Five more things...

1) In the last three days, Reilly’s vocabulary has increased noticeably. Instead of simple babble like “da-da-da-da-da” or “ma-ma-ma-ma-ma,” she has started to mix her syllables. The result is something like, “ma-da-pa-ma,” which is not only more developed, but exponentially cuter. For the first time, it really seems as if Reilly is trying to form words. It is still so shocking to me how Reilly can just flick a switch one day and quite suddenly become a totally different little person.

2) Reilly is now an official graduate of sleep training. She goes to bed at 7:00pm without any crying, and sleeps all the way through the night without waking up to breastfeed. Her naps have lengthened from thirty minutes to one hour and thirty minutes. To say how this has changed the lives of Reilly’s parents should be obvious. What is surprising is how twelve hours of straight sleep has benefited our daughter. The extra rest has made Reilly a more hungry, happy, and healthy baby.

We have the Sleep Lady to thank for it. Her book, "Good Night, Sleep Tight" was a kinder, gentler way to sleep train our baby. It only took three nights to see dramatic results, and a week to have a routine in place. Sleep Lady, I could kiss you.

3) This morning, we all went out for breakfast at French Roast café. To keep Reilly occupied while we ate, we gave her some Cheerios to eat. Reilly has grown very adept at feeding herself finger foods, putting away a Cheerio every ten seconds. She’s like a tiny vacuum.

After our meal, while we were waiting for our check, we broke out the Cheerios again, since Reilly was getting a little fussy and impatient. This time, instead of feeding herself the Cheerio, she turned back to me and put it in my mouth. Then she tried to get her finger in my mouth to get it back. When Reilly saw that I had eaten it, she picked another one up from the table and stuck it in my mouth. We continued this cute ritual until the Cheerios ran dry.

4) Now that it is warm enough to take Reilly outside without a hat on, we’ve noticed all the colors in her hair. Her hair is lightening by the day, and if you look at each strand in the sun, you can see a bit of red in there too. The big question is, will she end up a blonde?

5) Reilly is very good at tolerating her parent’s crazy whims. Yesterday morning, before I stepped out to the Farmer’s Market, I wondered aloud if Reilly would fit in our Earth Day bag. (The Earth Day bag is just one of those woven bags that we use at the market to avoid having to use plastic bags.) So, Donna picked her up and put her in, and Shawn started snapping pictures:

Week 42 Pictures

Week 42 pictures are up at the Smugmug site. Click here to check them out!

GABTA

Reilly’s grandma Donna is in town, so Thursday—a day I normally spend caring for Reilly—I had a free pass. Donna was taking Reilly out to Long Island to see her great grandmother, so with no work to go to and no baby to sit on, the day was mine to fritter away however I wanted.

So, I quite naturally decided to clean the apartment. I mean, why use the opportunity to the sleep in, have lunch with a friend, or maybe get a massage, when I could get out my spray bottle of Stainless Steel Magic and clean the stove. Yay!

I won’t go into the detail of how I attacked the bathroom with a toothbrush or the various errands I ran in the afternoon, because I’ve already bored you this week once with the logistics behind my double perfect commute. But I will tell you briefly about the Great American Bureau Throw-Away (GABTA) that just occurred.

Due to the lack of closet space in our apartment, I have a bureau that I keep my various non-hanging clothing in. Lately, each drawer has grown so overstuffed that I cannot close it all the way, on account of the various shirts and unders poking out. Just a few days ago, Shawn very nicely pointed out that none of the drawers were shut on my bureau. In fact, she was being so nice about it that she channeled Reilly to bring up the issue:

“Brian, Reilly wants to have a discussion with you about the whole open-drawer thing.”

“Yeah, what did Reilly say?”

“You gotta do something about it. Soon.”

You see, as of last week, it wasn’t just an issue of clothes peeking out anymore. I had just given up altogether on shutting the overstuffed drawers. So, I promised my lovely wife that I would address the issue on the upcoming Thursday of freedom, which is where the GABTA comes into play.

Yesterday, I opened a beer, put on some music, and opened the top drawer. (Well, I didn’t actually open it, since it was already open.) I then proceeded to throw out any socks, undershirts, and unders that were faded, holey, or otherwise worn out. Then, I repeated the process with my T-shirt/shorts drawer, and my pants/collared shirts drawer. I made my decisions quickly, putting the nicely folded newish stuff back in, and throwing the old stuff over by the door where I couldn’t reach it and somehow decide to give some article of clothing one last chance.

