I am fighting off a cold.  One indicator that I am unwell is that I am sitting in my hotel room in Manhattan in a NyQuil haze, drinking coffee, watching The Voice on my computer, rather than making a mad dash to spend my last three hours in the city visiting my favorite paintings at the Met.

The whole purpose of this trip isn’t in NYC, anyway.  I am going to see a couple of close friends in DC, and I absolutely need to be in good shape. (Getting other people sick is never a good idea.)  People matter more than art.  Some people, anyway. These people, unquestionably.

One of the nice things about NyQuil is that the construction next door which has been going on since 7 a.m. isn’t even bothering me.

I am enough of a nerd that recontextualizing classic rock/soul/pop whatever songs out of their original meaning bugs me no end.  This mini-rant courtesy of The Voice‘s Will Champlain, who dedicated Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come,” to his wife and daughter, talking about a change in their personal lives.  Nice, as far as it goes, but the song was originally about racism in America.  I feels wrong somehow hear it sung about personal rather than societal issues.  I’d be a lot more unhappy if Champlain had not done a very good job with the song.

Of course, the Georgia on Hoagy Carmichael’s (or more accurately, Stuart Gorrell’s, who wrote the lyrics) mind was a woman, not the state north of Florida.

Champlain has become my favorite, if for no other reason that this week he played piano on one song and banjo on another.  Sings good, too.  I’d go see him in concert.

A few weeks ago, my most passive-aggressive (we have a pleasantly genial, completely inauthentic working relationship) coworker walked towards me in the parking lot, gave me a huge bag of clothes, announced airily “I got these at a clothing swap; no need to thank me.”   I was annoyed: it didn’t say “friendship,” it smacked of charity.  Indeed, most of the clothes were ugly, or not my size.  There were a couple of things I decided to keep, though, and in the middle was a nice little black purse.

Last night, at dinner, The Rocket Scientist mentioned that I now had a designer purse.  Really? He pointed to the small “Kate Spade” label sewn on the side.  (It may be, in fact probably is, a knock-off.) Oh.  Later, we discovered a knife clipped to the inside lining.  Now I feel like a real city dweller: designer bag, switchblade knife.  All I’m missing is the small canister of pepper spray.

I’ll add to this later.  Right now, decaf (hot liquids FTW) and sleep.

ETA: I am now in Newark Airport. Oh, joy. I am waiting to board my flight to D C. Am feeling somewhat better. Have I mentioned how much I hate the iPhone WordPress app? Actually, that is not true. I hate typing anything on my iPhone.

Because it looked like it was going to be cold (NYC, December), I brought my school bus yellow parks (which is a story for another time when I have a keyboard). Soooo…. It is 52 here, 55 in
DC, and…… 48 at home. Well, I can use it when I get off the plane in California.