very simple

Photos from last Sunday’s ING New York City Marathon are now up.

[Update 2015] In an effort to reduce the number of holdover pages on the blog, I am slowly (very slowly) integrating these albums into the appropriate historical posts on the blog itself. As such, this album now appears below.

With the TV writers strike, I was actually thinking that it might be a boon for things like theater, since folks will be more actively looking for things entertainment-related to do.  Unless, of course, all of the Broadway stagehands also go on strike. 

Maybe this would be a good time to recommit myself to reading the giant pile of books that only ever seems to get bigger. 

From feministing:

Two California women were killed in a freak train accident. Police believe the high heel shoes they were wearing may have hindered their escape from a car stuck on the tracks, the Los Angeles Times reports.

I religiously wear comfortable shoes to and from work (even though I’ve got a closet full of cute shoes).  Usually crocs, or sneakers, or (in the dog days of summer) flip flops (the more substantial croc or merrill type, not the ones that fly off my feet every three seconds).  I keep some "nice" shoes under my desk and change into them when I get to the office.  I usually do this because it makes it easier to choose to walk to or from work when the mood strikes (it’s not far, but no way am I walking over a mile in 2-3 inch heels), but apparently there are side benefits as well, like not getting killed by the subway. 

Oh, and during the blackout of 2003, I had to walk down 25 flights of stairs, and then to the upper west side to stay with a friend who lived on a low floor.  No one was making fun of me that day.

I was still at the gym (just about to leave and head over to Central Park) when Paula Radcliffe won – everyone was gathered around the TV to watch – It took me a few minutes to get to the race route, where I managed to get a spot at the “200 yards to go” spot – These were the first female and male runners that I got to see in the marathon:

Bib number F23: Victoria Ganushina of New York (yeah!). Placed 18th among the women.

Bib No F22: Heather Killeen-Frisone of California. Placed 19th among the women.

and

From the official ING NYC Marathon page:
Aleksandr Kuzin [bib No. 10]
Ukraine
Age: 33
Residence: Ukraine
Kuzin amazed the running world by winning the Linz Marathon on April 15 in 2:07:33, the fastest time by a European (and second-fastest by anyone) this year and nearly a three-minute personal record. He has set two Ukrainian marathon records (the last beaten recently by Dmytro Baranovsky’s 2:07:15), and he has run on Ukrainian teams at several major events, including a respectable 18th at the 2001 IAAF World Championships. Kuzin must now be considered a serious podium threat at the ING New York City Marathon 2007.
***
He came in 9th place overall.
I’ll try to get an actual album up (with lots of photos of the not-so-professional runners) in the next few days.

the NYC marathon is today, and this is the first time, since I moved into my Upper West Side apartment, that I’ll actually be in town for it (last year I was living in Milan and the year before I was holed up at the offices of a financial printer in London.  Before that, I lived downtown, far away, in city terms, from the marathon route).

I’m not sure how much I’ll actually get to see, because you have to reserve seats on the bleachers to get a really good view, and I’ve got to meet my trainer from 11 to 12, but I’m going to drag my camera with me, and hopefully catch some finishers when I get out of the gym, which is conveniently located on 67th and Columbus, only one block away from the marathon end-point at Tavern on the Green.  They’ve also blocked off my street, even though I’m a few blocks north.  My doorman said that most people have to "exit" via my street, because it’s the first major cross street north of the finish.  So I should be able to get some good people shots at the very least.&nbsp

They’re actually expecting the first finishers (competitive men) to finish right after noon, so the timing (crowds permitting) is pretty perfect.  I imagine I’ll be able to see people hobbling around for most of the afternoon.

(NaBloPoMo day 2)

Posting immediately before and after midnight, by the way?  A really good way to kick out two days’ worth of posts in one sitting.  I thought this one should be a little bit more substantive than "hey!  I joined a new group!". 

So, anyway.  Last night was Halloween.  But instead of doing something traditional like going to a party or a haunted house or just sitting at home handing out candy, my folks and I decided to go see an off-off-broadway play at a theater near my house.  More specifically, this play.  That’s right, a one-woman show about global warming.  based on Lysistrata.  sort of.  with sock puppets. 

