[4/18/2002 12:52:52 AM]
New York City. Greenwich Village
Just back from a party in Chinatown at Dietmar & nunet's new New York office.

I went up the elevator with Dan Stube who is an architect for Polshek Partnership Architects - the guys who designed the Rose Center for Earth and Space (which houses the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, Carnegie Hall, and other museums and theatres in New York City) and we talk about the glories of bicycling in New York. Then I instantly see dear Dietmar (it has been since September 2000) and he introduces me to an avuncular person who is leaving by saying, "This is my friend Hani. She has just come back from traveling around the world." So the nice gentleman asks me where I'd been and I say "blah blah blah.... and I'm sorry, what is your name?" (as Dietmar had not actually introduced the gentleman to me; only me to the kind sir). And he says "David Dinkins." Heh heh. "Nice to meet you" I say and Dietmar who returned just as I asked David who he is, says to me "David is the former mayor of New York" and turns to David and gives him a kind excuse for my ignorance. Hee hee. I'm amused. It's classic. So David left just after our short exchange, and I moved onward into the crowd.

Next, I was stopped by Aileen and then Artie, both AIDS ride people I trained with for the Alaska Ride. I met a very interesting Japanese American woman from California who is in media and entertainment and invited me to go rock climbing which we planned for possibly the end of May. She had just come back from living in Barcelona (and has also been to Vietnam before!) and has probably been to more countries than I have. Onward, Julie passed through our conversation and with total confidence said "you're a Libra aren't you?" before inviting me to go to a poetry reading on Monday. Then we met Pilar who is a Spanish woman from just outside Bilbao who lives in Miami and does marketing! And before the evening was over, I met guitarist Will, Aileen's best friend and comrade, and while on the elevator down we decided to go to Coney Island to ride the Cyclone this summer only because the industrial smell in the elevator made us think of it.

And that, you see, is why I live in New York City, and truly why I love NY.