I couldn't just cut it up and serve it, I practically had to scoop the insides out. But, everyone got to eat a little after 6:30pm and we'd been giving them beer and snacks the whole time so it wasn't like we left them with nothing. I also made a bunch of mashed potatoes, and people did bring stuff - including a total of 6 pies haha!

So it was really great to see friends I just don't get to hang out with as much as I'd like to anymore. One friend especially... I got to meet his new girlfriend and I more than approved... she and I had so much in common we ended up talking for 3 or 4 hours straight practically!! I'm really, really happy for him.. so much so that it made me happy all day to know things were going a lot better for him. It's a weird feeling happy - it can spread if you let it I guess. It made my mood better throughout a Monday, so that's something I gotta say. It's funny too, cause I know I'm going to run into this girl all the time now (and probably hang out with her on purpose sometimes too ;) ) like tonight I already ran into her when I was getting coffee with Concetta... now it wasn't so strange being that we are all regulars at the place, including my friend... but timing still... I dunno. I was glad Concetta got to talk with her more (she was at the party, but Concetta had just gotten back from Boston and couldn't stay that long and wasn't feeling well) I had been saying for awhile I felt a change coming and maybe you make your own changes, but sometimes things just all seem to fall into place.... unfortuantly this can't hold true for everything - and everyone - in my life right now... and it really sucks to not know how to help certain people that you think might need it. It's something I'm trying not to get down about, because I don't want that to be what clouds my judgement... but I have a feeling that with good change can come bad. It may not be a rule, but it is a chance... so I'm keeping my guard up just a little... it's the whole balance thing I guess. But, for now I'm going to go get some sleep...