Lordy! I nearly got blown into the Jackie Onassis Reservoir in Central Park today, as I walked briskly around it after some museum-hopping on the Upper East Side. Following a telephone conversation last night with my dear pal Alex, who reminded me that all I seem to have been doing lately is work, I decided to take Sunday afternoon off and go exploring in my adopted city.

I took the train uptown to 86th Street and headed to the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, a member of the Smithsonian Institution. I have to say – in the weary tone of someone perhaps too well-travelled – that I did not find their exhibition of 500 years of cutlery and utensils terribly illuminating. After the artefacts on display in Rome, at the British Museum, and at Dublin’s National Museum of Ireland – not to mention the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan just down the road – some lavishly displayed Tiffany collections did not float my boat. However, I had been interested to see this exhibition for some time and of course today it was closing.

The wind was blowing a gale as I stood, much earlier than I had anticipated, outside the Cooper-Hewitt. I decided a stroll in Central Park was just the thing, as Sundays seem to present the locals at their most relaxed. I saw people reading the Times in the glow of the afternoon sun, walking their dog, canoodling with a loved one, and to my surprise a woman huddled beneath a tree picking something from the ground and putting it into a bucket. Chestnuts, perhaps? I decided I’d watched too many episodes of Law and Order to approach the stranger and find out for myself.

A few weeks ago regular readers of this blog would recall that I attended the International E-Philanthropy Awards on behalf of my friend and Sydney-sider Rob Depinto, the founder and CEO of VolunteerxChange, a company nominated for one of the awards.

I felt very much like Forrest Gump turning up at the Harvard Club. However, I had been placed for lunch amidst a bunch of animal welfare activists, and I spent some time wondering how I was going to tell Rob my networking opportunities for VolunteerxChange had been somewhat limited by the seating plan. In the opposite corners of the room were luminaries and CEOs from the likes of the Cisco Foundation, the Verizon Foundation, and so on.

Much to my surprise, VolunteerxChange was named the winner of the Community-building / Volunteering award category, and I had to make my way through a cluster of large round tables to get to the podium, whereupon I of course had to make an impromptu speech. (Thanks Rob.)

Above are some pieces of evidence to support my story, including one of me looking intensely at one of the above-mentioned senior CEOs, hoping that he wouldn’t ask me anything too specific about how the whole thing works. However, Rob was extremely pleased with the number of business cards and contacts I was able to collect on the day. I am extremely proud of getting out of there without being found out.

The leaves are turning various shades of red, and the temperature is cooling down. Hooray! This is the first stretch of cool weather I’ve experienced since about August of last year. I moved from one barely existent winter and an extended summer (vaulting over spring) in Sydney, to an extremely brief and warm Spring in New York followed by a heatwave and a long tail to the summer here. I’m no summer person at the best of times, so temperatures of 10 degrees Celcius are most pleasant.

Inside my apartment I have discovered central heating for the first time. Instead of the bulky jumpers and multiple layers I would wear to stay warm in Leichhardt, I’m getting around in a t-shirt and cotton trousers and it’s still too warm in here. To be honest, I’m a bit frighty of the thermostat. I’m sure it’s just a matter of practice…?

 

World Series baseball “fever” is upon certain segments of the population here at the moment. It’s not contagious so my only symptoms are irritation at the colonisation of a few TV stations’ usual programming by the broadcasting of the games.

It took me a while to wake up to the fact that this “World Series” is a competition in which only one nation participates (you get one guess).

Last night I attended a course at MediaBistro called Going Solo: How to Start Your Own Media Business. While that sounds rather grand, the presenter was extremely down to earth and very generous with his practical suggestions and recommendations. Most people there were freelancers dreaming of the next big step; others were hoping for inspiration as to what their new business might be. I was there to get an inexpensive overview of the steps involved in setting up a company in New York, what my options were in this regard, and the costs involved in doing it. Especially as Bridge Literary Services Pty Ltd is already set up in Australia AND I have the domain name to boot. (Just need to finish the website content first …)

The news here is all good, happily, so the course was worth every penny. Having the company set up here will also help me to and fro between New York and Sydney, which is my long-term professional goal.

Last week I had to book a return train journey for Simi Linton from New York to Philadelphia. I went to the AmTrak website and carefully selected the dates and times, but all the while looking out for information relating to customers with disabilities. Simi uses a power wheelchair and typically must answer a few standard questions before finalising a reservation. I got to the point where I was ready to enter payment information, when I saw a little link that said “Information for customers with disabilities”. Finally. When I clicked on it, it told me that they are not able to process reservations for disabled customers online, and would I please call the 1-800 number on my screen.

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What do you think of my new look? In the blogging business it’s called a new “skin”. If I were a snake, that would make sense. But I’m just a humble Apple. Send me your comments – they won’t be published unless you want me to publish them (if you post a comment it goes to a “holding pen” where only I see them).

