Our apartment in the city isn’t far from ground zero and the other night, when Denis and I were on our way home, we noticed that the twin towers of light are shining again this week in honor of the memory of those lost in 2001. I took a photo:
There are actually two beams of light, but from my angle it looks like one. If you do a google image search you will see some very stunning shots of the memorial lights from across the Hudson and from various other angles.

When I took the photo, it was just getting dark, and a few other people who were wandering by stopped to look up at the lights. The view was partially blocked by the buildings near us. You could only really see them from where we stood, on the corner there. It was so quiet. I wish the image wasn’t so blurry. My hand was shaking.

Today, I finally got to visit the new High Line park, here in Manhattan.

The High Line is a park/walkway built on the old elevated freight train lines that used to run along the west side of the city. We live downtown, so I’ve been looking up at the old elevated tracks and watching trees and plants seemingly sprout overnight. From below, it looks like this:

From above, it now looks like this:

Yes, that’s the Empire State Building in the background.
It’s a great way to see the city and notice architecture that you haven’t noticed before:

And you can walk from 20th Street to Gansevoort Street in no time at all. It’s like the Hudson River Park, which runs along the Hudson River Parkway, the entire length of Manhattan. On the Hudson River Park, there’s a bike path and you can ride from Canal Street to the Upper West SIde in about ten minutes. I’ve done it! Beautiful plantings along the Hudson River Park, I’ll take some photos there someday soon.

Anyway, if you have a chance, check out some of the links on the High Line website, like this one, which tells of a singer who has started to do a nightly cabaret act – from her fire escape!

Well, it’s my two favorite things in one – New York and nature. It’s a place to contemplate architecture, horticulture, industry and it’s a great spot for people watching. You can watch those passing you by and spy on those passing below. There are spots where the park’s designers left the original train tracks and they sort of disappear into the wild grasses and flowers that are now sprouting up all around them.

There’s something very moving about these old remains of the locomotive era up there on the High Line. Something about that sense of history, of nature reclaiming a thing that was once great, but is now obsolete. It made me a little sad, but I can’t really say why.

Speaking of great things, you can see this as you’re heading south on the High Line:

It was very hazy today, can you see her? Here, I’ll zoom in for you.

My kids are both working and taking courses in the city this summer, so I have been in New York during the week, and only in Connecticut on weekends. Most people try to leave the city in the summer, but it’s my favorite time to be here. No crowds, no lines at the movies. No need to make reservations at your favorite restaurants – there’s always a table available.

We live downtown and I have to walk through Soho to get anywhere. Soho, as you probably know, was once a very quaint area, below Houston Street, where artists had converted lofts into studios and it used to be a very bohemian scene. Now, it’s a tourist trap. It still has very quaint, cobble-stone streets and cool old buildings, but, especially in the summer, you will have a hard time finding another American walking the streets there. It’s all Europeans. Two years ago, when the dollar was at an all-time low, these Europeans were literally filling hefty bags with their loot from Gucci and Prada. I watched them throwing our dollars around like Monopoly money. Now, they’re still flocking to Soho, but they don’t seem to be spending as much. Still, at least twenty times a day, I am asked, by very beautiful people, in very broken English, the exact same question: “Where …..is…the Chinatown?” I have actually started just blurting out directions to Chinatown, the minute a gorgeous Italian, French or Swedish person approaches me. I don’t know why they all want to go there. But they do.

The city, in the summer, is also quite colorful. Yesterday, I wandered through the Union Square Farmer’s Market, where farmers from upstate, and other areas, bring their offerings. I walked by all the stands once, then turned back and walked by again. The fragrances!

Fresh baked bread, scones, cinnamon rolls. Cheeses. Crates and crates of freshly picked beets, squash, onions, scallions. And the berries! Strawberries and blueberries everywhere you look! It’s the season, I guess, The farmers are the friendliest people and urge you to try their strawberries and sample their muffins. Yum.
Then I cut through Washington Square Park on my way home. Washington Square Park has just undergone a two-year long renovation and it’s more beautiful than I have ever seen it. I gazed at these hostas and silently cursed the sinister, roaming herds of Connecticut deer that devour ours.

