Menages, the Economy and the Oba-Messiah

Weekend Past~

Cindie, an old friend from the Dmind Corp days, came into New York for the annual International Print fair, to set up her gallery space's corner in the Armoury on the Upper East Side. Halloween night in the city, we watched the "freaks" dressed up as naughty nuns and jail birds, Governor Palin and rock stars, ("...some girls should NOT be wearing those outfits, that's supposed to look good on her, right??") but we opted to skip the Parade of Ghouls downtown in West Village (it would be overrun) and caught up over ravioli at a nearby trattoria midtown near my apartment.

Next morning, looking out the window down 42nd St, we caught part of the practice run of the NYC marathon, also slated for the weekend. We had diner food delivered up to the casa for breakfast, and then she took off in anticipation of her day - friends from the fine art prints world, customers with the wherewithal to drop a cool $8K on a first edition....whatever. I shook my head, "Can't afford it..." I replied when she asked if she should leave a ticket for me at the entrance. "I am only at the 'Dogs Playing Poker' buying class at this time.'". While my friend was at Print Fair, I caught the downtown bus on 2nd Ave. to Union Square's farmers market, intent on finding a couple of houseplants to bring some life and air into my little space. A dealer from Long Island set up a canvas tent in the busy square. I came home happily with a rubber tree variant, and a larger ginger tree hybrid, with a grizzled- tough look and spice-red foliage. The trees made the air fresh in the apartment, cleaner, and when I open the door at night, it smells so good in there!

At night, we agreed on shrimp tempura sashimi and a film down at the Angelica after the weekend workday was over. I love the Angelica theatre, it's alive with artistically inclined folk in dark drapery and pale pallor, arguing philosophically but amicably over black cigarettes. Inside, tables and a small coffee shop let the movie-goers sit under artwork and discuss the latest arthouse offering. We caught Vicki Christina Barcelona, a visual homage to Barcelona's visceral fusion of art and urbanism ~ a debate whether passion is at odds with a "normal" life. Personally, hot though Javier Bardem is, I'm not tempted to overthrow a lasting, growing and committed relationship in favor of artistic passions, untraditional menage~a~trois, and the constant threat of gunplay and knife throwing. Over alcholic coffees at the King Cole bar in the St. Regis midtown after the film, Cindie was in favor of the Bardem, Cruz, and Vicki-Christina question.

Here was the question: When you have a loving, traditional, growing-old-together-with-kids-and-grandkids, house in the burbs type of relationship, is it understandable to want a passionate sexual attraction to moody, crazed, romantic and rather...dangerously wild painters in a foreign country? Just, is it understandable? My own read was this: I had a million crazy passionate encounters, but a dearth of the real, loving ones. My opin: I would pay a million dollars for the real thing and to erase the scars of two decades of singlehood in 3 major cities. Cindie, on the otherhand, is experienced both sides, now in a loving committed and long term relationship in Conneticut. AND they are both artists too (like Bardem and Cruz in the movie...) Her perspective, well...passion for passion's sake.

I love the King Cole bar for late night champagne, the crowd is returning from some party or art opening, some gala ball or board meeting, and we swanked a bit with millionaires who earnestly debated their own concerns in Gucci and Prada leathers. It's a wonderful background set for our debate du jour. (d'Noir? du Nuit?)

Through last week~

Well, of course, we were all taken by the election and the possibilities for the future. Rockefeller Center ice rink hosted "Election Central" - a giant map of the country imprinted upon the ice, and updated minute-to-minute in red and blue as voting boothes closed and the counts rolled in. Anticipation and celebration lasted all night long in Harlem, midtown, and all boroughs on the warm evening, and we all knew what would happen.

Hope. And celebration. "I love you...Vote Obama," I would say in closing on the phone to my closest friends that week. In response from one loved one, "[blah, blah, blah]... the Oba-Messiah..."

"Yes," I said, "...but your voting platform is based solely on legalizing marijuana, so..."

And similar convos. An historic event, I'm glad to be alive now.

With the economy still tanked, I am holding off on major furniture shopping for the apartment and am still sleeping on a doggie bed on the floor. It's hard to commit to any kind of spending right now and I am willing to wait out the weeks until the money is there to buy the bed and chair that I need before this place is relatively complete.

