And they told two Friends and so on and so on...

6627 Steps

Ahhhh! Saturday! A day off. A day of rest. It was GREAT. I got up and cleaned my apartment all the while wishing someone else was doing it. But it is done and SO nice.

Then I met Lisa and Josie at Sarabeth's on Amsterdam and 80th. (Sadly Lisa did not get her tomato soup fix here because there was too long of a wait, so three Californians went out for New York Mexican! ) Here is one of the ways modern technology can be used for good and not for evil. When I was moving to New York I sent out an e-mail to a lot of my friends asking if they knew of someone looking to rent to someone, and like the old Faberge shampoo commercial they told two friends and so on. Well Lisa and Josie are my new relations because of this search. I know Cheline who knows Jacquie who knows Josie who knows Lisa. And here we are 3rd and 4th cousins meeting up in Manhattan for brunch all because I wrote to Cheline. Excellent. We had about a 4 hour lunch. It was fantastic. Both great girls and it was a pleasure to meet them. I had a great time and felt so instantly comfortable with them. Lisa lives here and Josie is going to hopefully. And we all hover in around the same business so hopefully we can help each other as well.

Those girls tired me out and I went home and tried to nap all the while thinking I should be walking through a museum and feeling guilty about this. There are so many shrinks on the UWS, I should find one!

I am terrified as Lisa and Josie talked me into joining Facebook. This blog has made me feel a little exposed, but in a way I like, and then there is the world of Facebook. Wow. Not sure how to handle yet. I wish I could start off with Elbowbook or Shinbook.

Last night I called my friend Brad's friend Bo. He lives walking distance from me. And as happens in all the 30's -40's radio plays of Manhattan, I am invited over to their new penthouse apartment by Lincoln Center and walking distance from my house. This is the life I want and I am having it. I went over and met Bo and his partner Andy. We had a really nice visit and I hope to borrow sugar and eggs and a cuppa flour from them soon.

Le Scaphandre et le Papillon

9641 Steps

This should translate to "Horrible True Confessions" for the purposes of this blog entry, but it translates to THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY - a film I saw last night at the Broadway Screening Room in Times Square right by my work. This is the true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby the editor-in-chief of French Elle who suffers a stroke at 43 and is paralyzed fully except for his left eye. He goes on to write a book through blinking out the letters to a translator. Amazing film by blustering American artist/director Julian Schnabel. I know some critics and those cheaper and even more thoughtless than yours truly will cheekily refer to this as "My Life Eye" (remember you heard it here first!), but it is such a lovely, lovely film. Go see it when it opens wide for you peons.

The reason I said "Horrible True Confessions" is because as much as I was engrossed in this film and was moved so deeply by it, here are a selection of devil/shoulder thoughts I had whilst viewing:

"He was editor-in-chief of French Elle at 43? What have I done with my life?"
"What a nice car and nice clothes."
"What a nice house in the country and he has a place in Paris as well. He is 43!"
"He's taken a lover and he has a wife? Have I taken enough lovers? How do I do that?"
"He wrote a book?!, I want to write a book."
"He called his father's apartment in Paris "small"? I would KILL for that apartment."
"He still has his father at 43."

This man was 43 and could only move his left eye. God help me turn my thinking to how fortunate I am as temp Director of Scheduling and Programming at 45. No living parents, yet all my working parts today. Grazie Dio.

This of course makes me go to last year's excellent Oscar winner, the German film about a couple's lives RUINED by spying from the East German police, the Stassi - THE LIVES OF OTHERS and my thoughts with this intense film about loss of personal freedoms:

"Wow, he is a successful playwright and lives in Berlin with all those books and he gets to be that good looking and he's my age and successful with a beautiful girlfriend and drinks wine and smokes cigarettes? That's it. After I get out of this cinema in Los Angeles I am going to move to Berlin and drink wine and smoke and write plays."

The lives of others is exactly what I need to stay out of.

SOOOOO... I got to go to this screening care of my excellent friend Robin who took me. As I was waiting for Robin this woman gets off the elevator with shopping bags and a knitted wool scarf and gives the "name on the list" woman a whole story about how she is just in from LA and was supposed to meet a friend here but he couldn't make it and she is eligible herself to be on the list but doesn't have her card but she SO wants to see this film and if it is at all...." I thought to myself "Do I believe her? She seems nice and not jaded. Yes, I believe her." Then I thought "This is so bad that I am listening to this and I wonder who she is and I need to just not talk to her as is my wont." Then I thought "Will I tell her I just moved here from LA and then talk about that?" And then I thought that is just so eye rolling I will leave the poor woman alone. I never thought "Later on you will be hugging this woman on 50th and Broadway and having a stranger take your photo with her." Life is truly grand that way.

