Go Team Gay!

The plan: see all the Manhattan sculptures supported by the Public Art Fund. Time Out New York, your maps and pictures are too tempting to pass up.

Using the actual map from Time Out, I plotted which subways to take where. I played with the idea of a side excursion to Highline, but that was too far to the West. I played with the idea of a surprise walk and back across the Brooklyn Bridge to get to see Brooklyn Bridge Park once more. That plan dissipated when we hit City Hall, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Last year, all the statues were in the vicinity of Madison Square Park and the Flatiron Building. Eddie and I hopped around the city and found them all and then drove back to Brooklyn with only a little bit of sweating involved. Not so for this trip.

We boarded the train at VS and heard people saying to each other, Happy Pride Day. Huh? Then the couples were talking about how they'd gone to California to get married when it was legal there and who they were marching with.

Eddie turned to me and said, Umm, today is the Gay Pride Parade.

We had already postponed our sculpture excursion because of the Puerto Rican Day Parade. The city is crazy when there's a parade. So here we were, heading into the city for a crazy parade day. Happy Pride!

When we stepped out into the city with his idea to walk up to Central Park instead of using my first mapped out idea of taking the NR, we were in a flurry of rainbow flags, glitter, and beads. We noticed that while we were walking uptown, everyone else was walking downtown. We figured that we would definitely miss the crowds. We got the best of both worlds--avoiding crowds while seeing marchers walk towards the start line decked out in all their gay glory. Feathers and leather--it was a trend.

Another trend I noticed--us attending quite flamboyant parades.

When we got up to 5th and 59th, I was sweating as per the usual and Eddie's back was hurting, stupid lady who smashed into the back of his car's fault. We made our way into Central Park. We walked around the pond. We sat on a bench. We walked further and heard a man teaching people how to play some sort of instrument fashioned out of some twine and a twig. We walked over a bridge. We walked the other way over the bridge which had quite a nice view, I'm told, since I was tall enough to see only the stone wall in front of me and not over it. We walked back past the music lesson man, at which point Eddie declared, That has to be the worst instrument in the world. Heh heh. It was pretty annoying. Think about someone who can't play violin playing the violin. That's what was happening.

So then we walked out of the park and looked at a map. We backtracked and then I realized, hey, wait, isn't that across the street Grand Army Plaza? Eddie was like, Maybe we don't need to go IN the park.

Then we saw our first sculpture on the street in plain sight. I hate the park, btw. It is not my friend. What is my friend is Eva Rothschild's Empire, which is not a spider but is her interpretation of tree branches forming a canopy.

Across the street, again in plain sight, was sculpture number two: Ai Weiwei's Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads, for which there were t-shirts being sold. Lot of sketchers were sitting around, some with stick-on name tags attached to their shirts so they may have been an art class, and Eddie felt bad walking up to the sculpture because he was in their way. I was like, don't feel bad because that happens all the time; they're artists. We double checked his Chinese sign and found that it's a tiger, and he likes tigers, so that's fitting. I'm a horse. I hate horses. They're stupid. Of course, the horse head was the most ridiculous head there. Stupid stupid horse.

As I clicked away, aiming at the fountain, I realized--Hey honey, you know where we are? He didn't. I was like, we're at the fountain where we took the picture when we came in to see the windows and the lights in the winter! It all looks so different during the day in the heat. And we'd taken this walk before. I guess the cold blocked out the pain and suffering of the walk. Plus, that was pre-stupid lady in the Honda Pilot ramming the back of Eddie's car, so that could be the difference too.

We headed back downtown on foot to Madison Square Park. We didn't know exactly where the sculpture was and as we crossed the street, Eddie was like, are we sure it's here somewhere? Then we both said, There it is.

"It" refers to the massive head in the middle of the park. It's called Echo, product of Jaume Plensa, based on the daughter of someone in his hometown of Barcelona as a monument to ordinary people.