How lucky I am to have the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens around the corner from my apartment. Something the locals call “Fall”, which looks a lot like autumn, is causing the leaves of many trees to change their colour. I strolled around this Saturday afternoon for an hour with my camera, to give myself a break from the computer screen.

The rot has officially set in. This week I received my first delivery from FreshDirect, a New York online grocery business. It was a revelation – no schlepping around the supermarket, or queueing in lines; order only what you want; have it delivered when you want. It’s a beautiful thing.

I am amazed at what you can get delivered here. My former flatmate would get a single bottle of wine delivered to the door. One bottle! And lots of restaurants will deliver for as little as $8 or $10 (plus tip, of course, everything is “plus tip”). I ordered a desk from Target.com and it arrived the next day. Unbelievable.

What a day. Torrential rain, puddles everywhere you look and step. In the subway it’s warm and humid, and everyone takes up that little bit more space – after all, we’re each carrying an umbrella, wearing boots instead of thongs (sorry, “flip-flops”), a hooded wet raincoat or trenchcoat or jacket, in addition to carting around the usual handbag, carry bag and iPod (and manuscript, in my case).

I was on my way to deliver a CD to a video producer who’s creating a DVD for Simi Linton to accompany readings from her memoir, My Body Politic. She has three “performed readings” coming up in the next month or so, and this week we’re putting the finishing touches to the DVD and rehearsing the whole shebang. I was in a hurry to drop off the CD and get home, and I was a long way from my Brooklyn neighbourhood.

I scurried out of the train at the 23rd St station, walking at a notch above my usual cracking pace. “Virginia Lloyd!” an Australian voice exclaimed loudly. It stopped me in my tracks. After all, in a city of eight million strangers, one does not expect to hear one’s own name shouted out loud, out of nowhere. I looked up and immediately recognised Kristian Joyce, my former colleague at Freehills, and his wife Caroline, hurrying for the train I’d just disembarked from. Only yesterday had I erased from my diary the appointment I’d made with them months ago to meet up this very night. I had not heard from them and assumed their travel plans had changed. KJ explained that he’d simply lost my email and they had been wracking their brain as to how to get my phone number while they were in New York.

I’m not sure if they realised how extraordinary this chance meeting was. In any case, we’re meeting tomorow night for some dinner. I can’t wait.

While there have been a few celebrity sightings during my six months here – see the Celebrities category at right for the relevant postings – none has sent my nerves fluttering like they did when I met Simon Schama recently.

Anyone who watched The History of Britain TV series would be familiar with Professor Schama’s extreme erudition and affable style. In person he exhibited exactly the same charming combination: within two minutes of being introduced, he was talking to me about the poetry of George Herbert and John Donne. I kept smiling and nodding, hoping that I wouldn’t have to contribute anything new.

As it turns out, he and his wife (also a professor, also a Virginia) are dear friends of Lily and David’s, and they attended the opening of David’s art exhibition I wrote about last week.

Today is two years since I lost John. I will always miss him. Thank you to those who sent me a message or called.

A trip to Barney’s department store was high on Madonna’s must-do list, so Apple Girl tagged along for the trip. And whom should we see while pawing through the sales racks but Trinny herself. Yes, of Trinny and Susannah, “What Not to Wear” TV-show fame. And yes, she is very stylish in person, and even thinner and flatter than we two curvy chicks imagined.

Lily Brett’s husband David Rankin has a wonderful exhibition of his most recent abstract art – two rooms of paintings and one of drawings – on view at the Andre Zarre Gallery in the art-Mecca of NYC, Chelsea.

The exhibition opened last week, and my job was to issue the email reminder to those who had been invited by printed postcard to the opening. What a disaster. I don’t know how I did it, but my friendly reminder turned into endless spam. Some people received up to ten invitations. Others were so irritated they wrote to me, begging for me to stop. I replied, in all honesty, “If I knew how to stop it, I would.” Somehow I think that’s the end of my mass-emailing career. But you know, I think I’ll get over it.

As I sit here waiting for my dear friend Madonna to arrive from JFK – after having frantically cleaned the bathroom, Swiffered the floor, changed the sheets and made sure I had food in the fridge – I realised I hadn’t shown you the door … to my new building. There are 16 apartments and not too many more residents – I hardly see or hear anyone coming or going. By contrast, I have been all too aware of a neighbour in the adjacent building, who has been listening obsessively to an evangelical gospel singer (“PRAISE the Lord! Thank you, Jesus! I said PRAISE HIM!” etc, ad infinitum) but that seems to have faded this past week. To that I can only say, Hallelujah!

I’ve been in my apartment now for about five weeks, and I admit I like the feeling of getting on the train in Manhattan to come “home” to Brooklyn. The leaves on the trees in my street have started to change colour, just as the weather has begun - finally - to cool. When Madonna’s here we’ll do some shopping, hear some live music and probably eat and drink quite a bit. In other words, the usual.

