Why I love my grandmother.

After some last-second family planning, we went out to dinner with our cousins who live in Israel. I hadn’t seen them in over a year, and they were lovely and adorable (e.g. a seven-year-old cousin: “Well my busdriver is in jail now!”). I’m glad I got to catch them before they flew back.

To the point: my grandparents were there. My mother’s parents live in the Bronx, and sometimes meet me after, say, I cover a stabbing. As avid subscribers to the Daily News, they scan the headlines to see if I’ve contributed anything. So my grandmother brought a manila folder to dinner. In it were all of my clippings for the summer. I was so excited! That cuts out so much work for me.

But then, I noticed, on everything I’d worked on, my name was underlined. In red. Which means I probably can’t use them for professional purposes. Oops. But grandma was so cute about it: “I had a feeling that I was doing something wrong as I underlined, but I just had to.”

Meanwhile, lots of sneezing today. Yuck. I think people on the subway thought I had swine flu or something.

Chesil a go

After reading other reviews—and following Ian’s (oh, not McEwan! I don’t think that I channel the author’s guidance in my head…) advice—I decided, despite my unfiltered reaction to the “lazy” NYT review, I would forge ahead with On Chesil Beach. Plus, the New Yorker already got me 45 pages (or 1/5 chapters) in. So why not?

It’s okay so far, pretty good, not awful, not amazing. Worth reading, of course.

Aaaaanyway today my work assignment—not crime!—brought me close to school. It was good to be back and to bump into lots of people I know after hours. Also the sun has turned my cheeks red. But then it rained. And, of course, I was caught in it. Some things never change.

Also, I saw the South Pacific revival last week with my family. This well-done musical doused my parents and grandparents in nostalgia (my grandma sang in my ear…). I enjoyed the excellent performance, but question the value of reviving a play so historically and ideologically topical. The different reactions from different generations (at least within my family) showcased a conceptual divide: my brother and I initially had trouble grasping that a huge chunk of the plot turned on questions of marriage between different races.

This stuff was revolutionary when Rodgers and Hammerstein produced it way back when. Now, it seems sort of meaningless: the overcoming of these barriers is a conclusion that does not need to be told, let alone celebrated with three hours of music, dialogue, and elaborate sets. But its lack of dramatic intrigue in 2009 could be considered an artistic feat—a barometer that illustrates how far we’ve come.

Life in brief

Brief due to extreme fatigue. But here it is, just to keep track for myself

Yesterday I:
-started at the Daily News
-interviewed theatergoers on the impact of Archbishop Dolan’s visit to Irena’s Vow on their viewing options
-walked a lot
-went to the bronx to work on this
-took the train home, ate, read, slept

Today I:
-went to a press opening of the High Line, the elevated park where some cool people spoke
-met some incredible reporters and fellow interns
-went to a park in the Bronx for man on the street reporting (turns out it’s the park my dad grew up in. two blocks away from his first U.S. home).
-met a person who lives in a homeless shelter for medical disabilities since he very recently woke up from a long coma that left him financially devastated
-was walked to the subway by someone I interviewed in the park
-went out to dinner
-traveled home

Bullet points mean I am lazy. Will try to not do this again. Good night.