I did get a print from the Met, though, a montage of photos and sketches of Christo's The Gates installation a few years ago in Central Park. At the time, NYC was again beset by a tight depression. I think I was in between jobs and life was scary and uncertain and cold. The Gates, a path of orange flags tracing a looping trail through Central Park, could be seen out my window from some major lawifrm I was working in, and I would think, in deepest, coldest winter, when I had no permanent job, and very little cash, it was art's response to...despair? Go outside, take a walk through the Gates, ignore the cold and all of the things that can worry a person.

And it was a really inspiring display.

"That's why people buy prints," Cindie replied.

The Explorers' Club

I've been wondering what other people my age have done with this time on earth (while we can still run, skip, jump...) It started to obsess me. I know my little world and my small industry, I know some fun exciting events, people, dinners, symposia and can identify much useless information in the course of my day. I can impress paralegals and attorneys when I use the phrase "xls", can scare people by running "scripts" and nod my head knowledgeably when someone speaks of "spoilation."

So what....

Last night, I stumbled across an old institution here in NYC that hosts interesting lectures once a month on adventures and exploration.

Here's what I read that made me grab my coat, run out of my office and head uptown:

The club's mission is to encourage scientific exploration of land, sea, air and space, emphasizing the physical and biological sciences. Its headquarters is the Lowell Thomas Building on East 70th Street in New York City.

Over the years, membership has included polar explorers Roald Amundsen, Robert Peary, Matthew Henson, Ernest Shackleton, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Sir George Hubert Wilkins, and Frederick Cook; aviators Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, Richard Archbold and Chuck Yeager; underwater explorers Sylvia Earle, Jacques Piccard, Don Walsh and Robert Ballard; astronauts John Glenn, Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, Sally Ride, Kathryn Sullivan, and cosmonaut Viktor Savinykh; anthropologists Louis Leakey, Richard Leakey and Jane Goodall; mountaineers Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay; former U.S. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover; and thousands of other notables including journalist Lowell Thomas, newspaper cartoonist Mel Cummin and pioneer explorer Thor Heyerdahl.

Anyway, they throw lectures once a month. The building is a converted old mansion on the Upper East side, with flowery wrought iron terraces, solid old libraries, fireplaces, exotic rugs, pictures of astronauts on the walls, a stuffed polar bear, a sled that has crossed the North Pole, giant ivory tusks, and books about land, sea, air and space expeditions. I bought my ticket, entered the main library and had wine and cheese with scholars, historians, and explorers.

The lecture started when a vibrant guy about my age stood up at the podium and was introduced to the audience. He was a combination of Tom Cruise and Indiana Jones. His video and slides were about his exploration and plotting and conservationist efforts for the caves in the Yucatan Penninsula - Mexico. His name was Sam Meacham, and he is a part of Cindaq, an organization dedicated to conservation and exploration of fresh water resources and underwater geography underneath the Yucatan.

A cenote is an opening in the jungle terrain filled with fresh water and is a passageway into the limestone cave-system underneath Tulum, Cancun and all of the surrounding tourists areas of the Yucatan.

He and his team walk or fly through the jungle, locate the Cenote, put on diving gear and bring 400 lbs of underwater lighting equipment, and dive downwards, following the underground rivers. Past dinosaur bones, ancient sacrificed skeletons, pottery sherds, ancient sloth, and underwater architecture of the Maya, dodging stalagmites and stactites before the caves were overrun from the rising oceans. He spoke about walking down carved Mayan stairs, past an underground stone alter, and down into the dark pool of freshwater under the jungles.

He and his team experienced previously undiscovered plant life, fish, crustacean, and even mammal remains.

Footage and scientific measurements were sent to National Geographic and various scientific institutions for examination of flora, fauna and water chemistry, especially as it is affected by the tourism of the Yucatan and explosive population growth.

Anyway, we were all ooh'ing, ah'ing, and I felt inadequate.

This is what people do with their time?

Update:

Just read a curious little post about the Explorers' Club Annual Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria this year (attended by an old roomate of mine, one of the first groups of women invited to join the society.)