Deux Belles et un Papillon

So Robin shows up and Marina is a friend of hers and we all sit together. It was great. Robin is a fantastic new friend in my life and I do not write this SOLELY because she is reading this, but also because she told me so. NOOO, because it happens to be true. So Robin Palmer moved from LA a month before me and is a writer and her book "Cindy Ella" is on Amazon so click on her name and buy it. (In my quest to NEVER be misunderstood, I can't figure out how to underline on Blogger so I had to use quotes around the title so don't think for a minute I don't know...) And Marina Zenovich is an accomplished filmmaker who has just completed a new film "Roman Polanksi: Wanted and Desired" that I hope will be screening at Sundance this year. Look out for it.

This moment I can walk, blink with both eyes, live in a lovely brownstone in Manhattan, work at a great company and have a Friday night out with a writer and a filmmaker, and more importantly, two engaging women.

"My Left Brain" is the title of where I need to be and stay out of everyone else's.

Sleepy Dogs Lie

9356 Steps

Met my friend Sean in the Village for dinner after work. I say this like it is thing I do often. He mentioned going to this Chinese place for dinner and I actually said "You want to go there again?" like I have been doing this for years. I am not jaded; it is quite the opposite. I am a clumsy, gangly, largescale puppy dog that wants to lap it all up. A large puppy dog with an ailing paw, mind you. I don't think it is time to repeat restaurants is all. So I went to this restaurant for the second whole time in my life and it was really good. Perfect in fact. We walked around Bleecker Street and had banana pudding at Magnolia Bakery. Fun night. All the restaurants were full and people were everywhere.

But it became 10ish and I wanted to roll up in my sidewalk and sleep.

It is odd to be working at an office again where I feel the thrill of FRIDAYS. Work is going well, but I am so excited to have 2 days off. And it is filling up already. I have to make time to clean my apartment until I figure out that people here have people to do that for them because they need to be at brunch.

My new attainable goals: podiatrist appointment, Weight Watchers. I am really dragging ass on these and if I don't deal with the latter, there will be more to drag and it I don't deal with the former, it will be really painful to boot! Can't I send out for these as well?

Happy Birhtday, Dad.

11015 Steps


Halloween. My dad would have celebrated his 75th birthday today as my brother reminded me. Wow. It isn't that odd to be alive at 75. But at 62 he did not renew. I miss him more frequently the older I get because I get him more. And I think of so many more things we could talk about and enjoy doing together. And so often I thought, "if only he would come around." This makes me laugh as I was SO convinced I had come around when I was so closed. SO closed. I think he would have gotten me more now. We were headed that way, thank God. It is all pretty classic Cats in the Cradle stuff. When he was me he had 4 kids, a mortgage and 3 practices. He was paying 3 high school tuitions and I thought he sucked, quite often. I was 15 and probably a mess on the inside. Talk about masks!

This Irish New Yorker went to most of my basketball games, all my piping competitions, took me to amazing theatre and restaurants and even brought me to NYC to look at dance schools when I know that was not his vision. Hah. When I think of that, I know he loved me. Cannot believe I am blogging this stuff, but it is late and he is on my mind. I say no more, but that this is his birthday and I think of him often and fondly now. And I am his son living in his home town. I am proud of that. Pretty cool.

Papa's got a brand new...

laundry bag. Yes, Readers, a slow news day for yours truly in Gotham. I went to the S & D Launderette on 80th between B'way and Amsterdam to pick up my wash&fold and I decided to buy a bright, shiny laundry bag. I felt so Big City and New Yorkey, but the truth was I wanted to be like the rest of the kids in the neighborhood and not be toting my tarnished togs in a plastic trash bag. So I says, "Give me one of those, those bags. You got bags, yes? Yes, give me one of them. How much? A fiver? That'll be fine. Oh, ho, ho... You have different colors! (laughs/snorts/blusters to disinterested guy who has folded other men's briefs all day) Ha! I gotta pick one? I see, I see, ya little feller. "


(mentally punches the poor agingbeforehistime laundry guy lightly on the left shoulder)


This is BEYOND where a normal man about town would go with this. He wouldn't even pick, he would have the guy pull the one off the top. I tried to act like this "guy" but inside I was thinking and thinking fast.


"This is the laundry bag FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. DON'T BLOW IT. Sure you ALWAYS go for green or blue. (mocking) GREEN or BLUE, GREEN or BLUE."

"But I LIKE green or blue. Aren't I old enough to feel okay about the colors I like?"


"Yeah, but this is a chance to BREAK OUT, to make a statement to New York, to yourself. Don't blend into the trees with that earth and sky shit every time. Be bold!"


"But it's just a laundry bag. And the guy is waiting! This is NOT me agreeing with you, but those green and blue ones are light and would really show the dirt. If only they had DARK blue. I would go for that. Why don't they have DARK blue? Isn't that really the color everyone would want? Maybe he ran out. I should ask him and I could come back when they are in."


"Just pick a damn bag, they are FIVE friggin' dollars. If you don't end up liking what you chose you can drown cats in the East River with it and get a new one."

