Kerry was in town over the weekend - yea! First stop: The Market NYC to browse through some really beautiful and somewhat expensive handmade goods. Then it was over to Teany for some tea and goodies and our first celebrity sighting of the weekend: Eric Stoltz. He waited in line for a table just like the rest of us plebes. Later that night we trekked up to the Upper West Side to see Kenneth, What is the Frequency?

Brunch the next morning was at our beloved Anthony Bourdain's restaurant Les Halles. I'm still not really sure what I ate: some kind of cold potato and olive lump with cheese, an omelet full of red stuff. The champagne and ice cream were easily identifiable, however, and much enjoyed. The space was really nice, very European-feeling. I would definitely go back for a drink and uh, not eat anything.

After brunch I rescued Kerry and I from a Metro-card scam: a couple of louts had jammed the turnstiles to read "Please swipe again" and were so very kindly offering to swipe our cards for us. No thanks I replied, to which one of them said "Ok, well, you'll be standing there all day." Um, no we won't. So we bounded off leaving them to prey on the unsuspecting World Trade Center tourists with their FDNY hats and WTC "Never Forget" keychains.

We also visited the ICP for the "Looking at Life" and Abu Ghraib exhibits. Quite a tumultuous selection of photographs - no matter how many times I've seen the Zapruder stills the pit of my stomach always bottoms out and I feel like crying: the burst of red, Jackie Kennedy crawling out the back of the car. Excruciating. And the Abu Graib photos, as you know, are absolutely revolting and nauseating and makes me hate with all my heart war, the culture of war, and everything that is spawned from war. Knowing it occured on Bush's watch...I can't cope.

We ended the weekend with a lively dinner of free tequila shots at Tortilla Flats, which sent my case of the sniffles mushrooming into a full-blown head cold. Oh, and our second celebrity sighting was on our way to see Birth, on 23rd St.: Ethan Hawke. Still trying to figure out Birth. It was beautifully shot, and the music was perfect, but Nicole Kidman's megastardom just eclipses everything. I'm just so conscious of watching "Nicole Kidman" that it distracts me from being able to lose myself in the film. It's like she can't possibly be anyone but "Nicole Kidman." Megastars are like big-box stores: huge, boring, and predictable.

Anyway, now that the fun's over I'll be holed up in my bedroom for the next few days trying to write a paper and kick this nasty head cold. The amounts of vitamin C and zinc in my body must be toxic by now.