Anyway, on the menu:

Earthworm Stir-Fry
Roasted Goat, Pork Chitterlings, Eyeballs, etc.
Maggot- and Bug-Covered Strawberries
Scorpions on Toast
Duck Tongues on Belgian Endives
Lotus Stalks
Sweet & Sour Bovine Penis


"You foolin' me?? For real?"
"Ain' no lie."

Full article on Epicurious.com's blog.

Pushing wind, rain and sirens

A borrow from EdEx.




Nice pic from Jeff's weather blog.

Storm and wind kind've changed alot of semi-conscious planning I had for today. After an inhouse day in PJs, I bit the bullet and took the 6 train downtown to shop for necessary items. I've been a barbarian, sitting on the floor, eating takeout with plastic forks and stuffing greasy paper bags into the fridge.

I took my first step in buying stuff for the studio - hit CB2 just off Canal Street. Everything...everything was wonderful and perfect for my little space, but I started with just some plates, bowls and some basic flatware.

By the time I came back, the asphalt glistened and umbrellas were being pushed sideways by the wind, pedestrians soaked and shaking their fists at the grey sky.

Tonight, it's a black - loud night. I can feel the storm whistling into the room through wrought iron window panes, see lightning bursts flash just outside my window from up on the 27th floor, and the Manhattan Bridge is melting as I watch through sheets of water pouring down on the glass.

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler...

This week in Gotham, the industry held its 12th Annual Electronic Discovery and Records Retention Conference at the Jumeirah Essex House Hotel on Central Park South. Luminaries from top ten mega-lawfirms and giant multinationals graced the silver carpet into Essex's grand ballroom for a tech Ho-Down.

I was invited to join my company's directors in attending the cocktail hour, where we had a booth to display large screens offering native review in Korean and Japanese. I met up again with friends from the past - Dmitriy (my Yoda), now at Debevoise, Jason (once a vendor-Business Partner, now at Metlife in Long Island City)... and made some new drinking companions in this strange, wild world of litigation support technology.

Our company later sponsored a dinner for clients and friends at Shelley's Trattoria, on 57th near the hotel. The wine flowed freely. The seafood was crisp and light: calamari, and I again tried some pan roasted scallops, even finer than last week.

A client from Texas and Jason from Metlife became fast friends, swapping southern stories in slurry drawl; Dmitriy and I caught up on 3 years of living...Patrick's side of the table kept drawing more and more staggering folks over to discuss fantasy football - we were all eager for a good time.

I also had my review this week, that same night actually. Earlier in the day, I receive a rather cryptic email ordering me to show up at my boss' hotel room for my review. My boss' hotel room? For my review? Good thing she's a girl!

The room was modern and sleek and elegant, with theatrically dim lighting hidden strategically behind borders around the room and cast an interesting purple glow about that reminded me of Star Trek - The Next Generation.

Review went well - I get along with my coworkers, my technical background helps me talk to my clients good, and I have won my clients respect....my division director introduced me as the latest Rockstar of her group, and I was relieved.

I turned into a pumpkin early in the evening, too high heels, too much wine, not enough real food, and an early day at the office the following day. Jason from Met took Metro North home, fell asleep on the train and went way beyond his stop all the way to the end in Connecticut - took a cab to his car, which ran out of gas at 2 am...and he was back at work at 8:30. Patrick fared similarly.

Headache all the next day, blistered feet from a night in 4 inch heels. All of us decided not to attend the b-Disco monthly industry bar night the following evening.

The week quieted down much more on the social front, although I met up with a friend for shopping in Rock Center where he was to advise me on which suit to purchase (this is my kind've metro-sexual friend that I mentioned earlier). His good news: new job came through. Even in this stunted economy. I guess the suit and shoes and colonge from France really were a good investment. I didn't buy anything that night though, we just talked about life. Rockefeller Center opened up the ice rink early this year - skaters and tourists twirled below the giant art deco square and danced beneath golden Prometheus. Soon, Christmas will be coming, we're all feeling it.

Tomorrow, it seems I've got the weekend to myself. I'm thinking of going to a cool steampunk-themed faire called the Grand Chrono'nauts Tea, in Carrol Gardens. Daily Candy suggests "think Jules Verne-inspired trinkets and top hats with petticoats" - the sci-fi version of the Victorian Era. Sign me up.