Everything was going smoothly until I hit the oldest T-shirt in my drawer. The shirt that Shawn had been begging me to throw away for the past five or so years. The shirt that I loved the most. It was my Keswick Christian Soccer shirt from the summer of ’95, when I played six-aside soccer with my best guy friends Brian, Sid, Phil, and Aaron. (Aaron, if you’re reading this, you’ll remember that summer was the year you broke your leg into about fifty pieces. I’ll never forget that night, buddy.) I threw the shirt over by the door, but before it even landed, I was over picking it back up. Nevermind that the thing was eleven-years-old. It was a classic, with an icon of a soccer player with super ugly soccer hair printed across the left chest. Yet, something inside of me knew it was time to let it go. As much as I loved the shirt, it was faded, stained, stretched, and frankly, downright ugly. I mean, it was an ugly shirt when it was brand new, which was part of the appeal, but somehow, the shirt, in its age, had failed to mature into a retro classic. It had just grown tired. So, with some fanfare, and to Shawn’s great delight, I threw my old friend out:

From the Archives: April 28, 1988 - Age 12

The word of the week is, "lament," meaning to express sorrow. I ain't going to be here tomorrow. Our family is driving to the state soccer tournament. I can't think of anything to write. Newsflash! Christa just passed a note to Phil!

From the Archives: April 27, 1988 - Age 12

I went to the dentist today. I missed all of first period. Mom finally is going to let me have some deoderant. I can't wait 'till state!

From the Archives: April 26, 1988 - Age 12

I am positive that I am getting an A in all my classes this marking period! Yay! Keri taught me how to make bracelets yesterday. I have already made two. My second one is the best. I get to miss all of Friday because I am going to the state soccer tournament.

Flick the Bird

The "Perfect Commute," defined

I realized after I posted yesterday’s entry that many of you didn’t read my previous blog, “Two to Three,” and that my excessively long and detailed entry about my perfect commute might be lost on you.

So, in case it wasn’t clear, a perfect commute is when I go from work to home, or home to work, without having to stop. This includes crossing every intersection on the fly and catching the subway train without having to wait (otherwise known as catching the train on “Brian Time”).

Part of the appeal of the perfect commute is the tiny probability of it ever happening. (The last recorded perfect commute I had was June 24, 2004.) In the suburbs, it would be the equivalent of catching every green light on the way to work.

The other part of the appeal is that in the City, I am so often just a single person in a mass of millions, so to have a perfect commute makes me feel that for just a moment the City is mine; that I am in rhythm with it, and it with me.

The double perfect commute

Warning: 99% of readers will find this entry really, really boring, but I posted it anyway, because I am too proud not to.

When I get to work every morning, the first thing I do is email Shawn to let her know how the drop off went at daycare. Today was no different. I let her know that the drop off went well and that Reilly was happily playing with her friends by the time I left. Shawn replied with an email that said, “I think we left the iron on.”

Now, you have to understand that we have a history with the whole leaving the iron on psychosis. Shawn and I have a little OCD relationship going on with the iron, and we’ve put in place two steps to make sure that neither of us has that “oh shit” moment while riding the subway train to work.

Step 1: Brian checks to make sure the iron is off before going to work.
Step 2: Shawn checks to make sure the iron is off before going to work.

Until today, this process worked brilliantly, since even if one of us forgot to check, the other served as backup. But this morning we were running late, and were rushing out the door, so when Shawn emailed me to see if I remembered to check the iron, I felt that sudden sinking feeling. I hadn’t.

Of course, there was only one thing to do. I walked into my boss’ office, told him that I thought I left the iron on in my apartment, and depending on the commute, I’d be back in forty minutes to an hour. He laughed. How could he not? We were only working on one of only three serious deadlines we have all year.

I caught the elevator down, hit the pavement at a good clip, and crossed Water Street on the walk sign. I crossed Broad Street at Pearl Street on a flashing don’t walk sign, then shot over to Whitehall street via Bridge Street. I jaywalked at Whitehall right in front of a police van, grabbed a free newspaper, and then ran down the steps at the Bowling Green subway station. As I hit the floor I felt a strong wind in my face which could only mean that a train was coming into the station, so I broke into a sprint, swiped my card at the turnstile, then hopped on 4 Express going uptown. I took a moment to read the paper and cool off. A few stops later, the doors bing-bonged open and I negotiated the winding hallways of the 14th Street Station. I surfaced at the southwest corner and crossed Union Square West at 15th Street on a walk sign, which I stayed on to cross 5th Avenue on another walk sign. By then I knew that it was possible to have my first perfect commute in over a year, with one street left to cross. I waved at my coffee cart guy at the corner of 5th and 16th and then crossed onto 16th Street with a walk signal and a big grin on my face.

The grin quickly evaporated as my mission returned to my mind. I walked at maximum speed down the block to my apartment, turned the key, kicked open the door, jogged up one flight of stairs, which caused me to huff and puff up the next two, turned the key and shoved open our front door, rounded the corner and HEY! the iron was unplugged.

