i keep a diary

November, 2013

The November Roundup

Here are all the photos I took in November 2013 that didn't make it into their own entry.

Monday, November 4th

Spent Monday recovering from our epic group trip to Spirit Horse Farms.
fence ˆ la plaza cultural
I love how the ivy on this fence changes colors every year. I spent the afternoon listening to old Alan Watts lectures on Youtube. Here are the notes I wrote down:

All of the senses are forms of touch. Eye sight is the most subtle, where our cells are touched by light. Each nerve ending in our body sends a message to the brain. We can see that because we can see the nerves. But we are each nerve endings in the body of god. We all attach to one mind. The feeling that "I am" is the most persistent human thing. The feeling of "I" is the same in everyone.

That same feeling of "I" is what a shrimp feels. The most beautiful lady in th world looks like a Shiva monster to a shrimp. The shrimp is convinced that he is the "I"!
la plaza cultural

Tuesday, November 5th

On my way home on Tuesday night, Miye texted me to stop by the Bowery Hotel...
glitter ˆ hotel
miye
...of a book release party.
miye
...to grab one last drink at the tailend...
chandelier ˆ hotel ˆ ladder

Friday, November 8th

Perfect fall day!
fence ˆ la plaza cultural ˆ walking
On Friday night I biked over to big convention hall on the west side...
...for the first night of weekend-long retreat with the head of the Shambhala lineage who was in town from Colorado...
shambhala meditation center
On Saturday afternoon, I went back up to the convention center for a full day of meditation and lectures. While walking around on the lunch break, I snapped a bunch of pics of the crazy clouds...
clouds
...over the midtown sky. Crazy, cool atmospheric gravity waves manifesting in clouds.
buildings ˆ clouds
More gravity wave clouds over MSG.
clouds ˆ msg
The end of Saturday's talks and group meditation sessions ended in a blessing parade that still feels a little weird to me in a ceremonial / formal way.
shambhala meditation center
The Sakyong giving blessings.
shambhala meditation center

Sunday, November 10th

Got up early on Sunday morning...
biking
...and biked over to midtown again for the third and final day with the Sakyong.
biking ˆ shadow
And then FINALLY, later that evening...
shambhala meditation center
...because I'm a donor to Shambhala...
flyer
...I got to go to a special private dinner with the Sakyong. (I enjoyed it, but as someone who originally gravitated towards Buddhism because of how I perceived it differed from other organized religions, this was a bit high on the "pomp & circumstance" meter for me).
shambhala meditation center
I got home late and decided to watch a few episodes of ROME before bed. I don't have a tv anymore, but that doesn't mean I can't watch my laptop! Woo!
rome ˆ tv
maddy
Chilly dog warming up in her Halloween outfit.
maddy

Monday, November 11th

On Monday afternoon I walked over to the Organic Grill and had Blueberry Pancakes and Tofu Scramble for lunch.
breakfast ˆ food ˆ pancakes
me
Walking home down 9th street, I spotted a ridiculously colored and patterned shirt in a thrift store window. I'm not exactly sure what compelled me to go in, because I'm not exactly a big clothes shopper, but I decided to go in and try it on. It fit perfectly so I ended up buying it.
magic ˆ shirt ˆ me
Oh, you know, just your regular, run-of-the-mill weirdo, taking care of all his houseplants...
me
...in a technicolor magic shirt. Hahah.
shirt ˆ me
Later that evening, I biked up to Union Square to go to the weekly Monday Night Reiki Circle. Usually it takes 1 person about 90 minutes to cover a body with their 2 hands. When you go to a reiki "circle," there are 10 people there, so when you lay down on the table, you get 20 hands covering your body! This lets you get a full-body treatment in 15 minutes instead of 90. It's also a very pleasant and intense feeling to be literally blanketed with loving hands.
reiki ˆ reiki circle

Tuesday, November 12th

After living with white walls for three-and-a-half years, on Tuesday evening I bought paint for the living room.
e9th apt ˆ living room
I'd been living in NYC for fourteen years and I've had nine different apartments; this was the first time I ever decided to paint a single wall! Here we go!
e9th apt ˆ living room ˆ paint
Ninety minutes in and I'd made solid progress!
living room
Two hours in, I got to a point where I had to cut down my string sculpture of Metatron's Cube.
living room ˆ metatrons cube ˆ string
Before I started cutting...
metatrons cube ˆ string
...I snapped one last pic of all the windings.
metatrons cube ˆ string
One good snip and the whole thing mostly came apart.
metatrons cube ˆ string
me
Painting always takes a lot longer than you think it's going to take! Over four hours after starting....
e9th apt ˆ living room ˆ paint ˆ me
...I was almost finished.
e9th apt ˆ living room ˆ paint
Moved all the furniture back in place! Ta-da!
e9th apt ˆ living room ˆ paint
I bought a second color paint to do the recessed window-boxes, but figured I'd let the blue paint dry a bit before continuing.
e9th apt ˆ living room ˆ paint

