Hi. Thanks for all the positive feedback on the blog. I'm glad you like it. Who knew it would be so much fun? 





Isn't this picture scary? I look like Nicolson in his famous scary role. It's me being artistic in the guest bathroom. Don't complain to me about it though. Consider yourself lucky this is the one I'm posting out of the bunch. 



Yesterday I found my character Everett's apartment. It's the top floor of this building on 4th Ave. When you read the book, you'll see all the ways in which it's symbolically perfect. Hahaha.






I also found out everything I needed to know in order to write a scene by running on the treadmill looking out onto 4th Ave. and 12th at that Crunch location. 





Here's the view:





Nothing special in the photograph but I learned a lot watching people walk by as I burned off my lunch

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So far on this trip my favorite neighborhood is the Lower East Side. It was a sensualist's dream walking to Robin Romm's reading last night at Pianos. 





Somehow the neighborhood reminds me of certain parts of Rome. All the people on the street past midnight, young and old, hanging out and eating ice cream cones, laughing, sitting at bus stops without waiting for a bus, even a pair of guys lounging out talking while sitting on the sidewalk in front of an auto body on a pair of removed car seats.



Brick buildings with red iron fire escapes also work for me. Check it out:





Robin read a great story from her collection The Mother Garden called "Lost and Found" to a packed and energetic and attentive crowd. 






This story is full of moments of humor and completely unexpected intensity. Just as soon as you think you know where it's headed, it surprises. You've got to read it. Robin did, look:






It was so nice to see fellow San Franciscans, including Robert Gluck (a colleague of mine who was professor to both Robin and I) and his partner Anthony who are here for the summer. A photographer from The New York Observer was there and took down Bob's and my names for a photograph he took with Robin. That was fun.



Then I walked back to Greg and Michaels by way of Chrystie St. At Stanyon, I paused to admire the deft athleticism of the men playing basketball before I saw this:





Which spoke to me. Especially this part (the following photo is already my wallpaper) which will forever be my new motto:





More beauty:





Michael walked the dogs and I wrote before having a late dinner at Little Giant. YUM! I'm tempted to list everything we ate but have to get to work on the novel. The bathroom downstairs was really tiny but perfectly constructed for such a small place. It reminded me of a restaurant I like back home called Frascati, where my friend Chris and I had a celebratory dinner. In fact, here's something on a sign in Frascati's bathroom. I think is one of the best things I've ever seen:



After dinner we stopped off at a very famous East Village haunt for a look. Good Lord do the go-go boys work hard for their money in Manhattan! A sort-of must-see, we lasted maybe ten minutes before heading home. 



More later.