High and Low

Wednesday was full of highs and lows of all sorts. The temperature reached a high of 96 degrees. My wallet reached a cash low. My heels were incredibly high. We found ridiculously low cost drink specials.

We also experienced high and low brow art - starting our day at the Whitney Museum of Art (passing by all the designer boutiques on Madison Avenue that you see in the movies), and closing the day/starting the night by seeing Avenue Q on Broadway. At the Whitney, we were led around by an impossibly cute and articulate curator who, to me, epitomized the definition of "young professional" in New York. She offered so much insight to pieces in the permanent collection that I would not have picked out on my own. We saw incredible pieces from when Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney first started her collection of avant-garde American artworks in the 1920s.

After changing into my previously described 90's bridesmaid dress from the flea market, and my new black heels (baaaad choice, Kendra), we headed to Havana Central for dinner before the theater. Amazingly delicious things were eaten, including lobster stuffed avocado, fried pork belly, calamari with sweet tomato salsa and melted latin cheese and chorizo (and a few margaritas may have been polished off, too). Holy good.

Next up was the Avenue Q show, which was hilarious and incredibly relevant to me as a near college graduate, unsure of my purpose or place in the world. The main characters of the play are actually puppets, and it added a really interesting level to the show, watching the puppets interact with the actors onstage.

After the show, we were ready to hit the bars. A group of seven of us headed back to a part of town we'd passed earlier on the bus but had yet to explore by foot, along Broadway between 110th and 116th - the land of Columbia. The area definitely had a college-town vibe to it, which was a great medium between the hustle and bustle of downtown and the more quiet neighborhood where I-house is located. We found a bar advertising $4 for a beer and shot (giving Rudy's a run for their money in the cheap drinks department!), and couldn't pass it up. The place turned out to be really cool, and we cheers'ed the night away, trying to ignore the fact that we had to be in class the next morning at 9 am.

9 am came WAY too early. Luckily, class was held in an air conditioned room with comfy chairs and couches, and the majority of class was spent watching Bravo's Work of Art: The Next Great Artisist. After class ended, we headed to Grand Central Station to gather inspiration for our own mini Work of Art-style competition.

The Grand Central Clock and turquoise ceiling.

Grand Central was beautiful and huge. The juxtapositions of order and chaos, historic and modern, rich and poor, beautiful and ugly were incredibly inspiring. I took a break from it all long enough to try a cupcake from Magnolia Bakery, which a co-worker at the Arts Council recommended as the best cupcake in the city. Delicious doesn't do it justice.

Just look at it! Beauty.

And then we hopped on a Lady Gaga themed subway train back to Morningside Heights. Danielle gave us each $10 to take to the 99 cent store on 125th to buy supplies for our works of art inspired by Grand Central. We only had 10 minutes, which was challenging, but I was glad because it felt like a microwave in there, and there was a weird guy holding a Cockatoo and talking to it in line behind me. Really.

By this time, I could have almost passed out from the heat (97 degrees!), so returning to our air conditioned classroom to work on my piece of art was so welcome.

Cara, Vanessa and I grabbed some nearby Chinese food for dinner before we all showed our art pieces and talked about our inspirations (may I take a moment here to exclaim again about how ridiculously cool and fun the classwork is!? I got to glue glitter to posterboard today.)

I love being a part of a creative group, and I really feel like our class of 16 is becoming comfortable with each other, which always leads to more interesting conversations and interactions, and for me, better work.

We hit up the I-house ice cream social before playing word games outside the caf for a couple hours. It was a much needed sober evening. We almost all broke ribs laughing a several points in the evening.

Being anti-social at the social.

Now it's to bed, with dreams of a cooler tomorrow.