Uncharted Manhattan...

Having had my fill of downtown Manhattan, I decided to escape to the safe refuge of uptown Manhattan. I visited the Cloisters this weekend at the invitation of a friend and was thoroughly surprised as feeling as though I had escaped to the country for the weekend. The Cloisters are at the most northern tip of Manhattan and there are miles and miles of parkland with the centerpiece being a cathedral's museum that is an extension of the MET.

I met my friend at his apartment, which is located at 145th/Broadway. This was the furthest uptown I had ever been since moving to NYC and the first thing that I noticed was how much stimulus was everywhere as soon as you got off the subway. The same can be said for downtown at times but with it being the summer all of the downtown ballerinas are usually off to weekends in Fire Island or the Hamptons, but this was a different energy, and the mixture of races, sort of made me feel as if I had discovered Manhattan pre-gentrification. Anyhow, my friend and I had lunch and then jumped on the bus up to the Cloisters where it was an incredible afternoon of conversation while viewing medieval European art. The forementioned friend is 28, an attorney and someone I met at a speed-dating event I recently attended (no judgment). We have gone on maybe 5 or 6 dates and although I am far away from declaring being someone's boyfriend, it is nice to be with someone that enjoys the company of someone without pretense. Afterwards we had dinner and watched some TV really late and discussed the pros and cons of Kate Moss's getting caught snorting coke. On the train ride home this morning, I felt as though I was watching that energy slowly drain away as the train approached my stop and I was back in the world of make-believe relations, name dropping, and endless chatter of real estate, oh Downtown Manhattan, whatever are we going to do with you??

In other news, I am on the final pages of The Amazing Adventures of Kavelier and Clay, it a 600+ page book of friendship love(gay and straight) and life's constant struggles all based around comic books. I googled searched and a movie is in the works and should be released in 2007 with it being reported that Natalie Portman will be in the role of Rose a main character in the movie. Once completed with this, I will begin Unlubricated which I have put off far too long and is a short read.

Lastly, I have been given a promotion at work recently and it is something that comes with mixed emotions. It is still so new and everything is still so early that I can't believe that I actually got it. Once the dust settles a bit more I post more details until then....