Further explorations

I've felt completely wiped out today. I think it's because I took what I found to be a very rigorous pilates class yesterday. Though none of the three women in the class (I was the only male) seemed too challenged by it. In my defense, it was my very first time trying it, but having always thought pilates was "for girls," I was really surprised at how tough it was. My stomach is still tight and achey today.

I ran around Prospect Park twice this afternoon. I was going to go back to the gym to take another class, but the only one available to me at the time was called "Body crunch" or something vaguely violent-sounding and I decided against it -- especially after I learned that the area they'd be focussing on today is the abs. They've already had enough. So I ran in the park, and listened to a mediocre pop/rock band on Christina's iPod and then a very interesting cabaret/burlesque/gypsy music band.

I'm going to dinner with L. and her boyfriend and Christina very shortly; in fact, I have to leave in a few minutes. Haven't seen L. in over a year, probably. She's attending law school, in her first year. As more of my friends turn to law school eventually, I realize the likelihood of my eventually deciding law school's my most viable option gets greater and greater. I shouldn't think of it as a last resort (for me), but I can't help it sometimes.

Yesterday I took the subway to the end of the Q line and explored Brighton Beach and Coney Island. I got a better sense of the neighborhood in the former, though the latter was interestingly -- and creepily -- deserted. I kept imagining all sorts of scary geek stories being written about the place, and learned about an interesting-sounding website, www.coneyislandhistory.org, that I'd like to check out. Brighton Beach was, as I'd read, a completely russo-fied neighborhood. The novelty of seeing everything in Cyrillic didn't last too long, as I'd seen similar signage in Bulgaria (and that was the real thing, no less), but all the strange and not-so-appetizing-looking food provided plenty of entertainment. After browsing a few cafeteria/grocery stores with a grimace on my face, I sampled a couple things -- some sort of dumpling-ish morsels filled with mashed potato and a pastry stuffed with egg and mushroom which could have been a bit warmer -- and was quite surprised by how good the former was. I bought a huge plastic tub of it to bring home to Christina, which of course she liked a lot.

Tomorrow I leave at 5:30am for Tulsa.