Very restful day today. After the stressful (though highly entertaining) day yesterday, I got to entirely relax today. Went w/ RD to the botanical gardens, saw venus flytraps, plants that look like rocks, and the waterful. Quite nice. Read my new book (Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing) which has been excellent thus far. Then went w/ RD and CR to Howl at the Moon, a local watering hole, where we had some drinks with Greg, a local ex-con who's hoping to be in the FDNY, although now he's a building super and volunteer fireman. Greg prefaced all sentences with "no offense" meant entirely for CR, before he launched into a discussion of how they hung a black guy in his neighborhood ONLY FIFTEEN YEARS AGO!!! THAT'S 1985!!!! Despite his well-intentioned bigotry (and I'm sure he congratulated himself on the way home for buying a pitcher for a black guy and his friends) Greg was really entertaining, a welcome break from lesson planning. Although I'm quite glad that he and his 48th precinct buddies aren't patrolling MY streets, it was very interesting shooting the shit with him.