Professor discovers she's still human

A weekend jaunt to New York City has reminded me that life isn't all about add/drop, grammar review Fridays, are the students keeping track of how many times I've worn my red shoes this week, chastisements from the library for Interlibrary Loaning books already in the collection, finessing strong thesis statements, anarchosocialism in early 20th Century Barcelona, finding a seat in the Faculty Dining Hall, endless class planning, trying to remember the name of the woman from the Dean's office you've met five times, and reminding everyone that in Spanish class se habla español siempre.

It's also about the not-so-funny stand-up comedians who go on at 1am; $10 cocktails; $5 umbrellas appearing on every street corner two minutes after it starts to rain; steamy subway cars; roasted pork buns; Magnolia Bakery cupcakes; impromptu drinks with fabulous city dwellers; cockroaches; splitting a black and white cookie so that you both get half black and half white; remembering that one time, in that one bar, when we heard "Purple Rain," when was that?; hot corned beef sandwiches consisting only of meat and bread; wandering through the West Village recalling how fun it was to live there; H & H bagels in Central Park on a sunny Saturday morning; knishes in Riverside Park on a sunny Sunday morning; and shopping at somewhere other than Target for a change with someone who knows you well enough to get you to try on something you never would have picked out for yourself, but that -- of course -- looks awesome.