Yesterday the conclusion of the Readers' Studio was excellent, had a lovely time and really got SO MUCH out of revisiting the Foundation Spread. Wow.
Then Andy and Michelle were stellar friends who drove to Newark to pick me up, and we hung out in Gramercy with Vic and Ali B, watching Milo be cute and messy.  I can't believe he's one! Eek! I also got to use my Transparent Tarot on someone for the first time, reading for both Michelle and Ali. It was pretty interesting, and seemed to work well.  What a great adjustment to my usual nine-card grid this deck provides.
After dinner I headed back to E's where I decompressed a bit, then we played a cutthroat game of Super Deluxe Double Scrabble, which has twice the tiles and a bigger board with QUADRUPLE letter and word scores.  Currently there's a ten-point gap between scores and it's been close ever since I caught up with E's fantastic second round Scrabble. Geez.  I persevered, though, and closed up the gap. We'll hopefully finish up this evening.

Tomorrow is my flight back to Houston, I'll be leaving here in the early hours to sit around Newark and read some of my new books.

Museums visited:
- The Museum of the City of New York (Awesome! This is a small but mighty place. Wonderful paintings of ironwork from historic brownstone front stoops; new miniature paintings and dolls from the Dollhouse; an exhibit about Dutch New Amsterdam and Hudson; and a big display of dresses from the Valentina line.  Oooh.)
- The Guggenheim (terrible - they had the entire thing dismantled to install a new Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit, so you couldn't really walk any of it. We paid $6 to see about 35 paintings in the two open side galleries and take photos from the ground floor.  Meh.)
- The American Museum of Natural History (Fun! We went to a planetarium show, I fangirled Neil DeGrasse Tyson, we petted the meteorite in captivity, we went through lots of amusing taxidermy and dioramas, learned about Human Origins, and saw dinosaur bones.)
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Pretty good. I went specifically to see Madame X by John Singer Sargent, but she had been taken out of her gallery. D'oh! So I visited William, as I do every time I am there if his gallery is open, and saw lots of other 19th and early 20th century paintings, skipped through some of the Asian art, zipped through European Deco and Medieval Art, lingered in the Classical Sculpture atrium, ran through the Greek and Roman galleries, and did something I have never done before - I went to the Roof Garden. Yay!)

Also trekked across Central Park by way of both open levels of Belvedere Castle. 
Result of the two days walking: two blisters, one on the bottom of each foot.  Ow ow ow.

I also got to have lunch with Carolina today, and yesterday I met some great tarot folks whom I will see again this weekend.
Last night was Liam's Birthday Quiz at the Baker Street Pub. We had a nice group of Squirrels out for it, surprising Liam, and we gave him a card from all of us. (Note to self: never go into the children's card section of CVS with E. Had we goten any more hysterical I'm sure they would have thrown us right out.)

Also, have eaten Vietnamese, Thai and Indian so far. No major stomach issues. Hooray!

Tonight is the Rocky Sullivan's Pub Quiz out in Red Hook, and I expect we will be getting in from that quite late. I am leaving in the morning for the conference in NJ.

shogunsquirrel tells me that the photo question of the day for one of her friends' groups  is "Why is this man glowing?"




shogunsquirrel:I must think of something good and B5-ey to reply
me: for that photo?  what is he thinking? "Woohoo!"
me: or why is he glowing.
shogunsquirrel: why is he glowing is the question. though I like.... WOOHOO!!!
me: because Delenn did the Woohoo thing again
shogunsquirrel: getting there
me: also... why is he glowing. To prevent the BIG BOOM.
me: also... because his attache just gave away the homeworld.
shogunsquirrel: because in just a few short years he will get to be on a vastly better series with only fractionally better special effects.
me: also... because it's the universal branding for "Vorlon Inside@"
shogunsquirrel: hmm, don't like that one nearly as much.
me: dude, that is CLASSIC B5 GENIUS!
shogunsquirrel: I'm dealing with Normals.
me: I see that my yardstick of "What Would Jaye Think?" is not going to work here.  ;P

me: i also had a story breakthrough. sorta. complications.
shogunsquirrel: yaaaay!!!!
me: my problem with the story is that I was thinking of how the mage-world is organized, you know? all the urban fantasy has some kind of hierarchy, and I thought about the family connections, and suddenly I have the Magical Mafia.
shogunsquirrel: how'd you sort it out?
me: and THEN I thought, "but wait, these are just the Russians. What about all the other ethnic groups in NYC?" and then it got weirder.
shogunsquirrel: niiiice!
me: so suddenly there isn't a single Council a la Dresden Files, or a Head Wizard Oversight Committee in Manhattan, but dozens of ethnically diverse, *magically* diverse communities and a set of folks trying with limited success to be the Magical UN.

And it got more interesting from there, but a bit bogged in details.
Once more my worldbuilding has exploded all over my notes, leaving gooey bits of depth and culture all over everything.
Maybe this won't be such an impossible exercise after all.

me: oogh. I should not be indulging in chocolate.
shogunsquirrel: is it really good chocolate
me:Thin Mints
shogunsquirrel: then tasty.
I had okra in my Indian food last night- I was skeptical initially but it turned out to be tasty
me: woot!
hm. i wonder where Kate and company are from... New Yorkers or transplants? that brings up interesting ideas... maybe her family was killed somewhere else, somewhere they escaped from...
but they can't ever really escape because the global magical community is so small.
amazing that I could get that out of okra in Indian food.
shogunsquirrel: you're just talented