I went to New York City a few days before I returned to California. I had not been back to New York since before the pandemic began. I stayed with Monty near Ridgewood, and slept in our friend Noah’s bed while he was away in LA. And I managed to see Melody, Molly, Katie, and dear Tracey . . . who is soon to be a published novelist! I ate pizza and noodles and sat in parks and went to bars with my friends, and walked about ten miles a day. It was a good ol time.

The day I left, there was a big hurricane, Hurricane Ida, on its way to the coast. I took a bus from Hudson Yards down to DC just hours before it started to pour. The bus was freezing. On the New Jersey turnpike I felt exhausted and sad. I had not had that much human interaction in probably six months or more, and leaving it again made me feel rotten as hell.

I’ll be back soon enough . . . but for now I am in Northern California, where pretty much everyone I know lives, and I reckon I feel all right again. Tomorrow I will finally have an apartment, and then I can get a desk and a couch and a TV, and so on, and invite people over. Lord! It has been so long since I have been able to do that. . . .

Well: good-night! ☆彡