It’s almost 10pm on Tuesday night my time. I had believed I would get through the entire day without turning on my laptop computer, but it looks like I have formed a habit. Email seems to run like blood in the American cultural veins, and I believe it’s time for a transfusion.
In the past week my body clock seems to have gone haywire. I’m awake until three in the morning, then tossing and turning until I get up mid-morning. Going back to the manuscript – UQP wants a final draft by the end of the month and I need to tweak certain parts of it first – seems to have exhausted me. At the same time I’m trying to finalise other aspects of my professional activities here and do things like work out what I’m actually going to do back in Sydney.
But today I received two blasts from the past. One in the form of an invitation to my 20th high school reunion – surely there must be some mistake – and second, an al fresco lunch at the Central Park Boathouse Bar & Grill (above) with my old University of Sydney pal Derek, who’s in town with a friend to attend a wedding. Several photographs were taken, but not on my camera, as we chatted about the spectacular weather (the humidity has vanished in the last two days) and the respective virtues of the Metropolitan and Guggenheim Museums to the visitor with only one or two days to spare. A bottle of wine and two hours later, I waved Derek in the direction of the Met and proceeded to the Frick Collection at the corner of 5th Avenue and 70th Street, my favourite small museum in the city. That will have to be the subject of my next post. Night-night.
