February 2020

February. Still a good way out from worrying about the coronavirus.

FEBRUARY 1: Started the day with a walk through Fort Tryon Park, a visit to the Cloisters, and a walk through Inwood Hill Park with Jesse. It’s nice living close to the Cloisters, get to really get to know that medieval art they’ve got.

That night I met up with Becky to go up the Vessel, that got cancelled because of some rather unforeseen circumstances, we killed a bit of time in the mall and then met up with Trevor and Angelique for a super top notch dinner at this fancy Korean place called Kawi. No pictures! Because it’s 2020 and sometimes I’ll just enjoy dinner with friends.

FEBRUARY 8: Grabbed a few slices from LES pizza hotspot Scarr’s and brought them over to Andy’s for a good Andy time. We watched the Peanut Butter Falcon. It was actually a great Andy time. After that I went out to Carroll Gardens to try F&F Pizza, the new slice shop run by the Franks. Excellent pizza, extremely annoying clientele.

FEBRUARY 10: Had one of my little Come Follow Me gatherings. This one actually had a world-record turn out, these aren’t even all the people that came.

FEBRUARY 12: Had a bit of a brother’s Bushwick taco meetup. LOVED Taqueria al Pastor, it’s like Tacos No. 1 but BETTER. LIKED Tortilleria Los Hermanos, where you have to avoid forklifts as you eat.

FEBRUARY 15: Spent a nice bit of time walking around the Chelsea Galleries after cleaning the chapel. Really am coming to appreciate a good Chelsea Gallery walk-around.

FEBRUARY 17: Big wait for a spot at Nami Nori but liked it in there. Needed a slice of pizza from Two Boots to top myself off after.

FEBRUARY 22: Caught a matinee of Little Women with Heather in the auditorium named after my favorite theater at my most visited theater and now I ask myself: Why did I only go and see Little Women twice when it was in theaters?

January 2020

A dark, cold month, I suppose, because I don’t have a lot of pictures. And I spent the first week of the year having a spectacularly bad flu. But here are some of the pictures I do have from the later part of the month when I wasn’t sick at all.

JANUARY 17: Big Reunion when I get to visit Rob at a show he’s in town for. After catching up and getting the run through of the new collection, I dip into the MoMA for a bit. It’s a lot bigger now and, tbh, not sure how I feel about the renovation.

JANUARY 25: Big, big day: Andy’s Birthday. Party of the year every year. Later, a little bit of an LES walkaround and meeting Baby Yoda.

JANUARY 29: Dinner at the Usual with in-town Quentin, where we successfully predict that the restaurant’s days are numbered. But what can’t be numbered? How many of their amazing cheeseburgers I ate while they were open! (actually it was 8).

JANUARY 31: Oh, just some pictures going to and coming from work that I took.

I’ll be back with a MUCH bigger February post!

And Now, December

Handy to have this social distancing time to get caught up on the old blog. Let’s look at December 2019, a time when people roamed the streets, just doing stuff like it was no big deal.

December 4:
Went to Tara’s fancy party at the Ace Hotel, something you would really think I would have taken more than one photo of but, nope!

December 7: Ryan and Jeff slept over the night before. Went to Gotham West Market with Jeff for Corner Slice, checked on Hudson Yards for a bit, and then went down to see the Yayoi Kusama show as well see a new Richard Serra sculpture and a few other Chelsea gallery shows. Then that night I attended the annual Carols on Columbus concert, always a great Christmas kick-off.

December 14: Had the pleasure of volunteering at the Giving Machines with Chris. Had a few interesting people drop by while we were there to drop some money on charitable giving.

December 15: Rode the old-timey holiday train with Robert and Rebecca after church. May I recommend doing this sometime! You’ll really marvel at how much quieter our subway trains are now.

December 19: Was in pure Star Wars heaven opening night of Rise of Skywalker.

December 21: Home to Chicago! Emily picked me up from the airport and took me straight to Los Barrelitos for those super good tacos al pastor that they’ve got. Then we went out to the Oak Brook mall so I could make an exchange and check on this good old mall. And that evening I was reminded that nothing can bring a family together like sharing a decent meal at a crummy restaurant and complaining about it all the way home.

December 22: Wore the suit I bought from DI in 1995 for $7 to church. Then made the family enfrijoladas and Mom helped me make a dessert we're calling “snake surprise.”

December 23: Picking up Johnnie’s for the family, checking out who has good Johnnie’s line etiquette and who doesn’t, then went back to Oak Brook to enjoy a very nice meal with no complaints on the way home.

December 24: Greg joined us in Chicago and we took a hike walk. Then we ate chicken macaroni casserole for dinner and held our traditional Christmas Eve at home activities and went straight to bed.

December 25: Christmas! Made chilaquiles as part of the Christmas breakfast feast, got a new Scrubby guy, and flew home to New York to get right back to work the next day.