Wednesday, November 13th

Woke up on Wednesday and was excited to see what my new living room looked like in the sunlight.
e9th apt ˆ living room
In other building improvement news, they upgraded the lighting fixtures in the stairwell.
e9th apt ˆ stairs

Thursday, November 14th

On Thursday afternoon I took Maddy for her long walk (short weiner legs!) over to East River Park.
east river park
Watched the planes leaving La Guardia...
airplane ˆ clouds
...leave trails across the sky.
airplane ˆ clouds

Friday, November 15th

Nice late-fall afternoon. After I finished my work, I walked over...
walking
...to the BIG O for grilled cheese and two sides of veggies.
diner ˆ food ˆ grilled cheese ˆ odessa
Back at my apartment, I decided it was finally time to...
living room
...break out the rest of the paint and paint the windows and the trim.
paint ˆ painting
The wrought-iron window cages that are bolted over my two window near the fire escape took the LONGEST.
paint ˆ window

Saturday, November 16th

Woke up to a messy living room on Saturday with all of the furniture pushed into the middle of the room. Still have lots of trim painting to finish. Ugh.
paint
The dark brown I'd chosen for the trim and window looked really good!
paint ˆ window
Picked up a whole bunch of new books on healing & meditation. The Magus of Strovolos
book
This excellent, and very strange, book on Padmasambhava's consort, Yeshe Tsogyel, Sky Dancer
book
I went back into the thrift store where I'd purchased my magic shirt, and in the adjacent store, there was a lot of Buddhist art. Turns out the owner was a practicing Buddhist and we shared our stories about Padmasambhava synchronicity. He gave me a bunch of brochures for their New York state meditation center...
flyer
...and I ended up buying this really lovely bronze casting of a Bodhisvatta praying in front of two dragons. He is ringed by a wreath of fire that contains...
statue
...tiny choruses of monks praying...
statue
...and playing instruments.
statue
My meditation teacher had recently given me the Vajra Guru Mantra and the store owner gave me a really nice printed commentary on the syllables in the mantra and their explanation of how saying it every day can benefit you and the entire world.
mantra
I finished painting all of the recessed window-boxes with brown paint, and put all the furniture back in the right place.
living room
I found a new home for the Bodhisattva casting where my TV used to be.
statue
me
Post-chanting 2am photo.
mirror ˆ me

Sunday, November 17th

theresa
On Sunday afternoon I stopped by Theresa's gallery to pick up a laptop of mine she'd borrowed for a recent performance.
theresa
She showed me some paintings from her new series that I really liked.
art ˆ painting

Monday, November 18th

grant, katie, siege
On Monday evening I biked down to the edge of Chinatown to have dinner at Grant's new apartment with Katie & Clayton.
grant ˆ katie ˆ siege
me, siege
Look who left Williamsburg!
me ˆ siege

Thursday, November 21st

I spent Thursday afternoon trying to walk off the soreness from going running on Wednesday.
clouds
Pretty leaves changing colors in East River Park.
Took Maddy on a long walk...
...and watched the airplanes paint trails in the sky.
That slowly dissipated...
...that seemed to turn blue skies into a grid of cloud-coverage in less than thirty minutes.
Later that evening, the steam pipe attached to my radiator was leaking steam into my office and my camera got filled with steam! Here's a pic I took with my camera when the sensor inside was all fogged up with steam.