Also, I have to get ready for my first houseguest. One of my close friends, a curator, will be attending the International Print Fair next week, and I have to find a blowup bed for her to sleep on.

Aurora with Victoria and Sohini

Met with the girls in downtown Soho. We sat at a rustic wood and brick bar eatery fronted by a metal porch, lit with candles. We caught up on the 4 or 5 years of things that have happened since the DMIND Corporation shut down and we were left to make our way in the world.

Sohini and Arka, their romance was a tale woven while the sun went down and the leggy fashionastas of Soho came out (- from downtown corporate offices - from catwalks in the meatpacking district - or from tall storefronts midtown.)

Victoria started a new career - a new sort of marketing, managing BUZZ - for clients like HBO, some video gamemakers, for celebrity personalities. Image management? What did she call it, there is a term of art...Rumor management? She generates and manages image and rumor and excitement in the new media: the blog-o-sphere, chatrooms, clubs and dance floor, back rooms of fashionable bars, and behind closed doors in boardrooms. She always was motivated...

The grappa flowed freely. It was a long and fantastic evening. I ate perfect seared scallops on top of a vinaigrette salad on rough wood tables worn smooth and layered with softwax.

Everyone's so beautiful here.

Is it like Sex in the City?

I never watched Sex in the City before this weekend. Amazing, but I lived most of my life without cable; how could I afford cable AND Gucci AND Ferragamo AND Cole Haan...you get the picture. So, last weekend I watched the movie, 4 years later in the lives of the fabulous four and was fascinated.

I caught up on the 1999 series...what happened in 1999? Oh, yeah: late twenties, early thirties, maybe that's why Sex in the City is so appealing, they and I were the same age, and I DID collect shoes, run up ridiculous tabs at swanky watering holes, used to be able to compare the latest trend in restaurant decor, service, palate.

Casual chic, swingy hair, and difficult relationships.

What will it be like this time around? Currently, my apartment is unfurnished, I work late hours at the new job, and dip my toes gently into the cold rushing river that is NY social life.

I am 3 years older. San Francisco taught me large open spaces and fresh food - Boston taught me...well, that I hate politics - and how to move quickly out of sinking situations, and here I am again.

Maybe that's why I watched Sex in the City - I needed a primer.

Things are very easy now, but they are the same: friends are moving onwards, upwards...the boys are exactly the same; the clothes, well at least I know where to go shopping, (tho the current economic state taught me to be cautious in spending); food is great as always and delivery at 3am if I feel like it all week long....

My body is adjusting to the warmth in the mid-Atlantic. Warmer than SF, warmer than Boston.

It's perfect.

Chillax, it's the Weekend~

OOH - thank goodness.

On the agenda:

I need to visit at least one of the food craves I haven't satisfied in the past three years: maybe it's time for a cupcake tour of Manhattan. Magnolia Bakery: It's downtown, it's hip, and the line goes around the block. Near all of my favorite shopping, good restaurants, and very much a chillax vibe, especially while the weather is still good. We used to have a monthly bar-night at my old job, about 4 years ago. One of my friends was not allowed to come to bar-night unless there was a chocolate cupcake from Magnolia inside his briefcase. Indeed, I have warm and caring friends.

But enough about desserts: Shopping at Lolli in LES. I have no money and economy is so bad, but they are having a SALE, and the stuff is soo...urban goddess. Um, because that's me, right?

Apparently, this weekend is also the I Kiffe NY: a French-NY urban festival with gritty movies, performing and visual arts, and...wait a minute, Les Nubians is playing at Joe's Pub? Man, tickets are going to be sold out by now, why am I only finding out these things now? I miss being plugged in. Well, I'm going to have to do something about that.

I would have loved to go...

Ok, next, I could seriously use just a good ole stroll in Central Park. It's probably one of the last warm weekends in NYC, and seeing some green by the duck pond may be in order. Did I leave my rollerblades in San Francisco? Must have.

