galleries make me self conscious

It’s only 1:30pm, but I think I’m done with most of my movement for today. I woke up early to go on a walk with Ethan in Central Park before he had to work, and it was sad not being able to go inside his apartment and having to be double masked the whole time so that I wouldn’t give him covid (even though I definitely don’t have it!…I think). A lot of great mid-sized to large dogs today in CP, there are still leaves on the ground even though the trees themselves have been bare for a couple weeks now. There was a ring of mist around the skyscrapers in Midtown when I first got out of the subway near Ethan’s apartment such that you could only see their top halves poking out disembodied into the sky. By the time I reached the other side of Central Park it was sunny and everybody was jogging (classic) and the dogs were smaller (classic, also boo). I want to say that I was dumped out of the park onto the Upper East Side but that would be false because Central Park is the most difficult park to navigate and exit, and truthfully I had to walk along a path that curved around the reservoir and alongside Central Park East and couldn’t actually get out of the park until an exit on 86th street, even though I was literally right next to the CPE sidewalk for ten blocks. It turns out every museum on the Upper East Side is closed on Wednesdays, so I couldn’t go to the Met and ogle at some old Spanish paintings like I’d planned. The UES is so lame but so charismatic, all those old mansions and real townhomes (not just brownstones) exuding wealth in a way you think doesn’t exist anymore until you go to the UES and realize still does. I went home and did the dishes and tried to read at Daily Provisions, but they’re no longer allowing indoor seating. The Center for Fiction may be becoming a meme because of how frequently we’re going there, but where else are you going to find a large, cozy space where you can reliably get a seat and which lets you read inside in exchange for just a coffee? The lack of public space in NYC is a travesty, etc. etc. After going home to put on sunscreen because, no matter what Eric says about the UV index, I still don’t want to get wrinkles from sun damage, I went to visit some galleries in Tribeca. I hate on Tribeca a lot I think because in my mind it’s so closely associated with ugly luxury developments and finance offices, but the part that I was in (west of Broadway) was admittedly really beautiful, kind of like if you transposed those Soho buildings with their columned facades into an area with fewer people and even more cobblestoned streets. I remember when I was watching Frances Ha the fact that Sophie wanted to move to Tribeca was such a red flag, but I think I kind of get it now after walking around there today, but you probably would still have to be really rich to afford to rent in one of those old buildings. Whenever I walk around the emptier parts of that west Soho/Tribeca area I always think of when Marty shot After Hours there without a license because it was just so empty back in the 80s. The buildings are so elegant that it’s hard to believe it was ever cheap to live there. It feels like its own pocket of Manhattan; whenever I’m biking or walking through there I feel like I’m watching people on a movie set as they stand and smoke outside the restaurants, especially in the summer. I have gathered more data about the gnats that find their way into my apartment: they don't wake up until after 8am, they like Earl Grey tea as well as coffee, and they're indifferent to sugar (confirmed).