it's halloween in the castro - every day but halloween

not sure which is more interesting -- this article about gay neighborhoods or the fact that this article is currenlty the 2nd most emailed article at nytimes.com

sleep

a whole section in the ny times on one of my favorite topics...

*drats. one day later and the science section is no longer just sleep articles. but here are links to some of the sleep articles:

sleep and memory
nightmares
too little sleep
sleep and aging
sleep drugs
co-sleeping
thoughts on sleep

disturbia

<~~~~it may be the metropolitan opera, but it's still new york city...

It’s interesting to walk through a place without the tunnel-vision of living there. How did I never notice that you can see Times Square all the way down Seventh Ave at W. 14th St.?

Oh, New York, you are your own unique, totally dysfunctional world.

I stopped at Whole Foods in Chelsea to pick up an apple and a couple bucks worth of hot food for dinner. On my way from produce to the prepared foods, I spotted the check-out line, laughed out loud, and left the store. Over a hundred people stood in line, most of whom had less than ten items to purchase. And to them, this was normal and okay.

More people have touched my body in the past four days than in the past six months. It is never dark here. It is never quiet here. I have to crane my neck to see sky. If I hadn’t stayed near Central Park at first – and now by Prospect Park, cat-sitting for friends – I’d not have seen any significant greenery.

The unnaturalness of the city is unsettlingly disturbing and phenomenally magical.

Yes, I admit it: I can see why people love NYC. I get it, really, I do. But how can one live in this place and not go crazy? It’s like living in some sort of fantastical mental illness to live here. I’m far too practical to cede my sanity for that high.

I’ve also been particularly aware on this visit, despite wearing flats, of how short New Yorkers are. Where are the sons and daughters of Norway and Germany?

memory

I’m not at all the nostalgic type. Quite the contrary, I spend such exorbitant amounts of time planning that I barely have time for living the present, much less the past. So it’s generally a pleasant surprise when memories pop up and bop me on the head.

I’m in NYC for the week for work. Since I’m catching some opera while I'm here, I booked a hotel on the Upper West Side. I’m at Broadway and W. 73rd in short term apartments (the clientele is certainly tourist, not business, but the price and location were right). It’s surprisingly large, it has a clean (and private) bath and an illuminated cross next door welcomes me home each evening. (Ah, vestige of old New York...)

Trying to be a good opera singer, what with the Oregon District MONC next weekend, I figured I ought to limit the use of AC in my room. Since there was an arctic chill upon check in, I turned the AC off before heading out for the evening. (Five days of AC in the office plus flying PDX to Orlando to NYC to PDX this week should provide ample dehydration to battle.) I returned from using the free wifi at Cosi a couple blocks uptown to the faintest smell of garbage and fish in my room.

Bop! I was back in my first apartment in the city. My best friend Jamila and I were sharing a bedroom (and a bed) in downtown Brooklyn in a loft space converted to a 3-bedroom. The first floor was a fish fry place and the second floor was a beauty parlor. Thus, the place smelled like fish in the afternoon and we had no cold water from 8am to 5pm. That lasted about two months. (We found out years later, when a lawyer contacted us while researching his case, that the entire building was zoned for commercial use only and the guy from whom we were subletting was several years behind in rent, having been “subletting” the apartment for years and pocketing the money.)

joy

opinions

morsels for thought...

revisionist supreme court justice jerks...

the place of 9/11 in the presidential race...