Except I am going to take next week to have a Staycation.

A bunch of us from the Census went out to dinner last week. I conked out early actually, but they went no from here for a night of drinking and karaoking. I loved the dinner place. Cowgirl Seahorse. It was on the very end of Front Street, basically under the Brooklyn Bridge, in a spot that still has that old New York feel I love. The vibe was friendly, the food good, definitely recommended.

I’m only barely paying attention to the pre-show, which I usually enjoy so much. People who looked fantastic that I noticed: Lea Michele and Tina Fey. Probably a lot of other people looked great, but I haven’t really been watching.

6:20 Update: Watching True Blood and the E! Red Carpet show at the same time. Not really paying attention to anything.

- Read two People magazines and one More.
- Exercised (couldn’t help myself, I was feeling too slug-like).
- About to watch one of two episodes of True Blood.
- Agonized about jeans shopping all morning and went with, “fuck it.” Fuck it means no more shopping. I’m going to stick with what I got yesterday.
- Food consumed so far: an apple, brown rice and broccoli, dark chocolate, walnuts and dried cranberries. Will be eating crappier food later.

The landlord is at long last working on repairing the roof (and they took down my bird feeder, so now I just spread it on the ground), but my concern is that decades of water leaking into my ceiling might have created mold up there which they are just covering up and not addressing. I sometimes smell this musty smell in the back of the apartment.

I will be back to post live updates of the rest of my day off. That’s the plan anyway.

To make a boring story short, I’m a 4 in terms of fit and what looks good, but I’m a 6 in terms of what feels comfortable. I always get the 6 and end up looking a little dowdy, so I was determined to buy the 4 and look good for once. And I did. But now I’m not sure I made the right decision. I’m going back in. Freaking insane. I hate shopping. HATE.

This is the Wall Street bull at the bottom of Broadway. When I was looking for the site of Echo’s first (and only) office I almost went with a building to the right of this bull. I love this spot and I fell in love with the office—it had transom windows!! Everything about it had that old New York feel that I love, but the building was completely empty otherwise, and the whole area was kinda desolate and I didn’t feel confident it would turn around soon (I was right). But I would have been personally very happy there.

I wish I didn’t have to go jeans shopping in New York City on a Saturday, (a HELL like you wouldn’t believe) but I need them now. Holes have formed in unacceptable spots in my current pair and they are no longer work-ready.

I took these shots yesterday in front of the Burlington Coat Mosque (what Kathy at the Census calls it). When I was walking by someone came out to speak to the people outside. He was quickly swarmed.

I felt for the guy. Imagine having to stand alone like that, to justify your religion to a largely uninformed public. By the way, I am ambivalent about organized religion in general, I have problems with all of them, but plenty of good people belong to churches and mosques and synagogues (like the people reading this) so I’m not going to condemn someone for being a part of them.

I will look at you funny though. (Kidding.)

Anyway, this guy stayed to talk to everyone who wanted to talk to him. Stupidly, I hung back to take pictures and didn’t hear a word. I am an idiot.

Goal for the day: make a bullet point list of all the positive health effects from singing.

Here’s a street near where I work and near the Seaport. It has a bit of a High Line thing going on (High Line=abandoned railroad tracks that were beautifully overgrow, then taken back by the city and made into a public park).

I think I will go back in three months though (you can keep going back every three or four months) and go for SHORT. I was ready.

Something like what Ellen Degeneres has.

But I’m not complaining.

Here I am with my happy face, because I was scared and now I’m so relieved.

I couldn’t decide which shot I liked better so I’m posting them both. I’m also in a contest with a friend who got her hair cut today. We’re going to see which haircut was better — the free one or the $$$ one. This is the face of FREE.

So today is going to be a seriously packed day. I’m a little freaked out. BUT!! I’m going to get a free haircut in a couple of hours!! I’m so excited and scared. I’m going to let them do something drastic. My hair will be cut by students learning how to cut hair for Bumble and Bumble. Sounds scary, but I’ve heard nothing but great things about this program. The teachers hover over the students making sure they don’t screw up your hair and if necessary they step in and save the day. And, you get a haircut that would normally cost $150.

They asked me if I was willing to lose a lot of length and I said yes. So we shall see! I’m either going to be back here in a little while in tears, or showing off pictures of my new do.

It was raining yesterday morning, and here are the pigeons all lined up and waiting for me to feed them.

Said by one of the speakers at the rally: The sections of the Constitution about religion refer to Judeo-Christion religions only.

For the record, from George Washington, “The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.” (I know the first argument would be that what happened on 9/11 was hardly decent, but we don’t persecute an entire religion based on the acts of an insane few.)

From Benjamin Franklin, “Even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service.” Thomas Jefferson owned and studied the Koran. I could go on.

Heard at the rally: “They have a secret agenda.”

They chanted, “liberty!” without a hint of irony.

To the man below, what if people said, “Everything we need to know about Christianity we learned from the KKK, Oklahoma City, the Crusades, our history with American Indians …” (I could go on. For a long time.)

A moslem man who lost someone on 9/11 asked: Why can’t I visit the site, like you, and then walk a few blocks away and pray?

These are our neighbors people!!

- Find out: Do most people like to sing?

- Go to New York Historical Society for choral society archives.

- Make a list of questions for fellow choir members.

- Research musical hallucinations. Are they scary?

- Was there are thing in the 60’s about reviving early music? Find out.

- Find best articles/papers about conducting.

- Organize questions for John (the choir director). Did I get the Bernstein connection from John?

- Email Michael Jawer about hearing and feeling music in a distributed way throughout the body.

You get the idea. I found this picture in the New York Public Library’s image database. Thank you NYPL!