I love these flowers, which I call “Black-Eyed Susans.” I know they have a latin sounding name as well.

It was a hot day and children were running through the fountain, or chasing each other around screaming, pop-sickle juice dripping down their little chins. I got a little weepy recalling the bygone childhoods of my own kids who are both, now, taller than me. I say it and I sound like an old lady, but …it goes by so fast.

On Thompson Street, every afternoon, this fellow takes in the sun:

Now, I don’t want any comments about how cruel it is to tether a cat. This guy purrs happily on his little cardboard box that he sometimes uses as a scratching post, sometimes a bed. Most of the time, he does what I like to do – watch all the people go by.

For you newcomers, a few people have become a little chummy on this blog (yes, I know, that might be a bit of an understatement, it’s become a big love fest here). Some blog regulars have become email buddies and a few – Barbara, Tracy and Kristin – decided to meet in person, in New York, a couple of weeks ago for an event they have dubbed the first annual Ann Leary Blogapalooza.

Tracy has written up her version of the big event, and for the past several days she has been trying to email the accompanying photos, and I’ve been trying to reformat them for the blog, but I’m afraid I couldn’t include them all, and fear that they might not be in the proper order. Nonetheless, without further ado, here’s Tracy’s wonderful report:

“The first Ann Leary Blogapalooza was a smashing success! Barbara, Kristin, & I all admitted we were a little nervous, but when we met, we greeted each other with hugs like old friends. Kristin brought her friend Lindsay, who she was visiting in NY, along, and Lindsay blended in perfectly. We all chattered away happily and luckily, the place had emptied out before we got there, so we didn’t disturb anyone.

We sang our praise about Ann & her books, and if you look closely at my copy of ‘Outtakes’, you can see all the little green post-it flags. They’re all pages where I found something that was hilariously funny, touching, sad, or where I really identified with Julia. Lindsay didn’t understand how we could become friends on a blog, so we explained how Ann replies to comments, and how fellow bloggers post things to each other in the comments section, and that some of us are now emailing each other, and are friends on facebook.

She still couldn’t quite grasp how this could happen, and I told her that when I found the blog at the end of March, I felt at home right away. I said that after the ‘Who’s Youer than You’ post, when many people shared things about themselves, it became an even more close knit community. We told her all about how Ann shared her and Denis’s vacation to Italy, and how down to earth she is, that we all feel like we know her, etc. She sat there in a kind of shock I think. We all told her she has to read the blog to understand, & she better start soon!

Yes, I’m the dork who made the sign. You can’t see it very well, but I had all 4 of us sign it to mark the momentous occasion. For future Blogapaloozas (I love that word!!!), I will be happy to make them, renumbering them of course. Hehe

After brunch, Kristin and Lindsay left to go to Governor’s Island, and Barbara and I decided to spend the afternoon together. We parted ways with more hugs and all said we were so happy that we had met.

I could stop here, but I’m hoping that Ann will indulge me and let me share Barbara’s & my adventures that afternoon. We had such a good time. We stayed in SoHo for awhile, walking around enjoying an arts and crafts street fair. Suddenly I stop and tell Barbara to look across the street. An artist had canvases hung up in a stall, and every single one was of HUGE bare women’s BUTTS!!!!! I kid you not. We laughed and agreed that we couldn’t imagine anyone wanting that hanging in their house. We walked further down and came back up the other side of the street, and I wanted to see the front of his stall to see if he painted anything else. Nope, just more huge women’s butts! We laughed so hard and decided that he must have a fetish. I SO wish I had taken a picture because mere words can’t describe it.

We decided to go to see this clock: http://www.scoutingny.com/?p=134#comment-79 I had been to see it before, and tried to photograph it as it did its magic on the hour, but it actually does it about 2 minutes before, so was caught off guard. It is gorgeous. So I decided to get it on video with my camera. So we get on the subway, but half way there we realize that we weren’t going to make it on time, and didn’t want to have to hang around waiting for the next hour.

