Last Friday was one of the prouder moments I have had as an adopted New Yorker. Passing the marriage equality bill was so overdue, but for it to have the support of Republicans who opposed the idea because of their religious beliefs, but voted for the bill because it was a fair bill, was both astounding and inspiring.

Vince and I also had a fun weekend. We were in Philadelphia as he was competing in the triathlon (his third time in Philly). The last two years, I’ve also competed (in the much shorter and therefore achievable Sprint distance triathlon) but this year, a combination of no money for the registration and lack of time to train meant I was just a spectator. As soon as we got there though, I was annoyed at myself for missing out and so I’m definitely going to compete again in 2012. I’m also looking at a fun-sounding duathlon (where instead of swim>bike>run, you run>bike>run) in Prospect Park in November to get myself into a good training schedule again.

Vince did great – I was so proud of him for doing a heroic tyre change in the middle of his bike, when he got a flat after hitting a pothole. In that situation, I probably would have just had a cry and not finished. His time, considering the delay, was still really good so he’s continuing to be much fitter that I am.

I also finally finished editing the second installment of our podblog thing, so here it is in case you missed it on Facebook:

(And yes Alexis, if you’re reading/listening, I DID get the name of my animal wrong. I’m an idiot. I plead being really, really tired when we recorded this.)

I had band practice yesterday, which meant I had to lug my saxophone to work and then to rehearsal. After playing the thing for 15 years, I’m fairly used to having to negotiate my way around with it (and playing the cello was another lesson in taking large instruments on the bus to school…people hate you) but it still annoys me sometimes when I get stuck going through the turnstile on the subway because I misjudged the width or I’m just really tired and don’t want to carry a 20-pound musical instrument around.

However, I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon recently, that you wouldn’t see unless you are [whispers] one of us. People who have to take heavy things on public transport seem to have formed a kind of silent community. We see each other – other musicians with large instruments, construction workers with lots of tools, people who set up street stalls and have to take all their stuff via the subway – and there’s a silent nod, a look of recognition and respect. I’m not talking about the fly-by-nighters here, people with suitcases on the way home from the airport or someone trying to bring a bookcase home from Target. I mean the real heavy lifters, us lot who have to do this on a regular basis. On busy rush hour subways, I’m often the target of annoyed looks by other riders as I take up more space with my sax case, but the upside is I don’t use up room on the pole needing to hold on, as it doubles as a handy stabiliser to hold on to. And I get that special feeling of being part of a select few, a unique group – we don’t advertise this bond, but we all know it exists.

You may want to join our little brotherhood/sisterhood, but remember – it comes with a heavy price. And yes, I just made that pun. You’re welcome.

I spent this last Saturday in a little town about 40 minutes north of the city called Ossining, at a barbecue for my friend Theresa’s birthday. Although they’ve lived there for about a year now, it was the first chance Vince and I had had to get up there. It’s a gorgeous train ride along the shore of the Hudson river, and they have a beautiful house that typifies (for me) American houses from the early 20th century (ie, it has siding). The best part for me was the back garden and barbecue – two things that are very rare beasts in New York City. But up in Westchester County, we were sitting in the yard with Jason’s epic grill fired up, dipping our toes in the paddling pool and drinking beer (I treated myself to a 6-pack of Bard’s) and very potent raspberry mojitos.

I did feel a little pang of jealousy at the space they had in their house – plus their own stairs – but I know I’d get easily frustrated living out of the city. Although I grew up in a town not too dissimilar to Ossining, in its suburb-ness, I love being closer to the action these days and wouldn’t want to give that up for good. Like most people, I’d love a place further out to escape to at weekends, but that’s third on the list after getting a flat in London and spending half my time there.

So instead, I’m going to invite myself over to their house to get my fill of the countryside (or at least a city kid’s version of the countryside). Starting next weekend, when we’re going riding (Harley-Davidson style) with Jason and Theresa. Time to dust off the bike helmets.

I accidentally glutened myself on Wednesday night. While at my friend Amy’s house, for what has become a semi-monthly girls’ get together (called, alternatively, the Dysfunctional Ladies’ Night or just Bitches’ Night, if you’re Jenny), we usually order food, drink too much wine for a school night and pretend we’re working on a revision of the show we wrote back in 2009. We really are going to revise it and produce it again, hopefully early in 2012, but we’re kind of shit at staying on topic during these evenings. I am squarely in the ‘guilty’ camp when it comes to that.

