ten things you can do when you have an address
1. Join the Brooklyn Public Library.
2. Join the New York Public Library (a long-held dream realised; the great stone lions figured prominently in so many books I read as a child. When I was first in New York, at the age of seventeen, they were one of the first landmarks I went to see.)
3. Start plotting attempts to gain access (licit or otherwise) to the academic libraries of universities you have never attended.
4. Join Netflix.
5. Join the Park Slope Food Co-op.
6. Start receiving the New Yorker subscription you were given two months ago.
7. Order prints of all those photos you uploaded to Shutterfly months ago, so the wall above your desk is decorated with a constellation of images: sisters, friends now scattered across many continents, last year's rowing crew triumphant on the banks of the Isis, and the wares of an İstanbul fishmarket.
8. Expend a considerable amount of time crisscrossing three boroughs on the subway, stocking your kitchen with your customary assortment of spices, herbs, sauces, pickles, teas, and other important foodstuffs. (This was easier in Oxford, where you could cover most of the same ground via short bicycle excursions to Lung Wah Chong's and Tahmid.)
9. Plan your first dinner party in the new flat (tomorrow night; it will be an eclectic Indian meal created with reckless disregard for the separation of distinctive regional cuisines.)
10. Run at least one loop around Prospect Park every day.
All of these go some way towards explaining the paucity of posts here lately, as does the strange assortment of jobs I'm doing at present and the schizophrenic mixture of procrastination & dedication with which I am attending to them. I am starting to enjoy the creaking slowness of the F train, because a long subway commute equals guilt-free reading time, and I am indulging shamelessly in library books. I'm off to go dancing soon, but will try to post some of the stuff I meant to put up yesterday & earlier this week, which did not get finished due to unreliable bootleg wireless access (and because yesterday I wanted to pay due respects, and not clutter the page with anything else).
2. Join the New York Public Library (a long-held dream realised; the great stone lions figured prominently in so many books I read as a child. When I was first in New York, at the age of seventeen, they were one of the first landmarks I went to see.)
3. Start plotting attempts to gain access (licit or otherwise) to the academic libraries of universities you have never attended.
4. Join Netflix.
5. Join the Park Slope Food Co-op.
6. Start receiving the New Yorker subscription you were given two months ago.
7. Order prints of all those photos you uploaded to Shutterfly months ago, so the wall above your desk is decorated with a constellation of images: sisters, friends now scattered across many continents, last year's rowing crew triumphant on the banks of the Isis, and the wares of an İstanbul fishmarket.
8. Expend a considerable amount of time crisscrossing three boroughs on the subway, stocking your kitchen with your customary assortment of spices, herbs, sauces, pickles, teas, and other important foodstuffs. (This was easier in Oxford, where you could cover most of the same ground via short bicycle excursions to Lung Wah Chong's and Tahmid.)
9. Plan your first dinner party in the new flat (tomorrow night; it will be an eclectic Indian meal created with reckless disregard for the separation of distinctive regional cuisines.)
10. Run at least one loop around Prospect Park every day.
All of these go some way towards explaining the paucity of posts here lately, as does the strange assortment of jobs I'm doing at present and the schizophrenic mixture of procrastination & dedication with which I am attending to them. I am starting to enjoy the creaking slowness of the F train, because a long subway commute equals guilt-free reading time, and I am indulging shamelessly in library books. I'm off to go dancing soon, but will try to post some of the stuff I meant to put up yesterday & earlier this week, which did not get finished due to unreliable bootleg wireless access (and because yesterday I wanted to pay due respects, and not clutter the page with anything else).
posted by kitabet at 3:38 PM
3 Comments:
By the way, if you find something missing at the Park Slope Food Coop, go to D'Vine Taste on 7th Ave in Park Slope, between Garfield Pl. and Carroll Street. It's owned by a Lebanese family and has lots of Middle Eastern treats (included some incredible pressed fig and other dried fruit concoctions), as well as lots of amazing cheeses. I hope you don't have to go to the ends of the 5 boroughs to find everything!
Isn't the Brooklyn Public Library surprisingly good? The staff's pretty nice too: I just suggested they get a circulating copy of A. Hourani's "Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age", and the librarian said he'd love it.
hey, just wanted to drop by and say hello. looks like u're really enjoying ur new place. i have friends going to new york next weekend and i'd love to go, but there's a big international history conference at harvard that i'm helping to organize so i'm going to be busy with that.
hope all else is well...sorry i didn't reply to ur MSN message that way, i wasn't at my computer (i think i'd fallen asleep!!)..but hopefully will chat soon.
love and hugs.
john: i'd walked past D'Vine before, but not gone in until yesterday. it's lovely (though a bit expensive given my current budget), as are the other places you directed me to several months ago. Any knowledge of a specifically Turkish grocery? I have some addresses WAY far out in southern brooklyn....
buchu: come after the conference! i'll still be here. I owe you a big pile of thai food ;) i have put that photo of us at rhodes house (with the stargazers in the background) up on my wall.
sepoy: alas, my urdu basically consists of endearments, swear words, and names of things to eat. which is very telling actually. but email me the details and we'll see what can be done....when are you in NY next month?
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