Next idea, there’s a photographer who has a stand outside the Apple store at 5th Ave & 59th St, and I really love his photographs of NYC. So we change subway lines to head up there. We get near there, but find that due to the Puerto Rican Day Parade, we can’t get anywhere near there, and the cop I spoke to said the vendors there had probably been thrown out for the day.

So we decided to go to Make My Cake, a bakery in Harlem, just a couple blocks north of Central Park. I’ve been wanting to get there because they say have the best Red Velvet cake in the world (it will have to be incredible to beat CakeMan Raven in Brooklyn!). We consult the map and find that we’re not near any subway lines that would get us there, so decide against that. I realize now that it never occurred to me to take a cab, I’m a subway girl. Hehehe

We decided to just take the subway back to Times Square to check out the areas they have blocked off to cars, and have chairs out for people to sit in. We head over to Columbus Circle to catch the subway and decide to go into the Time Warner building to use the restrooms. At the top of the escalators is a Borders. Great, we’ll use the restrooms and make sure ‘Outtakes’ is displayed properly. We looked through all the displays and on the Fiction shelves, no ‘Outtakes’!!!! I checked the in store computer, & it said ‘Likely in Store’. So I went to the register to buy the same kind of laminated NYC map that Barbara has (I don’t need a magnifying glass!!! It shows the subway stations & lines!!!), whip out my copy of ‘Outtakes’ with its multitude of post-it flags, and proceed to politely harangue the cashier about the store not having it. I told her that they had to get more in stock, that it needed a special display, that when it came out in hard cover last year it was voted #1 Beach Read, & that it was hysterically funny, fabulous, etc. I went on & on. I told her to tell her manager that he or she HAD to order a large supply and display it. Of course, dummy me; I should have talked to the manager myself! [Editor's note: I ADORE you guys for this]

We head down the escalator, only to find that there are 2 humongous statues of a man and a woman. Coming down the escalator, what do we see but the back of the woman’s statue, and she had a HUGE bare BUTT!!!!! We just looked at each other and laughed hysterically! Barbara said ‘OK then, it’s just the day of huge bare women’s butts!’. It was just too funny for words.

When we got to Times Square, Barbara had the idea for these great photos:


[Editor's note: Seriously, I love you guys]

These were taken in one of the areas on Broadway that are closed to traffic. It is really pretty amazing, they have all these chairs set up (cheap ones for now, it’s an experiment to see how it affects traffic flow), and it’s so popular that it’s hard to find an empty chair. It also makes it much safer to walk through Times Square.

When Barbara & I got there, we joked that if the Naked Singing Cowboy was there, we’d get a picture with him as a joke, just for the blog, but he wasn’t there. I told Barbara about the 2 Naked Singing Cowgirls, one who is in her 20’s and hot looking, but frankly skanky because she wears pasties – ick! Then there’s this one: (These are especially for you Barbara since you left without the, uh, pleasure, of seeing her)

[Editor's note: Thank heavens the skanky one wasn't there]

Yes, this woman actually hangs out in Times Square like this, and believe it or not, she looks worse in person! The guitar is kind of holding them up, but those babies hang down really low! I’ll never forget the first time I saw her with a friend. She’s like a train wreck, you CAN’T not look at her!

I still had some time before my bus, so I found an empty chair, here was my view:”

Guadalupe just sent me a link to some very old photos she found of Denis and me on the web. I have to share this one.

It looks like I was midway through my sex change from man to woman. You’d think Denis might have suggested something with sleeves to cover those Popeye arms. I swear, I never took steroids. It was from pushing a double stroller with those kids – at that age – up the steepest hill you can imagine at Riverside Park in Manhattan every day. I was always too impatient to let the kids walk, because their little legs didn’t move as fast as mine, so I pushed them and their friends around the city in a stroller until they were quite big. I think if we hadn’t moved to the country, I’d still be trotting them around town in some sort of rickshaw. You get some serious biceps and shoulders from all that pushing.

I love Jack’s movie star shades. We were at the opening of some kids’ movie.

I can’t stop staring at those arms. What a freak.

Here’s a link to a video of me with a very cute haircut I had at the time. I was still nursing, that’s why my breasts were so large.