I was completely bummed out when we found I wasn't tall enough to plant a kiss on the head. But I was thrilled that Eddie was exactly the right height to have a faceoff.

It should be called Great Big Asian Head. It looks Asian, not Spanish. It also is not ordinary. I mean, come on, I know people who have big heads, but a head like that? No.

We sat and had lunch after ditching the idea of grabbing something from Shake Shack as the line was wrapping around half the park. Instead, we ate what we brought and listened to the many, many motorcycles parading down 5th Avenue. I don't know why it sounded like everyone had a motorcycle in the parade. It was loud as was the cheering and singing. Quite entertaining. Through the trees, I caught some glimpses of pink and silver and more feathers.

After a much needed rest and in the hopes of not killing my boyfriend before day's end by making him walk too much, we headed down a few more blocks to Union Square. We hit a few obstacles in the heart of the parade route. Crowds on every corner. But once we threaded our way through, the city was practically empty. It was odd. We were one street over and the parade was a low din, sounding as if it were miles away. That's the magic of NYC, I guess.

We came upon Andy Warhol quickly and directly. He was shimmering and shining in the sunlight and no one was really paying him any mind: Rob Pruitt's The Andy Monument.




Also in Union Square was an organization and event to, from what I gathered, celebrate water. People were on stationary bikes, pedalling away. We could sign up to pedal if we chose to. Some tables were asking people to stop fracking. Then some woman started spraying water out of a hose. We hopped on the subway to City Hall and skipped the upcoming concert for water.

We found City Hall Park easily. Finding the sculpture in the picture from the magazine was not as simple. We found two sculptures and one was pyramid-like but it wasn't on grass as the it was in the picture. Eddie was like, that's probably it. I was like, it can't be! Look at the picture! I became completely obsessed with finding the exact one in the picture.

The sculptures were scattered throughout the park so we walked around, through, and around again. The exhibit was Sol LeWitt: Structures 1965-2006. They were all white and squarish with hard angles except for one which totally did not go with anything else.









This is not a piece of art. It is a human being on a leash.

Anyway, then when we were walking back through the park, I saw it through the trees. The pyramid from the picture!

Ahhh, obsession satiated.

We took the subway straight back up to Penn. As we waited for the track to be called, we witnessed people running through the station proclaiming that they had only ten minutes to catch the train! (1) That was the train we were waiting for that had yet to be on a track. (2) Only ten minutes? Really?

Arriving home, we were only a little bit beat up from the day. Because he'd trekked all across the city and back with me, I agreed to do something nice for him and drive out to Sonic with him for a burger. Since Sonic has opened on Long Island, it is on the list of places we must go. I told him how far it would be to drive there and then factored in the wait time--the line, I've been told, is insanely long--and he decided that perhaps we should do Sonic on another day.

Instead, I took him to American Burger. It looked closed when we pulled up. It wasn't. They were open and not very busy as we were the only people in there aside from the staff, one of whom was sipping on a pina colada. Ahh, midday pina coladas. I'd work on weekends if I could do that. It filled up while we were in there, but that didn't affect how quickly the food came. I didn't get anything, but I sampled his mozzarella sticks. I liked them because they weren't greasy at all, which is why he didn't think they were great. He ate and almost finished the massive burger they'd served him. I don't know what was more tiring--walking over four miles through the city streets or finishing that huge meal. Even watching him eat that meal was exercise for me.

Let The Sun Shine In

I have wanted to go to Times Square Summer Solstice yoga since it started. Every year, June 21 comes around and I have stuff to do. This year, I put it on my calendar way before June so that no stuff would get in my way.

It came at a perfect time. I'm getting back into a yoga groove lately and sadly haven't taught a class in two weeks, so it was much needed. I took a train into Penn and walked to 47th and Broadway where check-in was. I got there much earlier than the 5:30 requested time. That was a good thing. There were barricades up and lines to weave through. I stood and waited in a ball of sweat since the walk left me a little breathless. It really wasn't so much the walk than it was the people who don't know how to walk down a busy city street that really got to me. Again, yoga was coming at the perfect time.