We often order from a great Mexican place that I have never had problems with – Mexican food is usually pretty safe for me, as I can order something with corn tacos or just a burrito without the tortilla and be fine. I decided to try something different and get the catfish tostada – sounded yummy – and when it arrived it was covered in lettuce and sour cream and I was ravenous. I got a big forkful and took a delicious bite.

Ruh-roh.

Just as I swallowed my first mouthful, I pulled the lettuce and sour cream aside to get some more catfish, and saw with a sinking feeling that it was fried. Fried in some kind of breadcrumb/batter coating. That means flour. That means wheat.

I had a momentary battle in my brain, between my rumbling stomach saying ‘ah screw it, you already ate some so just finish it’ and my logical side saying ‘yes but you only had a bit, eat the whole thing and you’ll be totally messed up’. Luckily, my logical side won, but I was so mad at myself for not checking how they cooked the fish. Poor Amy felt terrible (even though it was my own stupid fault) and kept trying to find things for me to eat, but (as is often the case) anything she had in the fridge contained wheat. Eventually I snagged some leftover corn chips and demolished some hummus.

I fully expected my stomach to go nuts within 30 minutes, but instead I got a brand new set of reactions. I got the brain fog. This is a common symptom that I have never really had, but for some reason I got it badly on Wednesday night. My stomach has been a little annoyed since then, but considering I directly ingested a bunch of wheat I’m shocked at how well it did. Hopefully that’s a sign that my system is repairing itself and can better deal with accidental poisonings. But the brain fog was terrible. I had it the whole of the next day too – a strange, lightheaded, slightly dizzy and very sleepy feeling, like you could just put your head down and pass out in seconds. It was kind of alarming.

This morning I was still mega-tired, but I kept drinking lots of water (as that tends to flush my system pretty quickly) and tried to eat good foods for the last day or so. All of a sudden at about 11:30am, I got a massive burst of energy and was practically jigging up and down in my seat at work. That’s usually a good sign that the gluten is gone, and also my ravenous appetite is back, so I’m celebrating with a trip to the yummy halal stand across the street for some chicken & rice with hot sauce. Mmmmmm.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for me. Not a huge amount of career-related stuff, I guess, but just general busyness. I got a temp gig that is going to last me for quite a few weeks, which is AWESOME as I was getting back to a slightly scary financial point and needed some consistent work. Once again, the universe helps me out. I really like the guys I’m working with and it’s a fun environment, if hectic, but the worst thing about it is they block practically every website that is fun/interesting/important. I can’t access my email, Facebook, Twitter or much else while I’m at work, except on my phone, and as I usually do most of my net-wasting time during the day it’s put a serious dampener on my sense of connectivity. In a way though, it’s kind of nice to escape the Facebook addiction – and as their policies get weirder and weirder, I start to wish I could stay connected to people in a different way. I just discovered Diaspora, which is a very cool Facebook-alternative, but it doesn’t exactly have the same wide appeal that FB does. However, I joined it (and I can access it at work!), so I encourage other people to try it out.

The band had a couple of gigs last week – the first was an open-mic night that just Hank and I went to in New Jersey on Thursday. We’d wanted to connect with this promoter for ages, so it was part networking and part practice for the two of us, as we want to do more acoustic gigs and busking to stay in good musical shape. It was an interesting medley of people who performed, in a jazz bar in West Orange, and as well as finally meeting Michael (the promoter) we made good contacts with some of the other musicians as well. However, it had already been a long week for me, as I’d managed to schedule something every single night until at least 9pm, and I was half-asleep on the way home. A similar thing happened on our Saturday night gig – just as we started our second set, exhaustion hit me like a wave and I seriously thought I was going to throw up on my saxophone. Luckily, I managed to avoid doing so and finished the set before stumbling home and getting a scant five hours of sleep. I was doing a photoshoot on Sunday for Tamsin Silver’s novel series (the first book of which is being published this year, hooray!) and as well as being a character in the novel, I am Tamsin’s proofreader so I was able to help a lot of the other actors with understanding the relationships between all their characters for the shoot. I was utterly exhausted, but it was really fun and I was glad to be able to be part of the day.

By the time Vince and I got home last night (he was the photographer), we were both wiped. I mellowed out with a delicious glass of Knob Creek on the rocks (thanks Craig) and was in bed by 10pm. Ah, the glamorous life.