Yesterday I visited the Manhattan home of Lisa Sharkey and Paul Gleisher and their three children, and I interviewed them for an upcoming episode of IN HOUSE. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, Lisa and Paul live in a green, eco-friendly townhouse on the Upper West Side and they have written a beautiful book about “eco-fabulous” homes. This is their roof garden:

The green stuff that looks like grass is actually a form of moss that helps insulate the house, keeping it warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. It is a small eco-habitat now and Lisa says that the sounds of crickets on their rooftop at nght often drowns out the noise of traffic and other sounds of the city. In answer to Mary’s question on my previous blog, the moss that you see in the photo requires very little water and no mowing. Also no subsoil. Paul describes it very well in the interview. Also, I will find out who makes those beautiful blinds.

The interview was fascinating because the Sharkey-Gleishers know how to make your house more eco-friendly no matter what your budget. And they’re nice. And their kids are great. Lisa has won two Emmys, Paul is an award-winning architect. Carter, their King Charles Spaniel has the softest coat I’ve ever felt and he cuddled with me throughout the interview, making it even nicer.

We stayed in the city last night and this was the view from our window this morning:

Pretty huh? Well, it was pretty then, but now it’s slushing out. That’s right, slush is falling from the sky. Denis and the kids are attempting to drive to the country, but it’s snowing where they are and they’ve been driving for hours and are not even close to home. I stayed in the city an extra night because tomorrow I’m interviewing Lisa Sharkey and her husband Paul Gleicher who have co-authored a beautiful book called Dreaming Green: Eco-Fabulous Homes Designed to Inspire.

Click on the link above to see photos of their gorgeous “green” townhouse, and if you have any questions or comments for Lisa and Paul, post them here and I’ll ask them during our interview tomorrow, making this blog thrillingly interactive! The interview won’t air on IN HOUSE for a few weeks though, so you’ll have to be a little patient.

Anyway, I hope everybody is surviving the weather, wherever you are!

Today, Denis was nominated for a Golden Globe for the HBO movie, Recount!.

I was on my way to the set of Rescue Me when he called me with the news, which made me very happy, but I was already whipped into a state of delirious excitement that bordered on mania because a) I was approaching a major metropolitan area and b) I was leaving a very quiet rural area.

It’s 8:00 in the evening and I’m back in the country but I’m still wound up. I’ve spent the past couple of weeks almost completely holed up in my office and I had forgotten how fun the people can be!

I wanted to take photos of Denis’s dressing room for my blog, but I knew he’d be annoyed, so you’ll just have to imagine the world’s messiest dorm room, throw in a plasma TV and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what the space looks like. It’s a large room because he and the writers and producers and assistants all work there between takes. They have sports playing on the TV constantly. Every minute, whether they’re writing, sleeping, eating, being interviewed – whatever Denis and the writers and assistants are doing – a game is going on at the same time.

So, I was perched on a chair, taking it all in – all the show-biz razzle-dazzle (five guys watching a hockey game on satellite TV), when I saw Denis lift what I first thought was a small computer, but came to discover was a gigantic remote control. It was like a circus clown prop and I burst out laughing, thinking it was some sort of a gag. But, in fact, this is a real remote control that the guys use. It really is every man’s dream – a remote control that is impossible to lose.

I had gone in to do a video with Denis which promotes book buying for the holidays. When I get a copy I’ll post it here.
Now I’m going to try to recover from all the stimulation. I’ve literally been talking to nobody but dogs, and occasionally my daughter and husband, for weeks.

My daughter Devin and I are in Boston this morning. We drove Jack to school here, yesterday. We did some Christmas shopping and had dinner with my mother, sister and niece and we stayed overnight in a beautiful hotel room with this view of the Public Gardens:

Sorry, the window and rain make everything a bit blurry.

I told Devin that I remembered when they built this hotel. She asked if I thought, then, that I would ever stay here. I said that I never thought, then, that I’d be able to afford to eat here. But here we are!

I don’t know why there are still leaves on the trees here. Boston is farther north than where we are in Connecticut, but perhaps being so close to the water makes it a little warmer.

I always feel a little nostalgic when I visit Boston, but only a little because the city has changed so drastically since we lived here, now over 18 years ago. It’s so clean and polished now. I get all lost with the Southeast Expressway (do they even call it that now) being underground.

