Sunny NYC.

In Manhattan, even when it's sunny, it isn't. It's like the weather is happening fifty floors up or so, but not down here on the street. Cold, though. Wind. And at night, with the— if you'll excuse the easy reach— city lights on and up all over the place, it's beautiful, otherworldly, even as it's nothing more so than this-worldly, nothing more so than of exactly this place, only this place. Flying in yesterday I realized once more how big the country is, how strange a thing is a map of any kind, how odd to make whatever it is they've made here of an island.

They flew me in to read. I did that. Now my time's my own, and I intend to spend it tomorrow walking the streets, maybe walking the parks, trying to see what there is to see. I have two pairs of boots along for this ride: the ones I've got on now, for this weather, and the ones still in my bag, for the weather I'm hoping for, which is anything inclement that might fall on us here in the city. Weather. Gimme some.

The fancies say rain and ice for 27408. Raise a toast for ANYLF back home, please.

In the lobby of the Sheraton NY, what appears to be several flight crews from United Arab Emirates Air Lines are waiting to check out. Tan suits. Red berets. White somethings— headscarves?

A developing situation: Turns out I missed city as much as anything except AMR herself while she was gone to London. Here, in the subways and cabs, walking block after block, I get a sure notion that while I can't live here, or anywhere like it, I could come more often. Something else, something other. That said, though, the novel's done, and it surely takes place nowhere like here, and nothing I can imagine laying myself into next could take place here or anywhere like here. Turns out, NYC is a nice place to visit. But I do look forward to just the way the air looks back home, the space, the sky. So odd to be here. So good. So different. So ready to come back home.