While on line, someone from the story Lucy took my picture. Cute, huh?

She was like, wanna do a yoga pose? I was like, I have a lot of stuff. She was like, how about a peaceful Namaste? So I did it.

As they let us through, they handed out a mat and a bag and a water. The bag had a chocolate peppermint Luna bar (I usually don't like Luna bar flavors but this was delish), a few magazines, a lip balm, and a bunch of coupons. I was happy to finally be let in because at the beginning of the line, participants who had signed up prior to the event were getting headed with the staff because the participants wanted to make sure they got in before the other people on the far line who had not signed up beforehand.

Seriously, it was a free event and they gave us free stuff. AND it's a yoga event. Find your Namaste, people.

The mat was thin but good for non-slip action. I used it under my own mat so that my mat did not touch the surface of the streets of Times Square. I found a spot on the step in the middle and put my bags around it widely to save some room for AK. People were coming over and telling us to push closer and close up the gaps. I pushed and then moved back when they left.

It filled up pretty quickly. More people had wedged their way into the row I was in. AK texted about a half hour later and said she was almost there. By the time she got there, the guards were not letting people into the space I was in anymore. They were being sent to the next spot across the street. We did some phone calling and she did some kindly asking, but the guards kept sending her across the street. She was one of the first ones there, though, so she got to pick her spot first. I told her that she had to come across as soon as we were done so she could see all the free stuff we could get. One of AK's more admirable talents is her ability to get free stuff. I figured that if she didn't get the stuff they were actually giving away, she'd somehow go home with all of Times Square in her pocket free of charge.

It started soon after that with a speaker and instructor welcoming us. Pretty soon, we were sitting with our eyes closed in Times Square. There was a lot of talk about honoring each other. There was a lot of talk about what the solstice was. There was a lot of talk about the sun.

Then she left and someone from the Times Square Alliance went up to explain how he started the Summer Solstice in Times Square. There was a lot of thanking corporate sponsors. Then he introduced us to our instructor, Douglass Stewart. This guy got us right into the groove of yoga as well as our surroundings. He took us through a sometimes challenging routine complete with light-hearted humor. He was completely inspiring. Some women around me were having trouble following along with some of the postures, but they kept at it and kept laughing as he encouraged everyone. I did all the postures and even got my ass and feet up in what I call Raven and what everyone else calls Crow. I was like, wow I'm doing it. And then I looked ahead of me and saw the woman in front of me doing it perfectly. That was a downer. But then I looked up at the screen, saw the instructor with a big smile telling everyone how well we were doing, and I was fine again.

By the time he told us to sit on our mats, I was ready for it. Everything was a little bit sweaty. Even though my mat wasn't in direct contact with the ground, things were getting icky. Stuff in the air was attaching itself to me. Basically, I was gross and ready to be done soon. I don't know how people were walking around barefoot. I love to be barefoot, but I've also experienced cityfoot when I wear my flippies for a long time in the city, and cityfoot simply doesn't come out until after a few showers, so being barefoot was not something I was quite ready for. I was happy to have the experience of lying down in Times Square. It was something I wouldn't do in any other situation.

When the class was over, everyone gathered their stuff quickly. AK appeared in my section and we hit the booths. Some woman got all bent out of shape because she thought we cut a line we'd been standing on. Not very yogi-like, lady. Some people just don't get it. AK and I didn't budge. We ignored her. The line was to spin a prize wheel for a radio station. Really, not something to get all in a huff about.

Then we got some free towels from Febreeze and a bunch of bite-sized Luna bars. I wish Luna Bars would come in those sizes in the store. I would be more likely to buy them. Not having eaten dinner, they were exactly what I needed. I finished off the free water I got and later on read that the bottle was biodegradable. It's probably really expensive because of that so I wouldn't buy it. The water was good though, if water can be good.

