Huh? Do you???

Brian is at HIS HOUSE* not feeling well, something about a kidney stone and a ruptured disc, cry me a river. I'm at MY HOUSE with two screaming babies and a pile, a veritable pile



of work to do. The babies are upstairs screaming in their cribs and do I feel bad about this? Why yes, yes I do. And am I drinking a glass of Merlot? Why yes, yes I am. And will I probably finish the freaking bottle? Yes, indeedy. DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT? HUH???

OH, hey, my mother finally decided to contact me after WEEKS of silence. WEEKS. She sent me a dvd of video she shot when she was here in June. Looks like it was shot from some sort of hidden camera necklace, or something. It's really, really bad and dark and grainy. And bone-crushingly boring. Mostly it's my kids, wandering around, doing nothing very interesting. Occasionally, there is a shot of my knees. Or me in my bathrobe wandering through the room with a pile of towels. And the thing ends in the MIDDLE of someone's sentence. Photography and videography were just never my mother's thing. But hey, at least she's speaking to me again. Or something. Actually, after a week or two of fretting over her feelings, it's been incredibly nice, this silence. I like it when she doesn't speak to me. God, how sad is that?

I'm planning my grand trip to NYC in April or May of next year, when the twins are weaned. And I'm looking for suggestions. I feel the need to plan this thing out so that I don't miss anything. I would hate to come back to Austin after 5 days in New York and realize that all I did was sort of wander aimlessly around the Village (not unlike every weekend of my entire 4 years of college), occasionally stopping off for a cup of coffee or browsing in some overpriced boutique full of shit I didn't want. That would be TRAGIC, people. So, on my list of things to do I have:

lunch with Jodi

go to the MOMA

see a movie at one of the revival houses downtown

ABC home

um...

maybe visit ground zero (I know, tacky touristy thing to do but I feel a need)

and now I'm coming up blank.

Ideas, people! And not of the Empire State/Lady Liberty variety, I'm a New Yorker, I've been there done that. Where should I eat? Where should I drink? What do I want to see? Because I don't have a clue.

God I miss New York, I miss Boston, I miss the East Coast and the Atlantic ocean. I miss conifers, for god's sake. I miss wearing sweaters.

Shit, getting maudlin, must be the Merlot talking. Time to cut me off.

*Jesus God I'll be happy, so fucking happy, when I don't have to say HIS house and MY house any more. I mean Christ, we're together, we have 5 kids, could we not inhabit a single house together? All at once? On a daily basis? Seriously?