I enjoyed my first social gathering in my own “borough” (as the locals say) of Brooklyn over the weekend. The occasion was a gathering for my friend and literary agent Margot Meyers, who is leaving New York temporarily. Margot is pictured on the left with Tina Dubois Wexler (what a great name!), also an agent – at ICM, where Margot used to assist Heather Schroder, Lily Brett’s agent - who hosted the soiree. The view speaks for itself.

The only thing missing from the photo of me is the glass of prosecco. Don’t I look the literary type here! I hope Hart Crane, who lived in this neighbourhood during the early part of the 20th century as he wrote his masterpiece (and my PhD topic), The Bridge, would be proud.

This is my local farmers’ market, which sets up shop every Saturday morning at the entrance to Prospect Park. This is a real hub of my neighbourhood, because it is the place where Grand Army Plaza (a major intersection above ground and a major subway station below it), the Brooklyn Public Library and the park meet.

As you can see, it’s very popular with the locals. I love mingling in the crowd, watching how people shop. Some evaluate the green or yellow beans one by one, while others grab huge handfuls and shove them into the endless supply of white plastic bags. Yesterday I bought fresh fish, fresh sourdough bread, and quite a few vegetables. The radishes (above) were stunning and looked just like blosssoms, but I didn’t buy any.

Overheard in front of the broccoli stand, one confused woman to her friend: “If I knew how to cook it, I’d buy some.”

People often declare New York to be a tough town. I have to say that in my six months here I’ve mostly found people to be friendly and helpful, and daily life here has moments of unexpected community in otherwise dingy or pressure environments – the subway car or stairwell, the crowded grocery aisle, on the street helping a stranger with directions.

But this stainless-steel mesh fence masquerading as a tennis net is probably the toughest thing I’ve met in Manhattan. It requires no maintenance. No tedious set-up or winding-down at the end of play. All I have to do is yank it upright occasionally to prevent it from warping in too exaggerated a fashion.

The close-up shot is intended to show the metal bolts holding the fence in place. The sporty pair of legs belongs to Phillip, one of the four regulars at our Monday morning doubles game. After an hour of tennis and prior to the obligatory post-game coffee, no one wanted their photo taken. Not even with the stainless steel fence.

Welcome to my new street – St John’s Place, Brooklyn. I couldn’t quite believe it when I realised that would be my new address. My John would hate to have been thought of as a saint, so I’ve decided I just like the symmetry of it all. I also like the fact that people on my street greet each other with “good morning” and “have a nice day”, and mean it.

When instructing taxi drivers as to where to take me, I’ve learned to pronounce “St” as “Saint” – they just don’t understand the way we say “St”.

I just heard this claim on the biggest commercial television network news in America, as part of the introduction to today’s headline story – yet another school shooting in an obscure area of the US.

An unavoidable part of modern life. In America, perhaps, but nowhere else.

The second story of the day concerns a Republican Congressman who has had to resign over inappropriate emails he sent to underage boys in the employ of Congress. He’s just issued a statement which says he recognises he has a problem with alcoholism and “behaviour” that occurs when he’s under the influence.

Welcome to the land of the free, home of the brave – and of many in denial about sexuality and gun control.

One of the minor tragedies of daily life in New York is that restaurants have no concept of BYO. I don’t have a cellar or anything approaching one here, of course; but having to select from the wine list every time you go to a restaurant makes any dinner out an expensive proposition.

On the other hand, New York has such a large and diverse bar culture that there are plenty of cosy wine bars to snuggle in – supposing you have something with whom to snuggle, of course. In Sydney, as my female friends know all too well, the licensing laws prevent us from experiencing any cosy wine bars; the only option is the cavernous cash-cow masquerading as a pub.

My conclusion? The grass is green wherever you are, just a different shade.

I met Nona Appleby (above) for the first time last night, at a wonderfully modest performance space on the Bowery, a street known best for its nightclubs and restaurant equipment supply stores. Nona is an aging Australian woman with a head of brilliant orange hair, who loves to cook and to reminisce about her surprisingly adventurous life. I learned, for example, that Nona was headhunted for a series of highly dangerous and secretive missions by a pair of twins. Each time they recruit her for a new mission the boys sport a different hairstyle.

Nona is the thrilling, outrageous and highly entertaining creation of Victoria Roberts, whom I knew until last night as the successful cartoonist whose distinctive work often appears in the New Yorker (example above). Dixon Place, the performance space, is a nurturing home to theatrical and literary works in progress. My writer friend Madeleine tracked me down in Brooklyn and invited me along. It only took me 25 minutes to get there, which would have been at least as long as it would have taken from the Upper West Side, my previous address.