Janine in a straw hat.

Adam wants a new one one of these everyday, and I thought I was being all considerate by waiting until the evening to type so as to cover the maximum of whatever has gone down on a particular day.
But NO- I get a crabby facebook message from him at about 4pm today grilling my cheese for a new entry. So I suppose I'll set my alarm for 4 in the morning and get right on top of that.
Completely kidding.
So let's see.
Oh yes- the Russian book signing. I was the only girl there in a multitude of at least 19- all middle aged scroungy looking men with ratty limp gray ponytails and stained t-shirts. All of them completely besotted with Anna Karenina or whatever her name was. They were there an hour early (and yes, I was too, but that's only because I wasn't certain what train to get on and could very easily have wound up in Denver).
When Lliudmilla finally appeared it was in black opaque tights, leather boots that stopped just sub-crotch and a tiiiiiiiny white t-shirt that said something like "Strangulate" in black twisty letters.
She had hair bleached 16 shades of blond and a face bleached 16 shades of raisin. She had what appeared to be a chain of 5 or 6 cotton balls on a stick under one arm but then I noticed it had eyes. Turned out to be her doggie Gorbie. I met Gorbie later on as Joseph had been assigned to hold him after Marina dumped him on the floor mid-presentation and he began to make motions suspiciously indicative of urination. I had SUCH high hopes for a urination onstage at the Columbus Circle Borders.
Gorbie was shaved so closely to the skin that he looked like a pig who had had an accident regarding glue and Q-tip residue. He was shaking. From cold or from horror it was unclear. I patted him very hard and that didn't help at all.
Natalia had good things to say- inspiring things about how she had moved here straight from here Geography class in Moscow six years ago (where she hadn't learned anything from being too busy staring at her professor) to be an au pair in California. And then she just decided, "Hey, no one that I know of puts on their bra and leather panties and defines carrot in front of the camera for the world to see! I'll do that!" And how she spent a year doing it on her own and then got picked up to do a book deal etc. It was a very high-spirited speech.
But Katarina had no concept of order or framework to her speech and by the time 3 1/2 hours had passed her boyfriend Socrates (might not have been her boyfriend, might just have been a large pulsing pile of spilled tattoo ink) began jumping up and down wildly behind the back row to get her to can it.
After this, I strolled over to Lincoln Center, where I was supposed to meet Sam and Co. for an outdoor concert by a pair of people named Stu and Heidi.
I'm tired of typing now.
Will say more about this tomorrow potentially.
Had a great time at the concert. Was the first one I'd ever been too. Was loud, and there were drums, and horns and it was AWESOME. And four black people wailing their gums off DR and at one point during what was apparently a really invigorating rendition of "It Don't Mean A Thing," I look over and nudge Sam when I notice hot attractive young man and voluptuous slightly older woman have abandoned their microphones altogether in favor of a far DR cross where they have forgotten there is a concert going on altogether and have commenced dry-humping instead.
For the rest of the concert, Voluptuous Slightly Older would look over at Hot Attractive Young during his ooohs and lick her lips just a little.
Was so so good though. Will say more.