all about me

It was pointed out to me very recently that I have not updated this once optimistically prolific blog since July. So, it has gone the way of most of the journals in my life. (Much to the dismay of my irritatingly disciplined father who has kept a faithful diary, every day of every year of his life since 1964. Evidence below.)






That same irritating father also likes to wax lyrical about 'writing tomorrow's history
today'.... so in the spirit of that. Here I go again.

Tonight, I write, from the east. East Village, that is. I have been nominally 'housesitting' for Dan (see below) while he has been visiting family for a belated Thanksgiving in Kentucky.

By housesitting I mean enjoying having an apartment to myself that has food in the fridge, vodka in the liquor cabinet and (in recent times) Sex and the City recorded on the DVR every time it pops up on television.

Dan's apartment is a twenty minute walk from mine. Almost the same latitude, but a
long way away from the west village. A whole mindset away.

'Tis an interesting thing shifting neighborhoods in New York. For such a tiny island it manages to engender strange loyalties and comfort zones within very small radii. In fact, my friend Jane and I, who for most of the last two years lived three minutes from one another, had different coffee shops, different laundromats and different pharmacies. We did manage to come together, however, at the same bar.

Day five into housesitting, I did have to see about some laundry. An almost traumatic experience, as today, rather late in the year, marked the first snow of the season. And in my limited experience, the first snow is best enjoyed in pajamas, inside. I have however, ventured out once or twice. And here are the differences I have so far noted about the Village de East.

1. Laundromats are bountiful, and are predominantly self service. They are only marginally cheaper than the lovely korean ladies on my block, who both wash and dry for me, however, it did give me a perverse sense of satisfaction to do my own laundry for the first time since December 2005.

2. Manicures can be achieved in the East Village for $6. ($2.00 less than I am yet to achieve in the West).

3. Nail salons are very conveniently located to laundromats.

4. Bars have pool tables. And fewer wankers.

5. Sidewalks (footpaths) are wider, but on a Saturday night can just easily become overcrowded with wankers.... presumably heading west.

Five is probably enough for now. Hopefully this anthropological migration will last long enough for me to manage some actual insight.

Meanwhile the end of school looms. New heashots have been taken. (Sample below). Agents are being targetted. Commercialism and 'Schmoozing' have become part of the common parlance.

Hopefully you will hear again before May. But if not... that's when the sun rises over the new world. Whether it will be in the east or west.... or indeed northern or southern hemisphere... remains to be seen.