Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

The employment agency was rather a washout: the person I talked to said they don't get many editorial openings. There's some chance of temporary office work, though I wonder about a place that, while it has updated its forms to ask for an email address, still lists "Multimate" as one of the skills applicants can check off.

It didn't help any that I had to call cattitude and ask him to pull out the phone book, because the address I'd written down for these people doesn't exist: I had written East 42nd, and they're actually on 44th.

After that, I came home, got out of the business drag and into my cat-pattern tank top and jeans, and went out to meet L. She'd asked me to keep her company for a medical appointment, after which we wandered, hung out, and talked. The high point was discovering a community garden on Avenue B, around 6th Street: they were in the process of taking down the "closed for construction" sign and opening the gates as we walked past. This isn't just the usual neat plots of vegetables and flowers you'd expect: there are big old trees, raspberry bushes (one of which was bearing as we walked past), a wonderful tower of art and weirdness hung with all sorts of odd ornaments, a stream inhabited by turtles and koi, and a fig tree. I picked a piece of fruit off the ground, asked L "Is this a plum or a fig?" and she said "a fig." So I dusted it off, broke it open, nibbled it, and discovered that I like fresh figs. I gave her half, and ate the rest of the other half, seeds and all. Any day that I discover a new tasty thing is a good day.

After a while we went down to Chinatown, wandered some more, and eventually decided on New Green Bo because it was a definite answer. Disappointing dumplings, okay crispy duck, and excellent rice cakes with seafood.

She went home from there, and I went to Rose's Turn, where I hung out with baldanders, eleanor, roadnotes, Chuck WINOLJ, and a couple of people I didn't really know. Much music; I declined Eleanor's offer of crash space and left the bar around 11:30. I got to talk to Chuck a bit when he wasn't playing saxophone. He's planning to go back, finish college, and become a teacher, which seems excellent. His 15-year-old daughter is now going to Harvey Milk H.S., and he hopes that she'll be able to improve her grades now that she feels comfortable at school. He also wishes the press would just leave them alone, which I think it will, soon enough.

The other surprise of the evening--which I'm sure has been in the papers, but I've been skimming stuff related to 9/11 commemorations--is that they were shining two bright blue searchlights up from Lower Manhattan, presumably from Ground Zero, a reprise of the Towers of Light memorial from two years ago. L and I were just walking along Canal Street when we saw them.