Too much to choose....

As Cthulhia has already noted, this weekend includes both Somerville Open Studios (SOS schedule here), and Vernon Street Open Studios (Vernon Street info), not to mention Writers With Drinks Friday night, hosted by the still-local Charliegirl (WWD schedule).

That should be enough for one weekend, really. But meandering through the Square this evening, I found out that there's a bit more going on locally. There's Arts First, a Harvard University celebration of the arts, May 1-4, though I think things are concentrated on the weekend (Arts First info here). And Sunday is also Mayfair, in Harvard Square, vendors, live performance, and a booth where you can "Dare to Be Bare" (no, not that bare; heads only!), getting at least 10 inches of hair cut off for Locks for Love (Mayfair details)

Of course, Sunday is also the Walk for Hunger (their site), so many people will be passing not so far from Harvard Square along the Charles (and Mem Drive closed to traffic, too; I'm definitely not planning to drive around there this weekend :-).

Oh, and the Longy School of Music has some free concerts this weekend, including some early opera (Friday and Saturday at 7 pm; Longy info), and Sunday afternoon the Dante Alighieri center is honoring Dante's birthday with a talk by the author of The Dante Club (Dante Alighieri Center's site).

And for anyone who has an account with Fleet Bank, during the month of May you can use your bank card to get free admission at a bunch of museums in CT, ME, MA, NJ, NY, RI, PA, and NH (Fleet's list of museums).

Tired but better

I stayed far too late at work yesterday (well past the start time of the House of Roses game night, sadly), working on something that had to go out today. Yes, I should've gotten it done earlier, I suppose. My own damned fault. Anyway. I hadn't gotten an optimal amount of sleep the night before, and the 12-hour day at work had me frazzled and tired, unfuntional (maybe the Benadryl had something to do with this, too). Even so, I woke up rather early this morning, and by the end of the work day, all I really thought about was sleep. It didn't help that I spent all morning in a training session, either.

And yet, I didn't want to just go home and fall into bed again, having done nothing at all.

Luckily, that didn't happen. My backyard neighbor was sitting on her front steps, and we ended up chatting for a long while, occasionally looking at the mural painting going on across the street (they've filled in the dragonfly :-). I think it's the first time I've been invited into their backyard; it gives a very different view of that space. Since it was so late in the afternoon, the shadow of the house covered half the yard. But there were some lights dancing in the shadow: another neighbor had tied mirrors to her porch railing, and at just the right time in the afternoon, the light bounces down to the patio. All I could think about was how much this would entertain/frustrate certain cats...

I needed to get out, move, walk around. Into the Square it was, to get a ticket to The Dybbuk (free, at the Loeb Experimental Theater, in the ART building, if you'd like to get a ticket), then on the way home.... I was sucked into the Harvard Book Store. Really, I think they have a vacuum set up, or a magnet, or something.

I succumbed. Mostly, I got used/remaindered books (9 of them... there were all sorts of kid books that were interesting, and that was after resisting a bunch more :-), and I couldn't resist getting one brand new one, Diana Wynne Jones' The Merlin Conspiracy. I know it's not the English edition, Bitty, but I have it in my hot little hands. Perhaps I shall splurge utterly sometime and get the English editions of her books too, but for now, this shall suffice :-).

Walking home, laden with books, and I found myself still tired, but not as much, and much happier than I had been a couple of hours ago. A nice walk in pleasant weather plus an infusion of books can do wonders (just don't ask where I think I'm going to shelve said books...).