The brochure for Solstice in Times Square says, Anyone can find tranquility on top of a mountain. Can you find it here?

I can happily answer, Yes. It was the complete yoga experience. I have it written on my calendar for next year already.

Watch live streaming video from timessquare at livestream.com

The Poseidon Adventure

These are our Mermaid Parade outfits. I am dressed in the spirit of the mermaid. Eddie is dressed in the spirit of "I'm taking my girlfriend to the Mermaid Parade because I love my girlfriend."

Words really cannot describe what goes on at the Mermaid Parade. And so, I give you the short version:

Let's Talk About The Sink

Using the kitchen sink was causing a leak.

We stopped using the sink.

The plumbers came, made a big hole in the wall, took out a pipe, sealed something, and told us we could use our sink.

We used the sink.

My landlords/parents called. The basement was wet again. The leak was still happening.

We stopped using the sink.

Seriously, I thought about washing the dishes in the tub instead of carrying them down to my parents' kitchen to wash them. It was getting that annoying.

The plumbers came and looked at the pipes through the hole again. Then they went downstairs to my parents' kitchen. Then they went to the basement. Then we didn't see them for a long time but we did hear a saw at work.

They removed a joint that was clogged through almost solid with black stuff. Gross.

They said it was all fixed now and that we could use our sink.

We started using the sink. So far, no more water in the basement. We can wash our dishes again.

And now for the fantastic aftermath.

1. It smells. The kitchen smells like wet wall. The hole smells. The cabinets smell. I keep the window open. I turn the fan on a lot. I spray cleaner at it. It stopped smelling for a while but started again. Tricky.

2. Everything that was in the cabinets when they made the hole is covered in wall dust. So now, in addition to our regular dishes, we are washing pots, pans, bowls, lids, and tupperware. The cabinets have several doors but it's one long shelf on the inside, so nothing blocked the dust, and everything is dirty.

My parents are thinking about redoing the kitchen up here. I told them not to bother, but if they put in a dishwasher when they redo it, then maybe it's not such a bad idea.

Very Dangerous Territory

Gambling has never been on my radar. My obsessiveness in other parts of life (aka having to finish P 90 X simply because I started it) I could see easily becoming a problem for activities like gambling. However, Eddie taught me how to play Texas Hold Em, so I wanted to see how I could use my newfound knowledge.

I entered my first Texas Holdem tournament online. You know that games button on the MSN homepage? It takes you to a whole bunch of mindless fun. I sway towards Text Twist, Mah Jong Dimensions, BubbleTown, and Shape Shifter. But they also have card games. Who knew?

One reason seasoned card players would hate playing with me is that I have no fear. I call almost everything. So there I am in the first few rounds of cards, and I'm racking up the chips because I'm calling everything and making seriously absurd bets and people fear me.

A second reason seasoned card players would hate playing with me is that I am completely inconsistent in betting. I have no tells because I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Some hands I call, some hands I raise, some hands I go all in, for no reason other than it's fun to do.

Some nail-biting moments occurred from time to time when I asked Eddie for advice and he told me what to do and I put my arms around my head and squealed as I waited. Every time, his advice panned out. We're a good team.

For the most part, however, he wanted to see me play my own way. Which means strategy-less. Without strategy, in a game with over 120 players, I came in 44th. That's the top half!

I lost on a hand that I should have won. The other guy got lucky with some weird pair, like a pair of threes that he should have never called. Then again, I would call a pair of threes, so good on him.

Fast forward to a few spare hours and the poker chips left here from Eddie's poker night. I asked if we could play each other for real to see how good I am. One on one poker is different from poker with a bunch of people as I learned in the first few hands of losing.

We didn't muck so I learned quickly that all the hands I called that I probably shouldn't have in a tournament I could definitely call one on one. Okay, I have no problem with that.

Eddie folded on a hand because, and I quote, "You totally have a Queen because your eyes lit up when you saw it on the flop. You need a poker face."

I had nothing and laughed maniacally. Who needs a poker face?

