A Shimmer of Possibility

February Blues. I've got 'em.

I can't remember the last time I was so bummed out. The fact that I'm blogging at 3:30 in the morning should tell you something!

Sometimes when I feel like this, it helps to keep a running list, in a special little notebook I have, of things that make me happy. Maybe I'll do it here instead. In November, I did a post a day--Thankful for 30. Maybe I'll try a sort of Thankful for the Remaining Days in February. I'll just call it 20 Days of Cheer. My gloomy hunched anxious negative NY Jewish (and not in the good way) pessimistic self can just suck it up. Instead, I'm dragging out, kicking and screaming perhaps, the Hebrew Princess with the good haircut and sunny disposition.

To kick things off, let me share that, once again, I had a lovely day yesterday at the Museum of Modern Art. The best thing I've done this year, one of them, was to get a MOMA membership for myself and Sarge and Hedgie. The museum admission is 20 bucks, so visiting regularly would have been impossible without my card, my little key to happier times. The return on this relatively small investment has been enormous, and I can bring guests in too for 5 dollars each. So, yesterday, my wretched cold finally having abated, I spent an afternoon there with my mom and sister. I left Hedgie behind with Sarge, and it was a good thing to go off on my own. Really.

There's nothing like spending time in a museum, a lot of time, over a long period, to really feel like you own it. I liken it to living in a foreign country, in an apartment, shopping, cooking your own meals, using the public transportation there...when you're a tourist, it's different. You can't really get at the essence of a place with a quick stop-over and glance-through, which is why I'm not so keen on being a brief tourist when I travel. The same holds true for a museum. One visit can be overwhelming and not too illuminating. Several, or even many, and you begin to know the place, like I'm beginning to know the MOMA. I can find my favorite paintings now, and they're always there, just waiting patiently for me! The strange angles of the architecture are becoming familiar. The cafe menu (honey crisp apple sorbetto is the very definition of icy manna). The guys at the coat check. The crazy, precipitously dangling helicopter



The view from a second floor window, the one that I always like to pretend is my living room window



Do you notice how clean our glass is? It's quite a chore.

And the brilliant reflection of those same buildings



The stout, reliable bull-man-thing in the Sculpture Garden



We saw a grand exhibit of photography, by Paul Graham, poetically titled A Shimmer of Possibility.

And on the way home, it was so warm and sunny that we walked for awhile down 5th Avenue and stopped to look at the Saks windows, where they had a display of costumes from the Met (if you look closely you can see the reflection of my MOMA bubble ring--I doubt any piece of six-dollar plastic jewelry has ever given a girl more pleasure than this brings me)





And in a decidedly NY-ian juxtaposition, this van, belonging to the man who sells movie scripts on the street



...so hang in there Leah! Spring is on its way...eventually...

p.s. I'm steadily amassing a great collection of postcards, so if anyone would like to receive a really awesome art card in the mail, direct from NYC, just leave me an email with your address and I'll happily oblige. "theweatherinthestreets@gmail.com" Seriously!