The Eighteenth (and Nineteenth!) Dates

So there are four key to the city sites only open Monday through Friday from 9am - 5pm. Four sites totally inaccessible to those of us who hold "normal" work schedules. So what's a girl to do? She has to hit them all in one day, one magical day gifted by Key to the City. And there you have it, the reason why I had the most marathon day of dating in the universe.

Now, I would never go on a date with more than one guy in the same night. "Fun" be gone, I just think it's pretty sleazy. Luckily, Tom from Saturday's adventure doesn't start nursing school until Sept. 2nd and we really kind of hit it off so he agreed to partake in this crazy three borough adventure. I'll briefly fill you in on the first two because there's more to be said about sites three and four (or twenty and twenty-one, depending on how you look at it.) Rest assured there's good stuff, and ponderings about art and the ability to make it interactive, coming up!

The Time: Wednesday, Sept 1st, 11:05am
The Place(s):  P.S. 73, 1020 Anderson Ave and The Bronx County Courthouse, 851 Grand Concourse, The Bronx
The Guy: The wonderful Tom from date 15!
What Creative Time Says: The P stands for "public" and "Be Patient: security and freedom of access have to coexist." 

When meeting Tom this morning my stomach felt, well, strange. I quickly checked over everything I had eaten the night before (Japanese Ramen and Edamame with my public interest butt kicking friend Alison) and this morning (almond croissant from chocolate bar, mmmm) and found nothing. Then, when I saw Tom across the street waving by yankee stadium, it jolted through me, like a combination karate kick slash roller coaster and then, just as fast, returned to a light flutter.

Were these butterflies? No way, I thought, no chance. But when I gave Tom a hug and felt a warm and familiar chicken soup type feeling, well then, perhaps they were there, and that was kind of nice. I'm actually super-exhausted at the end of today and I must get some sleep after last night's debacle so I'll sum up some key (haha, oh god I'm my grandfather) moments and let you see the rest in pictures.

 -->  I heart schools. Tom went to a schoolhouse built in the 19th century which automatically makes him cooler than me. I would have spent hours writing pretend stories of past student-souls who had sat at my desk rather than pay attention to geometry or the like. So jealous of Tom and his must-have-existed ghost-girl crushes.


--> Both these sites comprise of boxes where fellow key holders have left notes. I love thinking of all the lives this project has touched and what they must have thought when turning the same key. Thoughts replicate through my mind, do they get the stomach flip? The ah-ha moment? Is it all ho-hum to them by this point or do they share my wonder in the moment the key lock hold?

-->  Is there any better feeling in the world than back to school time? New backpacks and pencils, new friends in your class, new materials to learn, the excitement was as tangible as a soft angel cake in those hallowed halls of first graders gingerly holding their mother's hands. As if to say, I still want you here but I'm ready now.

-->  Tom is very inflexible in body, I am very inflexible in planning and spirit (but trying to get better!)  Do couples work best in yin and yang? Or do people work better with mirror images of themselves? Curious.

-->  No photos allowed in the Bronx Courthouse? No problem, I am the stealthiest camera ninja of all time (see tomorrow's date for further proof of this fact.)  The key brings you to the marriage bureau, a concept I am still not sure if I can get behind (marriage and bureau's, separate and together.)

--> Worker's rights advocates outside the courthouse make my heart skip a bit. We almost are too late for our next site because we're discussing the benefit's of unions and why most exploited worker's are immigrants.

-->   Sometimes, I love that I am 26 and a lawyer and still doing wonderful silly things like having dates with the key to the city. Other times, I can't believe that I am 26 and a lawyer and still doing wonderful silly things like  having dates on the key to the city. But I've decided it's so necessary to have these projects. To own your life as it is, yours, and to live it as you chose, decorate it as you like. Especially in my line of work which has the tendency to pull you down into the darkest depths of humanity at times, I need to remember what it is to smile, and dance, and live scribbled notes inside plexi glass boxes, unlocked with a key.

Til tomorrow,

L.A.