"Okay, Okay. Don't push me."


"I'll have the red one, please."

I take the bag and inspect it in the same spirit of gaining familiarity and comfort as a dog would with sniffing another dog.


"Oh, the black plastic pull on the string is not one of those button push ones. I was expecting a button push one. It's a cheap plastic slide. I should have asked to look at it first."

"$14.20 total? There you go. Oh right. That's great thanks. Good evening."


"Okay breathe. Breathe. You got a red bag. Not your color, I know, but it is your birthstone color. And it should hide the dirt should you plan to go sledding on it in the winter. Or when you have to sleep in the park when this job ends. Oh, it is so loud."


"Fer God's sake man. Shut your head up about the bag. If you feel so awkward about it why don't you draw further attention to yourself by photographing it on this busy street corner here?"


"I think I will. I think I will."

IN-dian and OUT-fest

I got up this morning and knew the temp had dropped. I put on my wool coat and brought my bag of laundry to be washed and folded. Apparently I no longer do my own laundry. Who knew? I was so exhilarated by the fresh, cold morning that I impulsively said "Good Morning" to everyone who passed me on the street. I felt like George Bailey coming back from the bridge. Just why can't it be like this every morning?

Today was my first day on the job all by myself. I got in at 8 and left at 7. Could have kept on. I really worked hard today and it felt good. I will get this down and it will amount to something.

I left my office at Times Square and met my good pal Dave who was in from LA on business. Seeing him at 7th and 28th was as if we both grew up on that corner playing stick ball. Great visit over Indian food and a good chat after with the people I cornered and art directed to take our picture. I would have kept the subway light off my head, but he meant well... Anyway Dave has been a lifesaver to me and a mentor and I think the world of him. I hope he has to come back here on business a lot!

I dumped Dave like a hot chapati and headed off to Lincoln Center to go to the after party of the "Parting Glances" screening. It was the first film restoration project for Outfest and I saw the film and heard the panel when they did it in LA. It was so good to see so many of my Outfest colleagues and see so many people I knew from New York. I had no idea. I saw Richard Ganoung who starred in the film. Nice guy. We know each other from LA. He lives in Madison, WI now and I am going to get him to go to the Sundance Channel screening of Nimrod Nation that we are doing at the Sundance Cinema in Madison.

My friend Michael is here working for an entertainment law firm and I just crashed into him at this event. So proud of that boy. He went to law school and passed both the California and New York bars. I pass them now too - I just don't go in! Yuck, yuck.

Saw a filmmaker pal Sam who I met at Outfest this year and his partner told me about Jack's 99 Cent World. I asked if they had Ziplock bags and he said yes. I have to see this with my own eyes. This town may work out yet. I showed them all my pedometer and their friend said I should walk home and so I did. A pleasant, happy stroll up Amsterdam Avenue in the cold and refreshing Autumn night.

I live here! I really live here!

18568 Steps

NY Stock Exchange


To steal a phrase from my friend Marjorie when she speaks of San Francisco, I was tripped out today walking around Manhattan when I realized how "I live here, I really live here!" and I love it.

A gorgeous Autumn day after yesterday's rain. I met friends for breakfast in the Village and then took off and went for a walk along the Hudson River down to the Battery and around towards the Brooklyn Bridge. Seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time this time really brought the excitement and thrill home to me today. Wow, I live right where I can see the Statue of Liberty anytime I want. I know I could have gotten this same thrill for cheaper by moving to Las Vegas, but this is far superior! I trotted all over Wall Street and was right at the church where George Washington has his own pew! There is a painting of him walking right by where I was. That you can't get in Vegas. (Though I wouldn't be surprised if they actually buy the flagstones and moved them to the Strip.)

I gave directions to 5 English women wearing matching "I (heart) NY" sweatshirts at South Street Seaport. They asked me if I was a local and I said "Yes, I am 30 days into be so, where do you want to go?" Amidst all the surrounding history of their crushing defeat lo those 200 odd years past, I was able to direct those sweet English roses bedecked in their American finery to where they wanted to go --Abercrombie & Fitch.

I took the subway home and talked to a guy standing next to me who has been here a year from Sicily. We spoke until his 42nd Street stop. Will I ever see him again? Doubtful, but possible, in what is turning into being the biggest small town in the world.

I have to be thankful for such a wonderful day. I even got home and made myself some vegetables (which I offset with a mushroom lasagna that must have been 80 points.) I watched a film for work and I talked to a guy about joining a pipe band that practices in the Bronx. His name is more Irish than even mine - Byrne O'Sullivan. Isn't that the greatest name you ever heard? Nice guy too. So we shall see.

The Site where George Washington was inaugurated.

Me talking to my sister Seona in California. Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island in bg.

The Street Where People Who Own Stuff Work

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Church that George Washington went to the day of his inauguration.

South Street Seaport. Like a back lot movie set to me! Loved it.