summer in the city

The heat has begun. And more than the heat, the humidity. This last week is just the beginning. Sandal weather! Sunscreen! Beach trips! Summer Fridays! I'm excited for summer, in case you can't tell. Usually I'm more of a fall/winter girl, but I feel like this spring has been particularly difficult, and I'm looking forward to the fresh start that comes with a long, lazy summer. I want sunny afternoons in the park with a good book. Naps. Lots of writing time. Iced tea! Caprese salad or Mediterranean-style picnic spreads for dinner! Doesn't that sound lovely? I think so.

No new books to talk about, or computer updates. I've turned in all my freelancing. Life has continued on as normal. I just wanted to mention a couple events.

First, BEA. It was pretty great. I got a number of books I'm excited about, most notably Forever by Maggie Stiefvater, The Magician Kings by Lev Grossman, Trial by Fire by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber, and Graveminder by Melissa Marr. BEA itself seemed smaller this year than in previous years, but it was still a buzzing hive of book activity, booths overrun by librarians and book bloggers and authors, and books everywhere! You know me. Put me in a room full of books and book people, and I'm like a kid in a candy shop. BEA is always great for me.

My sister J is in town for this week, so there's been a lot of flea markets and such in my last few days. We did a couple museum exhibits on Monday. First was the Alexander McQueen exhibit at the Met. It was breathtaking. I wasn't that familiar with his work going into it, which made it all that much more interesting. I had no idea he was so intellectual about his work. And the architecture of his pieces--stunning! I want all of it. I'm definitely going to look up some of his runway shows on YouTube when I have time. I'd like to learn more about what he did. At some point I do want to get the exhibit catalog, as well, which I don't usually do. But the conceptual layers of his pieces, the primitivism, the subtext of his work, it's all amazing.

The other exhibit we saw was the Pompeii exhibit at Discovery Times Square. This one was also great. It started with some information and artifacts on daily life in Pompeii. Then we were ushered into a small room where a time-lapse video re-creation of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius played. When the video ended, the wall behind it opened up into a room that held the body casts of people who'd died in the eruption. It was so silent in that room; I think that people were overwhelmed at what they were seeing. Rooms of skeletons, bodies of families twisted together in the positions they'd fallen in . . . it was intense. After that there were more day-to-day artifacts recovered from the ruins, and also a history of the archaeology at Pompeii. It was really interesting!

And now, on to work. The rest of this week should be busy; I can't wait to sleep in on Sunday.

Happy June, everybody!