Hibernation is almost as hard to believe in as Catholicism, but maybe they both really happen?

My skin looks like a lizard's. My hair is dry and dead and frizzy and dull. I've developed spotty red rashes up and down my wrists and arms and my skin is translucent and bluish like an old, veiny man. I likely am deficient in vitamins C & D and am developing a pot belly and flabby back fat from day long sessions of inactivity and my nostrils are caked in wind blisters. I am much nicer to look at in California.


The television in the elevator says New York City will have a high today of 60 degrees. It doesn't feel like 60 degrees yet but when it does I think maybe I'll be able to write more, too. I think the thing is, since the environment (and my job) is causing so much wear and tear on my body, and because I've been feeling pretty negative for a good run, writing this all down just isn't rewarding. It's punishing.

I'm going to California next Wednesday. I wish it were Wednesday right now. I've played host to guest after guest after guest, and as much as I love them all, a girl needs a second to sleep in her own bed and listen to her own music and follow her own schedule.

Sad things happened this week. But good things happened too:


I went to Kitchen Bar with my incredible roommates for Polly's birthday. We feasted on spare ribs and grilled figs and mango margaritas. We watched American Idol on our big blue couch and our big wide-screen television, I got a taste of what "relaxing" means.

My mom came to visit at the beginning of the month. At the Bar Room at MOMA's restaurant, we met a wonderful man who used to be in the Metropolitan Opera whose mother was a communist and whose chess partner was Pavorati. Eating oysters in Grand Central we talked for hours with a woman named Karen who shared stories of her jet pilot grandfather and her quarter-back brother's recent engagement. We saw plays and drank cocktails and ate too much.



My dad came, too. We rode bikes to Red Hook, listened to enough live music to blow our faces off, chowed down on late-night, post-boozing falafel, had Turkish/Armenian (take your pick) coffee with the Russians at Brighton Beach, rode the Wonder Wheel on the opening weekend, and shared our share of secrets.


In between, though, I've drank too much, been too cold, felt too lonely, thought about home, neglected to pay any of my outstanding medical bills, eaten horribly, missed my parents, not cooked a damn thing, felt anxious and guilty and tired of this city and it's weather and it's dirt and it's crowds and waiting 20 minutes to get onto the escalator to go to my horrible office.

I could end this with some trope about New York and it's magic, but I won't.