10:54PM
Yeah, I didn't think I'd get to today's writing today either, but it's almost midnight,and here it is, for what it's worth...
If you've made it this far, you know that the website for the blog has been moved. Talk about time consuming. I have to hand make evey one of the pages I wrote, with pictures, while I was in St. Barthelemy for those 32 days. But for consistances sake, it's worth it. I have part of the archive done, if you look on the side menu here, you'll see. I will get the rest of them done soon, so it'll be complete. I spent most of my day working on this. I got home last night just before it got dark out. I stumbled off the subway around 8:30 (?) and Jonathan had made dinner which was great, because I hadn't eaten all day on the flights (thanks Jonathan!). It was great to see him. I gave him the gifts I had for him, including two, "Rum Jumbies" which are glass bottles of rum shaped like a handsome, carribean bango player (I know, totally racist, or if not racist, just weird) but I had to get them because the 'shirt' on the Rumb Jumbie is hand painted and they have a small, straw at on the top of the bottle where the cap is.
Who knows if we'll end up drinking the rum, but I like the bottle and looking at the hand painted detail on a mass-produced product. It's a mini Warhol. The other items I brought back for Jonathan were: French nougat-which he promptly ate, a T-shirt, some shells I collected from the beach, and the best thing was, an intact, dried, puffer fish that I also found on the beach at La Grand Fonde a couple days ago. It's got all the little spikes and the teeth and the tail. It's kind of scary looking, but not so bad. He liked it. It's amazing that it dried in the sun without breaking, and that I managed to get it home - by placing it in one of my sneakers in my suitcase. We tried watching some Twin Peaks that Douglas had lent me, but it was getting late, so we watched part of one episode. I woke this morning and tried not to open my eyes because I knew I was in Harlem and not on the island in the Caribean. I could hear birds chirping (amazingly this is still possible. There is a surprising amount of birds around my building as the empty lot next door has lot's of weeded ground cover and some random trees that they like). So in my half awake state, I tried to pretend that If I got up, I would still be able to walk out the door and go right to the beach, or up to the pool, or just out on the deck. I didn't want to get up. I wondered what Douglas and John were doing back at the house. We took some nice Polaroids the night before I left:
I got out of bed, made some coffee, realized there was no milk having been away for a month so I walked over to the Righ-Aid across the street to get some. I called my friend Chirs Caccamise so I could go over to his house to get the keys to my studio which I lent him before I left for St. Barths. I went over to Williamsburgh and visited with Chris and Christina and we had some lunch. It was nice to see them and it was good to jump right back into meeting with friends. After that I met Jonathan for a quick lunch in mid-town and we stopped by the Tom Friedman sulpture show in the lobbie of a building nearby.
I made it over to the studio in the early afternoon and that's where I've been for the past several hours.
I'm not sure how I feel being back, and I'm too tired to think about it. Maybe tomorrow morning will be a better time to try and write. I either miss being in St. Barth's a lot, or I'm already back in New York with no problem. I can't tell. I do know that several times today I was trying to think what time I should go to the beach. I went to the beach every day, for 32 days straight, that's what I'll remember about St. Barths. Swimming in the ocean.
Well, tomorrow is the 4th of July. We're going to our friend Avo and Manuel's for a party on their roof. Scooter Libby has been cut loose by George Bush, avoiding any jail time. Happy Fourth of July America........good times.
That's it for today, see you tomorrow.
Flying out of St. Barth:
