Start Your Weekend Off with Photos from This Week in NYC

I was just in the shower when dudes with a vacuum showed up to vacuum my apartment to rid the floors of the final remnants of sodium bicarbonate. I love that they are doing this because I don't own a vacuum cleaner.

Awkward, though.

Now two men are vacuuming my floor while I sit here watching them. I suppose I could leave, but my inner cynic doesn't trust them with everything I own.

So, dear readers, you get to enjoy my killing time! Here are some photos I took this week:

D and I couldn't get into International Short Films at the MOMA, so we ended up walking around the city to enjoy the beautiful weather on Wednesday night.



D likes the street lamps because they remind him of the alien on the War of the Worlds poster.





D said "Let's take the bus so we can see New York City!" These are a couple photos from my first NYC bus ride.





My company participated in the JPMorganChasedCharityRace in Central Park last night. I went there to be "supportive girlfriend" rather than "supportive employee." I didn't even walk the race. Instead, I eagerly awaited D at the finish line. D didn't win, but he came in like 17th out of 15,000 people! I was thrilled. He was not. It is interesting how neither of us think that what we do well at things or perform well enough, and how we're both constantly trying to convince the other that they've done a great job. With this particular issue, I felt like I had the hard data and statistics to back up D's performance, but he still wasn't having it. Either way, I am "proud girlfriend" today and realize that I forgot how powerful, ahem, post-sports pheremones can be.



Prior to the race, I thought "This will show me what being a sports photographer is like! Maybe when I grow up I can be a sports photographer! D will be so excited that I will be showing an interest in racing sports!"



I soon realized that I had no interest in the race itself after D crossed the finish line. I wonder why I don't have a competitive bone in my body. I feel like I may be the only person on the planet who finds competitve sports offensive.



When the 10th place runner crossed the finish line, the woman next to me exclaimed "He came in 10th! That means he gets the raise!" I can't believe that sports prowess is being rewarded in the workplace. This race isn't about prestige, its about charity. It's not like "Whatever company the first place runner works for is the coolest company in Manhattan!" No. Why should someone get a raise, at work, because they can run fast? Freaking ridiculous. I was mortified. I wanted to be like "Right, and the woman with the four kids at home who couldn't run this race because she had to go cook them dinner should get a raise for being an awesome single mother."



Anyway, I digress. I decided as I was snapping random photos (incidentally, at random, I managed to capture the 3rd, 4th, and 5th place runners from my company in group shots) that maybe I should be a post-sports photographer.



I really like all of these photos of people looking bizarre and in agony. I had far too much fun last night scanning the crowds for runners who were making weird faces.



For example: the guy in the background of this photo looks like he wants to kill the guy in the foreground. Awesome!



D and I went back to our company tent where everyone was like "D, you're our pride and joy! You are amazing! You are the best! WOW! ZOWIE!!!! You came in two minutes ahead of your time last year! YAY!" I was waiting for them to say "We're going to give you a $20,000 raise for being athletic even though that is entirely irrelevant to how you do your job!" It is weird to feel like "the girlfriend" amongst people you see every day. This is something that constantly bothers me. Feeling awkward (as did D, which is one of the reasons I love him), I stepped away and called M to feel like I exist.



When M got off the phone to eat dinner, I said "D, I really need to get out of here. This is weird." He said "I know." Overambitious D (who the night before said "We should go to this tomorrow - we will leave immediately after the race!" and I didn't say "Dude, you're going to be sweaty and tired and dying and it's an hour from the city and ok whatever you want but I think this is overambitious") and I headed to Prospect Park in Brooklyn to see/hear William Kentridge films. It took us forever to get there because the trains were being uncooperative. When we got there we learned that there was a suggested donation (wtf?) and that it was about a million times more crowded that we'd anticipated. We sat down on the grass and couldn't see because people were standing in front of us. D was tired and ruined from the race, so we ended up leaving about 20 minutes after we got there. I was slightly disappointed that D was a wreck, because there was an awesome playground and not a child around to use it.



The pheremones were wasted, and I returned home alone to my post-sports photos.