Friday, November 22nd

karen, leigh
By Friday evening, my camera had dried out and was taking normal pictures again! I went up to Leigh & Randy's for a Thanksgiving feast. Here's Leigh...
thanksgiving ˆ karen ˆ leigh
...stuffing the tofurkey!
turkey
dana v, karen, leigh
While the food cooked, Leigh showed Dana and Karen the dachshund dolls she's recently gotten from a friend...
dana v ˆ karen ˆ leigh
...and we tried to get Edie to pose with her new, creepy friends.
dogs ˆ edie ˆ stuffed animal
There's a really good photo of an Edie doppleganger on the fridge!
doppleganger ˆ edie ˆ map
leigh
Overwhelmed chef! A little before 11pm...
overwhelmed ˆ leigh
...the feast was finally ready!
food ˆ thanksgiving
This was, by far, the biggest spread of food I'd ever seen...
food ˆ thanksgiving
...Leigh put together!
food ˆ thanksgiving
leigh
Ta-da! Feasting time!
excited ˆ kitchen ˆ thanksgiving ˆ leigh
alex d
Living room feasting.
thanksgiving ˆ alex d
This was also the first time I'd ever seen Romanesco. I was super into learning about Mandelbroit and fractal, self-similar shapes in nature. My mind was totally blown. I couldn't stop looking at it.
broccoli ˆ fractal ˆ sacred geometry
Cabbage flowers!
flowers
geordon, karen
Party winding down around 1am.
geordon ˆ karen
karen, randy
I stuck around with Karen to clean up and pack away leftovers.
kitchen ˆ karen ˆ randy
dana v, geordon, karen, me, randy
I took a picture of all the Polaroids from the evening.
polaroid ˆ dana v ˆ geordon ˆ karen ˆ me ˆ randy
karen, me
Including this one of me & Karen that is solid gold!
polaroid ˆ karen ˆ me

Saturday, November 23rd

jeet, karen
On Saturday evening I went over to Karen's with Gurj and ate WAY too many Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Ow, my stomach!
wave ˆ jeet ˆ karen
Later that evening, we took the L out to Williamsburg to celebrate Peter's birthday at Dokebi.
ellen, piper, rob hitt
Rob posing with Piper the party smuggler!
ellen ˆ piper ˆ rob hitt
Back at home later that evening, I took my pants off and when I laid them down I noticed my pocket-lining turned inside-out looked life a doofy gargoyle looking to the left. Do you see him?
wtf

Monday, November 25th

On Monday night I went to Brian Brunius' office in Union Square to do a reiki exchange with a bunch of other people.
reiki ˆ sign

Tuesday, November 26th

me
Tuesday before Thanksgiving! Jumped some rope after work.
mirror ˆ me
Is it weird that as soon as I'm done "working out" I like to pound 2 or 3 ice cold beers?
beer
Got my ice cold beer-buzz on and spent some time in the evening working on the I Keep A Diary entry from August of 2011...
computer ˆ ikad ˆ meta
...and listening to The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs on repeat.
computer
matt
A little before midnight, I walked over to Matt's for a late night hang (and some hash browns?) I have no idea what he's cooking!
cooking ˆ kitchen ˆ matt

Thursday, November 28th

brett, max
I decided to stay in NYC and spend Thanksgiving by myself. Spent the day feeling a little lonely and reading. After dinner, my brother and Amy called...
baby ˆ computer ˆ laptop ˆ video ˆ brett ˆ max
mom
...so me and my parents could Skype with my new nephew Max who started the call filled with Thanksgiving cheer....
computer ˆ mom
brett, max
...but couldn't manage to keep it together!
computer ˆ laptop ˆ brett ˆ max
max
What a little turkey!
baby ˆ laptop ˆ max
After a full day of reading and wallowing, later that evening I headed over to...
graffiti
katie, siege
...Siege & Katie's for a little friend Thanksgiving dinner!
thanksgiving ˆ katie ˆ siege
grant
Grant cooked a Japanese dish for us...
cooking ˆ food ˆ kitchen ˆ thanksgiving ˆ grant
siege
...and Siege even threatened to have some! Unfortunately, I didn't pass his "sniff" test.
best ˆ cooking ˆ food ˆ kitchen ˆ thanksgiving ˆ siege
grant, siege
After he was finished cooking, Grant went off to pose for some pics.
hallway ˆ king ˆ grant ˆ siege
katie, siege
Katie made everyone Hot Toddies to go along with dessert. Happy Thanksgiving, you guys! It's nice to have a family that's not my family!
thanksgiving ˆ katie ˆ siege

Friday, November 29th

Spent Friday afternoon getting a really long three-hour reiki treatment. Snapped this pic of Union Square from 11 stories up before biking home. Happy November 2013!
nyc ˆ skyline

1 comment

  • jessapril 13, 2016

    So glad you're posting on IKAD again! I've read it since the beginning.