OK, so…the actress herself was somewhat engaging.  Incredibly self-absorbed (but what one-woman show wouldn’t be?) and overly earnest, but I did laugh a few times.  But the comparisons of herself to, um, Gandhi?  a bit much (the use of "ethnic" accents also bugged the living daylights out of me – overly "cute" bordering on offensive).  The incredibly over-long tangents about her personal life that had little to nothing to do with the plot or point of the narrative were crazy-making.  We all agreed that the show would have benefited from about 20 minutes of fat being trimmed.

of course, the best part being, while sitting next to my DAD, she pulls out the biggest, bluest [personal *massage* device] I have ever seen…if I wasn’t one of only eight people in the theater, I might have gone running out of the emergency exit. Yeah.  my dad’s a pretty hip, with-it guy who is very un-paternalistic, but there are still some things that I’d like to pretend don’t exist when sitting right next to him.

So…that was an experience. 

City Room at the NY Times today brings up a recent proposal to require supermarkets in the city to recycle plastic bags.  After living in Milan for six months, I don’t really understand the resistance to reusing plastic bags that we’ve got here in the US.  Over there, you had to buy your shopping bags (at 10 eurocents a bag) if you wanted new plastic bags.  Most people either brought used bags back to the store and reused them or had canvas or other types of more durable bags.  Since I reused my bags as garbage bags (they were the perfect size for my kitchen garbage can, and it made more sense than buying additional plastic garbage bags), I would often spring for new ones, but I was one of the few. 

But, since I’ve been home, I’ve converted myself – I have switched to nylon shopping bags.  I like them, because the little carrying pouches they come in mean that they fold up tiny and I can keep them in my purse/messenger bag at all times, reducing the need to get plastic bags when I decide at the last minute to stop at the grocery store on my way home from work.   Since I still use plastic shopping bags as garbage bags in my bathroom and under my desk, I still have to get some once in a while, but I find that need is overwhelmingly taken care of during the few trips where I either forget my nylon bags even though they’re easy to carry (usually after I’ve gone shopping, I forget to put them back in my purse right away) or I buy too much stuff and I need a third shopping bag.  I also got one of those little plastic bag holders for under my sink, so that I know when I’m running out of the plastic – this had less to do with recycling, than the discovery that I was accumulating plastic bags faster than I was using them, and they were taking over all of my under-counter space. 

Other things I learned how to do in Italy?  bag my own groceries.  Of course, here the checkout lanes aren’t really designed to allow me to do this, so I have to sit and watch while my food gets bagged, and then take my stuff, move to the nearest flat surface, and rearrange everything (somehow the idea of equal weight distribution for balance (since i have to walk about six blocks home from the store) utterly escapes the checkout person’s mind –  please don’t put the milk, tomato sauce and canned goods in one bag while leaving the other one for nothing but a box of pasta).

Back to plastic bags – I think a proposal to charge people for bags would be ideal.  Something small, like 10 cents, is low enough to not be a burden, but serves as a gentle reminder to maybe get something more permanent. 

…Anthony Michael Hall, futzing with his iPhone at the corner of 68th and Columbus, yesterday afternoon.

I’ve also seen both A-Rod and Jon Bon Jovi at the gym recently, which is admittedly much more impressive, but I forgot to post about it at the time.  Of course, I saw A-Rod right before the Yankees went to Cleveland to get their asses handed to them, so maybe I temporarily blocked it out of my mind. 

So, about a year and a half ago, I noted that, while I was shipping off to Palau for two weeks, they’d be filming a movie in our conference rooms with an

[extremely attractive, academy award-winning, awesomely liberal actor/writer/director].

Not that I’m giving away who such actor was, but let’s just say that if you might just want to go see Michael Clayton when it comes out.

Ever wonder just how much of modern manhattan is actual, literal landfill?

Check out this map superimposing a map of lower manhattan in 1660 onto a map of lower manhattan today:

Thanks to Gothamist for the link. I knew that they had used the excavated materials from building the world trade center foundation to build battery park, but I never realized just how much of modern lower manhattan that actually was.