Then Lunatic Eddie went all in on like the fifth hand because, and I quote, "You are totally bluffing."

Game one went to ......ME. Why? Because I had like a flush.

We played again. This time, he was more strategic. The game was longer. We went back and forth. I kept calling when I had nothing. I had most of the chips and then went all in when I had nothing and he won most of them back.

Game two went to ..... ME. Why? Because I rock this game so hard.

Yeah, that's right. I'm headed to AC.

Going For A Double

Because the Kentucky Derby and The Preakness were huge events for me this year and we'd spent them both with S and R, Eddie and I saw them one more time for the trifecta. We had to meet in the city because the traffic for the Belmont Stakes was going to take up the entire Belt and that's the only way to travel between our houses. In the city, we found Triple Crown, named for the third horse race and where the placemats have a typo.

We all bet this time. Eddie chose the same horse that lost the first two races when he chose him. Then he made me choose Shackleford again because I was having a hard time choosing. At first, I wanted Isn't He Perfect but didn't have fun yelling it out loud, which is how to choose a horse, and then I played with the idea of choosing Nehro, but Shackleford was just too fun to say.

S chose Isn't He Perfect. R chose "five up from the bottom," which turned out to be a horse whose name no one knew how to say, Monzon.

We met S at Triple Crown and decided to go in because they had on their sign outside that they would be showing the race. I wanted to walk in where the hostess was standing but they told me we had to go through the door on the side. The entire front of the restaurant was open--it has one of those open seating sidewalk areas and the entire wall opens up to it--but no, we had to walk through two doors. The hostess was there waiting for us, so I'm sure she heard the entire debate and thought we were dumb.

We ordered apps while waiting for R to arrive after working. The apps were okay. Not the best looking chicken fingers. And more importantly, not the best tasting. We ordered food shortly afterwards when R arrived, and the entrees weren't all that special either.But we were there for the horses anyway.

The time finally came to parade the horses out to the gate. My horse was walking sideways. Of course he was.

Then they were off! Shackleford! Shackleford! He lead the whole time. He was out in front. It was not a joke. Then, in the final stretch, everything fell apart.

Ruler on Ice wins! Ruler on Ice wins!

Who the hell is Ruler on Ice? Oh, that's the horse with the jockey who's wearing neon pink and orange. S was gonna pick him. Instead, as aforementioned, she chose Isn't He Perfect who came in last. Monzon didn't place very high and MuchoMachoMan, Eddie's horse, came in forth I think.

As for Shackleford? I think Shackleford is still running, perhaps backwards.

When it was all over, R said to me, Seriously, you were freaking me out because your horse was like in front the whole time. I was going to make you play the Lotto tonight. Wow, I thought you were lucky.

Glad I didn't freak you out, R.

So we all came up losers at Belmont and now we have to wait until next May for the excitement to begin again. We left Triple Crown through the window.

Old Routine Becomes New

I'm back to my old cardio and strength routines. I haven't been this happy in about 90 days. I wonder why. (cough cough Tony Horton cough cough).

The only change I'm making is instead of doing weights three times a week, I'm doing them twice and replacing the third with a different strenght activity like yoga or yogalates. We'll see how that goes.

This morning, I'm doing a step routine. I'm sweating a lot. Eddie's at the dining room table, eating some Fruity Pebbles. We're chatting a little. Then he says, This workout is crazy.

I ask, Why's that?

He answers, Because you haven't stopped moving forever.

Heh heh. That's cardio for ya. The monitor that I won gives me all kinds of stats for routines like this, and I'm still trying to figure out why it tells me that I'm not in a fat burning zone for longer than eight minutes of a 45-minute workout.

I'm not going to get crazy about it, though. I like my cardio. I like what I'm doing. I'm going to keep doing it. Part of being fit is sticking to it and liking it. The only reason I stuck to P 90 X for the second time was my problem with obsession. I didn't like it. So in that light, I'm fitter now more than ever.