Dispatches from New York City

July 24th 2011

Madison Square Park. A squirrel busks for a cracker. Positively vampy.

39th Street is filled with the trash bags of yesterday's street fair. Sour.

Hot and humid. Even the pigeons look tired.

In the broad bike lanes on Broadway, people sleep with their heads resting on the garden tables.

The Flatiron building.

March 12th, 2012, 17th and Broadway

Tourists pose for photos with the Andy Monument by Rob Pruitt.

Rafiqui's Falafel truck isn't doing much business this morning.

The man with the stand of candy and cigarettes has not sold one bottle of Visine or one box of Razzles in the twenty minutes I have been watching.

Young girls with makeup. Middle-aged women with fur vests and glitzy handbags. Tourists in green sweatsuits with jackets that say "Juneau Alaska."

440 Lafayette

Bellydance class in 4E: "One and two and three and four and oh! Let's try it and turn now. One and two and three and switch. Let's take it from the top, go around if you can." Glad I'm not in there.

It's funny how you imagine a person if you only see them on television or in photos on the internet. When you see that person in real life, they often seem smaller and shier in person. She has a child's smile.
I would miss the city if we moved far away.

Everything here is worn. The floors from dance shoes, the doors from hands, the edges of the walls from shoe taps and large props.
I wish my arms weren't all bruised. I feel worn, too.

March 25th, 2012, 2nd and Bowery

At Peel, the waitstaff stand at the bar, white aprons tied at their waists. A young woman takes a sip of water throughh a straw. As she sips, her eyes widen. Trees bloom outside, tentatively. Glasses and silverware clink. A man in expensive looking loafers with buckles writes in a small notebook and adds to his writing on larger sheets of folded paper. A little boy with curly hair drives his toy car over the top of the ice bucket standing near his table., He isn't tall enough to fetch it out.

The air is heavy this weekend. Pollen. Humidity. Plenty of daffodils loom behind fences.