Sunday, June 19

Central Park on a warm Sunday in June is a blizzard. Squirrels, bicyclists, walkers, dogs with funny hats (always on leashes), birds, tourists, locals, Chinese people with Chinese accents, blondes speaking some sort of guttural Slavic, old folks in athletic shoes, young couples with kids in strollers, softball games everywhere, a fancy croquet field with people grimacing in frustration after giving the ball a solid whack, runners jogging down the empty avenues that crisscross the park (no cars allowed on Sunday).

I’m waiting on the ‘senior’ line for tickets to Shakespeare in the Park (All’s Well That Ends Well). This is the first time I’ve been eligible to cheat. Instead of arriving at 6:30 am to wait for my tickets I was able to show up at 10:30am—all because I’m now 65. The regular line extends for a quarter mile, snaking down asphalt paths towards the reservoir to our north. If you don’t get there by 8am you won’t get a (free) ticket. But the senior line is barely 25 folks. I could have shown up at noon.

The regular line is a civilization unto itself. Musicians camp along the line and play for tips; deli's from the West Side of the park send young Mexican kids on bicycles with menu's. You can get a tuna sandwich or a knish delivered. Other theater groups send members of their casts to advertise productions in other parts of the city. Today's fare included an all-female Henry V. I loved sitting all those torpid hours befriending people near me on the line. The seniors are less friendly, at least today.

I haven’t eaten for 18 hours. That ‘s my usual summer habit. I get so busy that I forget, or I simply want to be able to brag about my self-control. There’s a restaurant 8 feet in front of me as I sit on the line but I convince myself that if I leave the line to get food I’ll be outed (you aren’t supposed to leave the line—they even have young folks who come around to warn you—sort of soup Nazi’s without the soup). Mainly I’m trying to reward myself. If I have the discipline to wait till after I have my tickets (I get two free tickets at 1pm) I’ll treat myself to lunch. Thus even lunch becomes a trial of my character in my demented mind. I follow the same mania all summer, refusing to take taxis or busses, walking long distances to convince myself of my own virtue. And money becomes part of the drama, too. The less I spend the more I think of myself as self-reliant. The Seven Laws of Money, one of my favorite books, has a line about this. I should go to Amazon and see if I can find the exact words.

Life in the dorm at the Gershwin is unchanged. I drifted into the room at 2:20am but there were still Scandinavian twenty-something’s laughing and talking while other folks tried to sleep. So many folks overslept that the lone bathroom we all share was all mine. That is a luxury I’m not accustomed to.

I blew up my budget for New York today in five minutes at The Strand, a used book store in Greenwich Village. I generally start my summer travels with three books, preferably soft cover. The issue is space in my luggage. I read about two books per week on average in the summer. Goodness knows if I’ll be able to find many English language books in francophone Senegal. So I thought I’d get the best three things I could find.

But when I started looking my fiscal restraint went out the window. I had to have the new Alfie Kohn book, even though I swore I’d swear off education books for the summer. Then I found a Theodore Sizer book. He’s one of my favorite education writers so I bought that. Then I saw the new Janet Malcolm book. That made me swoon. But it was $22.50. I haven’t spent that much on a book in a long time, but I couldn’t resist. So $45.00 poorer I slunk out of the store and found a nearby movie theater.

I procrastinated too long, then had to do a mad dash for the theater, but I made it with a few minutes to spare. I had reservations about being there. With no one to talk to about the play I felt I was there mostly because it had become a tradition.

But the play was wonderful. No one can accuse this Shakespeare (Mark Twain has convinced me there were several) of being a misogynist. Never has there been a play were the ladies so thoroughly and patiently outwit and out virtue the menfolk. Shakespeare’s plays are so complex and gripping that you wonder why no one else seems able to do the same thing. I love O’Neill but his plays are child’s play compared with something like “All’s Well That Ends Well”. Even the walk back to the hotel through a quiet, lamplit Central Park was magical I was very glad I’d gone.

Other expenses today:

$6.50 for bottled water and the Sunday Times

$4.67 Starbucks coffee and treat (so I could use the WiFi)

$8.86 lunch (pizza)

$10.00 refill on my Metrocard for the subway

$45.00 books

$11.00 movie

$3.65 midnight snack

$60.00 hotel

$149.68 Total