It's the final countdown!

Queue up the face-melting guitar solo and the synth-rock; this boy's coming home!

Oh, but I suppose there may be someone out there who wants to know what I've been up to for the last few days. Sigh. So, I guess I'll start there.

Thursday.
Thursday was a long day. Actually, I'll go out on a limb here and say it was the longest day of my trip. Well, except for maybe the day I flew in, but really, there's nothing that makes sense about leaving home at 4am and arriving at your destination at midnight. Nothing. But Thursday! I get a phone call from Jose at Avenging Angels at 8am and at that point pretty much forfeit the rest of my unconscious-time. Brian and I go out for breakfast at this little cafe around the corner with the simple idea of getting some food-stuff and caffeine. Why are the simple things always the most complicated? To make a long story short, it was staffed by three women who all spoke French (though I suspect it was one of the women's only language) and apparently had the stereotypical French attitude of serving Americans. Or maybe it's an East Coast thing. I don't know. The service sucked though and it took us about half an hour to procure our morning rations. We walked along 125th street and then parted ways so I could go pick up my portfolio.

The third guy that I was supposed to talk to apparently had a lot on his plate, so he's been in and out of the office all week, and I didn't get a chance to talk to him. However, Jose did say that they were all interested and that they'd be in touch soon. Which, you know, is promising. From here I set out on my real errand for the day. The night before Stephany told me that this bakery (which I suppose is one of the mighty bakeries in the bakery world) had opened a new shop in Rockefellar Center and had these adorable shirts that said I cupcake NY. Of course there's supposed to be an image of a cupcake instead of the word cupcake, obviously derived from the I heart NY paraphernilia. I bet Milton Glaser would be interested in these shirts... Anyway, I'm at 18th street and 5th avenue and I need to get up to 49th street and 4th avenue. It's early afternoon, the weather is nice and I'm feeling pretty chipper. I decide to walk it. I don't feel like looking up how far that is, but it took awhile to hoof it that far. I find the little bakery, Magnolia Bakery, by the by and I walk in with my head held high because I'm about to buy my lady something she's crazy over.

Or so I thought. They didn't have any shirts. Not one. Let alone the one I was in search of. Luckily for me I had written down the information of their other two stores, so I call the next closest one to where I was. They don't have any either. Joy. I call the first store, and yup, they've got shirts. Oh, the bad news is the store's back in the direction I had come from. Not wanting to walk back, I hop the subway. Getting off the train I wander (which is rare for me since I usually know where I'm going, but I swear, the streets didn't make sense) around the West Village until I find the store. Well, first I found the line to get into the store. I waited in line and get into the store, famished I pick up a cupcake and a drink and tell the nice woman I'd like a shirt. Guess what? Oh, they had shirts. Shirts for babies. Nothing else. I had been defeated by a cupcake and a t-shirt. At least they teamed up on me, I suppose. I hop the train and come home. So let this be a lesson to you; if you're looking for something specific for your spouse, ask the stupid questions. Questions like, do you have them in normal people sizes, before trekking all across an island looking for them. Trust me on this.

Friday.
This was a great day. I had an appointment to talk to an art director type lady over at Penguin books. Actually, it was Puffin books, but who wants to split hairs? I hop the subway downtown and when I have an hour to kill before my appointment so I set out to find a deli or other such establishment. Whilst I was looking around I was struck by a deep dismay. I'm only a few blocks from where I ended up yesterday. A stone's throw from Magnolia bakery. If I had only known. Dismayed but not defeated, I duck into an Dunkin Donuts and order a pumpkin muffin and a drink. All is right with the world. I finish up and go wait outside the building where my appoint is fast approaching.

While I was waiting outside, absently leafing through a Communication Arts illustration annual I had picked up, my mind began to wander. I wasn't wandering anywhere in particular, but I offer it as explanation for what happens next. I was distracted and my wits weren't about me when from behind me I hear what has become one of the most gut-wrenchingly frightening sounds imaginable; and only fans of the show Lost can appreciate this. You know that tele-type mechanical noise the column of black smoke makes as it whisps about the island sucking people into holes and generally causing mayhem? Yeah, heard it from right behind me. I whip (no, I'm serious, I freaked out) around fully intending to see a giant amorphous shape hovering inches from my face about to strike. But it was a taxi. A normal, yellow, harmless taxi. Yeah, some of them have a receipt machine or something that makes that noise. That exact noise. I had heard it a few other times since being out here, so I knew what it was almost as soon as I turned, but like I said, I was distracted.

Having had enough with the noises of the world, I decide to go inside to wait. I check in and do all that good stuff and wait. I don't wait too awful long and Jeanine comes out to meet me. As we're walking back to where the show's going to go down, she tells me that another one of their designers wants to take a look at my portfolio as she's really interested in my work. We pick her up (for want of a better phrase) and she starts telling me she's looked at my site and really likes my work. I almost die. The portfolio review goes well, if only too quickly, but they both responded well to a few of my pieces and made positive comments. Apparently my ability to leave room in a dynamic compostion for type really pleased them both. Go figure. So, business being done I head back to the apartment. Brian and I went back to the MET and then went and saw Eagle Eye. I must say Shia did a better job than I had suspected he would and Rube Goldberg would be proud of this movie. That's all I have to say.

Saturday.
Brian and I definitely called it quits. It was obvious business was done and we were just going to kind of screw around and relax. We ran out to go down to the Society of Illustrators before they too decided to call it quits for the day, but when we got down there we find that it's closed for an educators symposium... or something like that. Crestfallen, we reevaluate our afternoon. We end up hanging out at Grand Central Terminal for a while and I was actually kind of disappointed in it. It wasn't as Grand as I thought it was going to be. I had all of these romantic images of it in my head and it just didn't deliver. It was pretty, but eh, not what I was hoping for. Then, a little later that evening we went over to Rusty's house for his birthday bash. It was a good time. I spent most of the evening talking to my new friends (at least I like to think so) Kurt and Zelda about all things illustration. It was fantastic. And that was it. Drinking was involved, but I'm 3000 miles from home, so I wasn't really intending on anything happening. Which brings me to

Today.
Brian and I went out to see a show at an art gallery that Dan Adel was in and that too was mildly disappointing. To finish off the evening we decide to hop a train into Brooklyn bound for the 36th street station to see Owen Smith's murals that were installed a little while back. We figured since one of our teacher's had mosaics in the subway, the least we could do was go see them. Then, we came home. That's it really. We got all packed up and ready to go. In about two hours we're going to head out to head home. I'll post again when I get home and fill it with nonsensical observations and whimsical musing. Until then!