Chicken

So I think if you asked Amy Hartman, she'd tell you that I'm a big-ass pussy boy.

She and I had a frankly wonderful day on Saturday, wandering Central Park in the sunshine and, and eventually finding our way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But it was in the park, when we made our way to the Delacorte Theater (where the free Shakespeare in the Park is performed) that Amy determined I should have my picture taken on the stage of the Delacorte. Unfortunately, to do this would have meant climbing the fence and sneaking onto the stage of the Delacorte in broad daylight.

I chickened out. I couldn't do it! Does that make me a pussy, or what? Alas, I'm afraid that it does. Amy Hartman, however, is no pussy. The picture to the left if of her, you guessed it, trying to convince me to follow her over the fence.

Wanna know something funny? The stage to the Delacorte is about ten rows below the top of those stairs behind the fence. We could have been in and out so fast that no one would have ever known, but in my sadly typical Lord Jim-esque existence, I couldn't drag my sorry ass over the fence to snap one little picture. Too scared of getting caught and punished. Sorry - it's the damn Catholic upbringing. Much as I've left behind, there's still a surprising amount of that shit buried in there. Who the hell would a quick trip over the fence hurt?

Ah well, hindsight's 20/20.

The rest of the day was incredible... which is not to say that the aborted assault on the Delacorte wasn't a hoot. Despite my embarrassment at being a pussy-boy, it was still hilarious, watching Amy trying to taunt me over the fence.

So after The Impossible Mission, we swung around and went up the hill to the castle above the lake just behind the Delacorte. This damn park is amazing. The picture to the left is of the "castle" (it's not really a castle, but for the life of me, I can't remember what the eff it's called) from across the lake to the east of the Delacorte. I snapped the photo before Amy had decided I needed to embark on a life of crime - or at least vefore she let me know where she was leading me. So anyway, we made our way up the stairs and ramps that are cut out of the hillside to the right, there, and ended up first at the sort of covered pavilion area there to the right, where Amy, indignant that I wasn't going to get a picture of myself standing on the stage at the Delacorte, insisted on having a picture of me at least looking out at the stage from above and behind... hence the next shot: Me gazing out at the Delacorte theater, hoping against hope to one day work there.

It's actually a pretty good picture - Amy's got a pretty good eye - if you can forgive the fact that most, but not all of the damn red has been cut out of my hair and I look like an idjit. What you can't see in this smaller version of the picture, since some of the detail was lost when I shrank (shrunk?) it for the web page, is that the back and sides of my hair are a dark brown with a lot of gray shot through, and the top is still auburn. I need to go get that crap cut out! Oh, and as if my life isn't embarassing enough, check out this little morsel - which in the interest of honesty I'm willing to proffer, but in the interests of vanity, I'm gonna make you work for... a full-size picture of my big-ass male pattern baldness spot. I'm hoping against hope that this is as big as it gets. When I get to Heaven or The Great Beyond or whatever you call it, I'm gonna have a few stern words for my maternal granddad over this whole issue, I can assure you.

So after our adventure in the park, we decided we were hungry and under-cultured, so we dropped my pack (in which I was lugging my big-ass I-call-myself-a-laptop-but-I-might-as-well-be-a-desktop computer) at her apartment, and we went to the Met. But first we stopped and got a couple of dogs and sodas from a street vendor in front of the museum, and had our lunch as we watched the world go by. We were so not alone - there were literally hundreds of people sitting around the massive facade of the Metropolitan just watching the world pass by. I forced Amy to pose for a quick photo after we'd shovelled our dogs down our throats, so she decided to give the "product-endorsement for Snapple" pose. Not to be out-done, I got my Pepsi bottle in the lower right corner of the shot. Just a measure of how weird we are, I guess.

The museum itself was amazing. I'm utterly ashamed to admit that I've never been inside before. It was everything I had thought it might be and more. I got to see one of my all-time favorite paintings, which I didn't even know the Met had: Arnold Böklen's The Island of the Dead. Or, I should say, one of the five versions he painted of it. The .jpg file I have of it must be of one of the later, lighter versions of the painting, 'cuz the version in the Met is remarkably dark. So much so, that you really have to peer into it to make out details that are more visible in the version I swiped from Mark Harden's Artchive (a fabulous website you should support, by the way, if you've got money to spare).

Anyway, there's just no damn way to see the whole place in a day, so we concentrated on the Impressionists, who we both love, and Degas, who Amy loves, and, of course, Böklen's Island . But then Amy, knowing I'm a big ol' AD&D geek from way back, dragged me off to the "Arms & Armor" exhibit, which was fascinating. What's remarkable to me about all that armor crap is (a) how tiny people were back in the 15th & 16th century, and (b) how strong they had to have been to haul themselves around in all that damn heavy armor. They could, no doubt, kick my ass, and I'm happy to keep my experience of anyone wearing armor limited to swords & sworcery fiction.

After we did the armor exhibit, we went and explored the American Wing, which is pretty damn fascinating itself, but unusual in that, unlike the rest of the museum, it's just crammed full of stuff that people have donated to the museum... the Luce Center for the Study of American Art is an amazing and overwhelming storehouse (literally - there are so many paintings, you wonder if, by the way they're all displayed, you haven't accidentally wandered into the warehouse) of American painting and craftsmanship.

The photo above is of the fountain of Pan in the courtyard before the American Wing, where Amy and I rested before tackling all that American art.

After we finished the American Wing, however, we made our way across the walkway above the courtyard over to the European Painting section - in the midst of which was the thing Amy wanted to see most: The Musical Instruments room. The photo to the right is of the courtyard seen from above. The statue of Pan you saw above would be beyond the right side of the frame in this photo.

The big disappointment for the day turned out to be that the Musical Instruments room was closed. Amy was six different kinds of disappointed about that, so were were planning on ending our day on a low note and heading off, when the strains of a string quartet drifted our way. It turned out that the impromptu bar/cafe on the Great Hall Balconey was having a live quartet and piano for happy hour, so we contented ourselves by fighting the crowd and settling in there for appetizers and a beverage. Amy was all continental with her Pellegrino Water, and I had a glass of red wine.

All in all, the day just out-and-out kicked ass, and it reminded me once again of why it is I love New York so much - because had I not insisted on kicking in the suggested donation, everything but the food & drink would have been free. It's one of the things that I love about this city... and though I've come to believe that worrying about work and money will be a perpetual part of my world-view, I'm delighted that this place is my home.