Also, on the friends note, I may stay the night in Sunset Park to see my niece and maybe grab some items of furniture from the basement of my best friend. Another of my best friends offered to meet up Sunday Night for a Soul Dinner.

Anyway --- I better catch the sunlight while it's still here.

Lights in the sky

Sounds of traffic funnel and amplify, like a loudspeaker, up the sides of all of the buildings, reflecting and bouncing and yawing, into my window. I'd forgotten, but the helicopters fly so close to my windows that I'm sure they can see inside, or maybe with the help of those zoom cameras they use to capture traffic shots down, way down to street level.

A helicopter did a fly-by just now; shining a spotlight and lighting up my small studio for a brief moment; hovering, then finally angling away.

I don't know if it has something to do with being so close to Grand Central, the Chrysler Tower and, of course, the UN. Across the street, WPIX Channel 11. In the early morning, they have a camera sitting out on the sidewalk, taking shots of pedestrians hustling to the office. I'm already on TV twice in 2 weeks.

Out My Window, Superheroes and Supervillians

The Green Goblin's House.


Spiderman's View, west.

Superman and Lois Lane's meeting.

On my friends here.

Catching up after a 3 year sabbatical from the city has been fun - a little awkward, baby-steps.

Relationships have shifted, so have careers, and looks and tastes and smells. They remain the same inside, but I'm seeing them with new eyes again.

2 of my down-to-earth pals became swanky, my swanky friend is trying a grunge look, and I am blonde now from 2 years in California.

Y stopped by the office last Friday for a visit, a coffee, some gossip and a hug before a very important interview. His suit was perfectly fit, razor-sharp and of an impressive shade and weight of lighter wool, his cologne came from France, and his watch had no numbers on it. Hmmm....what happened to the Banana Republic tech guy, the alumn from the Coding Floor, was he body-snatched by Tom Ford? Very odd. He speaks of a new house in Pennsylvania, a $1.5M condo on Central Park South, and his latest Cartier timepiece. What? Not metrosexual but just brushing the right side of it. His latest intended conquest? A top ten international lawfirm, and a great position in the $160K range....Wow. I seriously need to bump my game up, hmm? He said the first question the men ask him in an interview surprised him. It was, "Where did you get your shoes?" I looked at the floor. I mean, they WERE nice shoes...of course, in my ghetto building in the heart of midtwn Manhattan, there was oil dripping from the elevator floor, and I hoped none of it dripped upon the beautiful suit. He wouldn't take a green duck from me, afraid it would fall out of his bag during the interview.

E and I met up a couple of nights before, for a burger and a couple of glasses of wine on the Mezzanine dining space of Grand Central Station's Michael Jordan's Steakhouse. He joked on the telephone that he would be the one with the Afro. I said, "Huh, did you grow your hair out? What happened to Senor Swanky?" I used to tell him he put the S in Swank. On the bar side of the table settings overlooking the marble staircase across the main clock foyer and under the magnificent Grand Central ceiling, I met up with the new E, mussy sweatshirt and jeans, old sneakers and hauling several portfolios. "They're for the interview with the UN tomorrow." he said quietly. UN? Apparently, he wants to start going on UN Peacekeeping Missions as a photo-journalist. War zones, missions to feed the hungry, missions to highlight Development Initiatives...we talked for long hours over his need to do something meaningful. (Goodness knows that the business we were in certainly wasn't...meaningful.) I liked the new look, he was just kidding about the 'fro.

And R, he visited me in the early stages of the move, for a diner breakfast, a hug, and to present me with a screwdriver with bits in it that I was supposed to swap out to use on different screws and joints and stuff like that when I put back my furniture together. A week passes. I tell R that I "did something" but I couldn't tell him what or that he would be mad. But since I couldn't keep things from him, I told him that the bits ended up somehow incorporated into the new TV stand where my new flatscreen sits happily...[well, I mean, I am sitting happily. I snacked it from New Egg last week.] He was very good about my improvisation. It was an emergency. R is also one of those who shifts from swank to grunge at will, but his changes are mostly on the inside. He's a soccer dad now.

It's different, being here this time around. Like I am on version 2.0 of my life.

This weekend in Gotham...

