Sweet instant karma

On Saturday I had to walk over to the East Side. I was walking down my block toward 9th Avenue, listening to my Walkman and carrying a pair of pants in a plastic bag (to be dropped off at the cleaners). Three tough-looking teens approached me--dressed to make their mamas proud in the requisite baggy pants, 5-sizes too large jackets, spandex skullies, etc. As they approached me, a tiny part of me noticed something was weird, because the one closest to me wasn't moving to make more room for me--was in essence, going to try to push me off the sidewalk. As I thought this, the guy stomped very close to my feet and yelled in my face "BOO!" and laughed and the three of them kept walking. Without thinking I turned around and ran up behind the guy--I could hear the other guys saying "Hey, watch out, she behind you..." WHACK! I hit him on the back of his head with the bag of clothing. He turned around, pretty surprised, and I stood there, kind of half-smiling. He looked at me--I think he kind of smiled back--but didn't pursue it further, just turned back and kept walking. I turned back toward 9th Avenue, and continued walking without allowing myself to look back.

Mna, that felt good. Guess he'll think twice the next time he tried to give shit to a lone female on her own block.

Marathon Sunday

So, yesterday I did a promo for the New York Marathon--Dawn Jones, from Sleeping in Tomorrow had sent an email about it a few weeks previously. Our station was at the 16th Mile Marker, at 62nd and 1st Avenue. I actually know that neighborhood somewhat, as Fare for All had performed just a block away. My favorite Mexican restaurant in the city, Manana, is there, and there's a great Italian place called Angel's, where the Fare for All people had taken us to celebrate after our last performance. It's not too far from the tram that goes over to Roosevelt Island.

Anyway, we were given thick grey warmup jackets that said "Best Buy" and yellow mesh caps saying the same thing, both of which we got to keep. I tossed the cap but love the jacket--great to jog in. We were to hand out yellow signs to cheer on the runners--we also handed out markers so people could write someone's name. The first runners came by around 11:00 or so. Very exciting being that close--since we had "staff" IDs, we got to be actually on the streets and the runners would be very close to us sometimes. The best runners are of course Olympic caliber-I remarked that was the closest I'd ever been to such elite athletes, literally just a few yards away. The women front runners were in amazing shape, not one ounce of excess flesh on them, these absolutely carved bodies. Then apres lui, le deluge--lots and lots of regular runners. I was wondering how there were some obviously not in shape runners among them, some pretty gut-ty. I would think just to be able toget that far, you'd have to train, which would work the weight off. It was tons of fun cheering for them--if someone had a particular flag design on their shorts or a country name on their tank, I would yell that out, like "Go Texas!" or "Go France!" (Damn, with all the horrible rioting and looting going on in France right now, they need all the support they can get.) After ahwile though, I stopped yelling out--even though I know how to yell properly, I still want to save my voice.

So around 2:30 we got our checks and we were free to go--Dawn invited me to catch The Weatherman at the NY SAG Film Society on 57th Street. Not a bad movie, although its marketing is suspect. It's not a comedy--there's a lot of humor in it, but there's a heart of sadness at its center. Shit though, the pacing was (appropriately enough) GLACIAL--it feels so much longer than it is, because it's so slow. But I enjoyed it. They were announcing upcoming screenings and they said Rent would be playing next Sunday at 11:00, 1:00, and 3:00. Since I'd been telling Dawn previously how excited I was about the upcoming movie, I leaned over and said "I know you have a husband and a bunch of other friends. I'm just saying, if you have an extra ticket for that, I would like to put in my bid." She said actually Carson (husband) wouldn't be able to attend, so if I wanted to go, the ticket was mine. YES! I am terribly excited--I will get to see Rent a week or two early! The one potential fly in the ointment is that I'm in A Christmas Carol at DeBaun (I am one of a small women's group of carolers--we're going to be doing publicity appearances around Hoboken as well) and we may have rehearsal next Sunday. I will BEG and PLEAD to get out of that. RENT! RENT, RENT, RENT, RENT--RENT!!!