Chilly NYC.

Scarf weather. Windy. Though it's hard to tell if the wind is real wind or wind-tunnel wind from the buildings. On and off the subways, which I'm beginning to understand, just in time for it to not matter much any more. Back to 27408 tomorrow, and none too soon. I still feel like I like the city, but I'm ready. And broke.

Village Vanguard last night: it's a room maybe the size of my house, and my house is not large. The Vanguard seats 123, says the sign. The bartender let me say for the second set, so I sat there all night drinking $10 drinks and listening to a Hammond B-3 trio work its way through Monk and Rollins and a few of their own. Hard not to think of Bill Evans working his way through four sets on a Sunday, his bass player two weeks from being killed in a car accident. Hard not to think of everyone else in the world who's played there. Hard not to like the Vanguard.

Off now again to The Snug, a little bar in Hell's Kitchen, where my brother just sat with me for two beers and at great peril to his own immediate well-being: I thought for all the world that he'd bail on me and ride with his wife and his friends, as he was clearly supposed to, back to Brooklyn, where they're staying— but he actually stayed here in the city to talk a few things through, to have a couple beers, to speak as men speak. However that is. Little glimpse of how it used to be with us. Before we got all growed up. Goddamn I love that kid.

It's dark here in NYC. Cold. Cloudy. Little wind. The puddles freeze overnight, melt again the next day. The cabs will run your ass down for sport in the intersections. It costs one million dollars to live here. It costs other things, too. We're coming home tomorrow.