...I just returned from a diner-brunch and a walk in the brisk, grey soup going on outside. Exhilarating, feet chilled. I passed one of those Sunday street fairs, and wandered for a couple of miles past all of the white tents and stalls. This week it's called the Oktoberfest, although no beer passed around Madison Ave at 11am.

It's an exercise in econony and politics, one of many great things about living here, in the Center of it All. On the midtown streets, Sunday morning is pondering and walking and observing.

An Interesting Dinner Friday night.

I had no plans with anyone, but forgot to eat anything the entire day so far. I worked like a machine all week, needed fresh air and a reward, and so, I needed really excellent Indian food. I walked into the Malika restaurant near the UN, near my home.

It was empty, the restaurant glittered with gold filigree and red embroidery, and in the center the restaurant were large stage lights and a very thin, pretty, agressive woman interviewing an older diplomat. It turned out to be Pakistani TV, and he was a Senior UN delegate closing up his week at the UN General Assembly.

In a Pak-lish mix of chatter, they covered Kashmir, corruption, Musharref, and the happiness of the people. All spitfire and 24 years old at the most, I admired how the older gentleman did not lose patience with her as she spewed out her western theories of what should happen, what had happened...the woman herself was obviously spoiled, well to do, had a great job, and was probably over-paid due to her enormous looks. But to tell a career diplomat of 50 years what to do about Pakistan, from her frame of reference, I was frankly amused and fascinated that he paid due respect to her opinions, naive as they were, expressed as they were with too much anger and vehemence and a lack of courtesy to anyone else's thoughts...Kids today!

LOL, only in NY. The food was awesome, by the way. No one makes Indian/Pakistani food the way this place does! Last time I was here, I fell in with a group of UN Peacekeepers who were on the nuclear proliferation team, about to head off to Korea.

Only in NY. I grinned and stuffed my face with the Saag, drank deeply of some wine, and finally let go of the stresses of the day.

Weighing in on the Economy, the Bailout, and Oops, here we are again.

My officemate, Patrick, asks me last week, "They turned down the bailout measure, what do you think...?"

What do I think, I repeat aloud. Well, it's a cycle, isn't it? In the immediate term, the bailout will happen. They only turned it down because it was too vague and undefined. It will happen, though. And it did. But isn't it all just part of the cycle?

My sister, in a past life, was a loan officer for Wells Fargo, and we argued much and often about lending practices. Her own leanings are very far right - laissez faire, emphasis on personal responsibility. Her portfolios were in the mid-market borrowing range, commercial lending. Her message: It's a cycle, 20 years ago it was Savings and Loan, and now here we are again.

I pondered to my officemate the lack of individual or corporate personal fiscal responsibility that comes out of a "free market society" which runs unfettered on the classic bet: can I consume this item and not pay for it for the longest time possible, AND hope that my job is stable so I don't get laid off or sick? Can I get what I want and bury my head in the sand that you have to pay for it one way or another?

Should I feel so sorry for the house-flippers, who bought multiple homes to artificially raise the value of housing, in the hopes they could run away with a large profit and not have to pay off the loan they made in this speculation? I do feel sorry for people laid off and jobs lost, when people tightened their belts and refused to spend for the luxury goods and services they needed to keep up with the Jones'.

My own life was a series of individual loan crises: luxury travel, goods and services to achieve a polished sheen, and restaurants - bars - clubs and what_have_you, because I was bored. I am still paying off trips that happened 10 years ago; "the" shoes that I wore and threw out after a year; and isn't a bag, after all, just a bag? I'm almost out, I have a good job that is stable as long as I work seven days a week and give up sleep, and it works now that I have returned to my beloved city, the cheapest place in all the places I have lived, to recoup, recover, and remember.

Rambling? Back to the point: personal fiscal responsibility. That's the lesson I learned the hardway. I mean, I don't want to play the latest happy hour bar-game, "What should Congress and the President do now?"

The point for us is not to get screwed in the downturn part of the cycle. Don't buy on credit what I don't need. What about growth, says the otherside, what about how credit spending is the key to a growing GNP? Yeah, but that's a gamble. If one borrows, one should borrow for capital investment, for goodness sake, not for the Prada coat or a hot shiny car...And if it is borrowing to make more money in the future, make sure it does make more money, be smart! Is the bet worth it? Will I be able to pay back?