Well, It’s like New York. It’s cleaner and refreshed but has lost some of it’s original color that made it so great. It feels safer and less safe somehow. There’s no Combat Zone. Where did it go? But I will drag Dev around before we leave and say, “that’s where Daddy and I met. There’s our first apartment building. That used to be a comedy club. That used to be where prostitutes worked.” I’ll be thinking, there’s where I was young, and there, and there….

I’m sure many of you listen to Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac program on NPR, but you might not know that you can also subscribe, online, for free and receive daily emails with poems and information about writers. Today was a very nice poem, check it out!

I had a conversation with Garrison Keillor once. If Denis was here, he would debate this, because he was with me and insists that it wasn’t Garrison Keillor, but a bum, that I was conversing with.

We lived in the city then and had two mongrels named Rocky and Pongo. They were both black, scruffy terrier mixes and they looked like they were the same breed, though they were totally unrelated to each other. Anyway, because they were so cute, and looked so much alike, people were always stopping me on the street and asking what breed they were. I decided to make up a breed for them, because I got tired of having to say, “they’re mutts.”

So I started telling people that they were Galway Terriers. There’s actually no such breed, but the funny thing is that many people said things like, “Oh, my aunt had a Galway Terrier,” or “I have always loved Galway Terriers!” I mean, everybody thought they had known other Galway Terriers.

So, one night, Denis and I were walking our Galway Terriers ( I liked to say our brace of Galway Terriers) across Broadway near 89th Street where we lived. There is a divider between the north and southbound avenues of Broadway and at each block there is a bench where you can sit. Often, at night, it’s homeless people sitting there, but lots of regular people sit there too. So, as I was saying, we were walking across Broadway with our Galways, and as we waited for the light, a man said, “Nice dogs!” He was sitting on the bench eating soup from a takeout container. I thought his voice sounded familiar and when I turned I saw that it was Garrison Keillor!

“Thanks!” I said, and I wondered if I should tell him what a fan I was. I just wasn’t 100% sure it was him. I was 99% sure.
He asked what kind, I said, “Galway Terriers,” and he said, “one of my favorite breeds!” Garrison Keillor fell for the old Galway Terrier hoax!

When we crossed the street, I said to Denis, “That was Garrison Keillor!” Denis looked back and said, “That was a bum.”

I said, he looks a little like a bum because of that hat he’s wearing but it was Garrison Keillor! You could tell from his voice!
Well, we argued this back and forth and Denis still claims that we’ve never met Garrison Keillor. I have been wrong before ….a few times. I’m constantly elbowing Denis at red-carpet type parties and saying, “look…Madonna!” only to have him make me see that it wasn’t Madonna at all, in fact it was one of the wait staff. Or, conversely I will often not realize that I am talking to a very famous person and will make an ass of myself by asking what they do for a living. Then there was the time I tried to help Moby with his music career, but you’ve all heard that story.

But it was Garrison Keillor that night on Broadway. I won’t be convinced otherwise.

Garrison Keillor has a collection of the poems from The Writer’s Almanac called Good Poems for Hard Times. It should be an excellent seller this year with these hard times.

Anyway, there’s a poem in it that I love. If you are of a certain age and have been with somebody for a long time, I suspect you might like it too.

THERE COMES THE STRANGEST MOMENT
by Kate Light

There comes the strangest moment in your life
when everything you thought before breaks free -
what you relied upon as ground-rule and as rite
looks upside-down from how it used to be.
Skin’s gone pale, your brain is shedding cells;
you question every tenet you set down;
Obedient thoughts have turned to infidels,
and every verb desires to be a noun.
I want-my want. I love-my love. I’ll stay
with you. I thought transitions were the best,
but I want what’s here to never go away.
I’ll make my peace, my bed, and kiss this breast…

Your heart’s in retrograde. You simply have no choice.
Things people told you turn out to be true.
You have to hold that body, hear that voice.
You’d have sworn no one knew you more than you.
How many people thought you’d never change?
But here you have. It’s beautiful. It’s strange.