Can I pay back the money that I borrow? What if I get sick or lose my job?

I avoided getting butt-seksd this time, I told my officemate. If it is a cycle then how do you stay out of trouble? Growth based on loose lending practices and undisciplined luxury spending or bad investments by the commercial giants - to boom (and you know it's going to pop, you KNOW it, when too many people do the same thing), and burst, contract - less spending, layoff of jobs, more people in the streets, and less items available....Bailout...slow growth - cautious feeling that things are getting better, and the meteoric rise to boom phase again.

On BBCAmerica, the interview-lady asked, all fierce teeth, "Doesn't that mean that the American model doesn't work??" she asked stridently? "No," replied some economic guru sitting in the greenroom of the studio, a fake skyline blinking behind him. "It means there are some problems with the model that we need to fix. How many times have we seen this in the past?" he asked. Well, Duh.

I guess it means I need to watch my spending - not buy anything consumable unless it is bought with outright cash. Don't borrow unless it's to make more money (and make it a good gamble). Do well at my job, even if it means staying up all night seven days a week. Work in an industry that will continue to have demand and customers will pay, even through a recession...

Hard though, walking down Madison Avenue, saying no to those boots, and eating less-expensive meals all the time, putting off travel until gas prices go down, not buying stuff yet for the apartment...

I put the lovely silk rug down sadly, shook my head at the guy in one of those tents at the street fair, and walked on home.

I was offended when I saw the Madison Avenue matrons still carrying bags-and-bags of 1000 count linens, the new Burberry fall coat, and just had their nails done, hair swinging as only a $500 a hit hairstylist can achieve.

So what's that picture all about down there, anyway..?

Reference to my old life, a life that had twists and turns like a Byzantine city, that brought me from Soho, to the City by the Bay for 2 years, and relentlessly, mercilessly thrown into Beantown, to wash up on the shores clinging finally upon my dear old Manhattan.

The picture is based on a couple of conversations I had, with Seth, then Kamal, who referred to our shared existence as The Land of Broken Toys....

"See, and there's something that went wrong with this person," one would say, gesturing towards a well-dressed person pulling a handtruck of fifteen boxes. "and that one," the other way, towards the Area General Manager's direction, the afraid-to-tell-people-he's-gay Uber-Boss, who manages the company much like Darth Vader did. "And those two in there," he would whisper, tilting his head to the wall of our shared office.

"And see, you, and me, and Seth, and..."

I tell people at my new company what I did for 4 and a quarter years, and they blanch, dismayed, and rush on about how good it is here, how it's all over now, and generally, the facial expression was an Ugh.

Week One

[UPS came to the Italianate Mansion in the small garden neighborhood of Jamaica Plain, MA, where I had lived for the past year. Goodbye, Vee Vee and the Valachovic's, goodbye giant trees and summer mansions, frosted victorian winters and leafy green summer days. I watched my eight large boxes get loaded into the brown van, sighed, packed up my little laptap, and grasped my Amtrak Acela ticket.]

I'm home now, and it's Saturday night, almost one in the morning, here in the city. Out of the corner apartment on the 27th floor, 42nd Street spills outwards below, and towers rise above, dominated by the Chrysler Tower.

Looking South, I can barely make out NY Harbor, the Manhattan Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the East River is a ribbon of black glass tonight. I am home.

I'm on the floor for now. My furniture is in San Francisco. I hope to get a bed soon, some curtains, maybe a chair, but for now, I've been sleeping on a blow-up thing that popped this weekend, and now, a foam mattress on the hardwood.

The new job is incredible! Being home...incredible! Met with Rob and Ed, Young, and have appointments with Sohini and Arka, Victoria, and many others in my NY life that I am coming home to.

I'm tired though. The three years away, well, it's caught up with me: the hard work, new job, late hours, packing on my free time, worry about free cash, then the move, the travel from Beantown to Gotham on the train...no vacation days taken yet, just trucking through.

Exhausted, actually.

This weekend, instead of worrying, I'm looking out the windows, walking up Madison Avenue, popping into museums, and leaving messages for friends. I need rest.