I grabbed a water from the fridge and reversed my path, catching a walk sign at 16th Street and crossing against the don’t walk at Union Square West in front of a turning cabbie. I don’t normally cross in front of a cabbie, but a perfect double commute was on the line, and since there was no baby strapped to my chest, I could take a few chances. The hardest part of the perfect commute was next, catching the notoriously fickle express train back downtown. As I meandered through the hallway of Union Square Station, I saw that my train was pulling into the station. So, I sprinted down the hallway, dodging support columns and slow movers, shot down the stairway and hopped through the door. Bing-bong! Oh yeah. I didn’t have a paper to read on the way back down, so I thought through which route to take. As the train pulled into my station, I disembarked, mounted the stairs, and chose to take the route along Battery Park, which would mean I only had two lights to make. The first one was no problem—crossed Whitehall Street on a never-ending walk sign. Broad Street was blinking as I crossed Whitehall, which meant that it would be a full-on walk sign by the time I made Broad, and sure enough, it was. I ran up the steps to my building, swiped through security, and an elevator door opened up before me. Forty minutes round trip.

The DOUBLE PERFECT COMMUTE. Ain’t life grand?

Week 41 Pictures

Hungry for this week's Reilly photos? Wait no longer!

Reilly says, "Click here to admire my fluffy hair."

Mouse in the house, or, The one not about the baby

The exterminator dropped by yesterday and asked to come in. I turned him away because Shawn and I don’t like having chemicals in our apartment. “Anyway,” I told him, “I haven’t seen a bug or mouse in this house for a couple months. (Famous last words, right?)

I’m a better exterminator thant the exterminator anyway. He swears by glue traps. I swear by snap traps. He sprays chemicals and uses ineffective poisons. I use Skippy peanutbutter and intuition.

Since we’ve lived in the City, we’ve moved from one mouse-infested apartment to the next. Our current apartment is the worst. I’ve averaged one mouse kill per month, which would put my extermination total around 30. Think I’m exaggerating? Not a bit. Think I’m proud? Damn right! And if you think I’m a little cavalier about my mouse killing, too bad. Even tenderhearted Shawn hates the little buggers.

You see, we live in a building that is 150 years old. Each time I call our building manager up about the problem, she looks around for a mouse hole, fills it, and tells me we’ll be mouse-free. She knows as well as I know that that’s bullshit. The Buddhist building owners have done nothing to the structure of this brownstone since they bought it 30 years ago except slap a little paint on here and there. It’s not that we have one mouse hole. Our entire apartment is a mouse hole. In fact, I even saw a mouse peep his little head out from the top of our crown molding one day. They’re in the walls, man!

Just a few minutes ago, I was doing the dishes and figured I’d better check our mousetrap. Something smelled a little funky. Sure enough, I’d got one. They can’t resist the Skippy.

Each time I kill a mouse, I have to laugh a little. The reason is because the Buddhists in this building believe in reincarnation. So, each time I catch a mouse in my snap trap, I think of dropping the thing off in front of one of the Buddhist’s doors with a note that says, “Herein lies your uncle Tom. May he come back as a cockroach.”

Five things

First, a definition:

meme: noun. Cyber-slang for one of those email forwards where the writer asks you to answer a number of questions, and then pass on your answers to five friends. Questions may include, but are not limited to: “What is your favorite color?” and “What are you wearing right now?”

There is currently a meme going around that asks bloggers to write about five things not previously covered in their blog. I thought this would be a good way for me to update you on a few things that you might not yet know about Reilly.

1) Reilly recently learned how to wave. She can’t quite do it on demand yet, but if you wave at her long enough, she’ll wave back. She’s also taken to waving to people on the street, which generates a lot of smiles from otherwise crusty New Yorkers.

2) Reilly points with her middle finger. This has lead to some truly hilarious moments. One was just the other day when I was commuting with Reilly back from daycare. The woman sitting next to me on the subway train was making googly faces at Reilly, and she responded by sticking up her middle finger and waving it in the woman’s face. The woman and I broke out with so much laughter that it startled Reilly and a few of our fellow commuters as well. Soon, our whole section of commuters was laughing at Reilly’s antics. She has a way of lighting up a subway train.

3) Reilly’s favorite game is to choose a small cardboard block and then bat it around the apartment. She’ll start in the living room and bat it (imagine a game like hand soccer) into the kitchen, around the rubber plant, then over to the corner by the closet. Then she’ll pick up the block, turn herself around, and bat it back and forth until she reaches the living room again. Seriously, people. This is ridiculously cute. She also plays a similar game with her sign-language cards, one card under each hand, which she then uses to ski her way across the room. Somehow, I doubt she’ll learn sign-language this way, but at least someone is getting use out of those cards.

4) When Reilly’s knees get sore from too much crawling, she gets up on her hands and feet and lumbers around like a gorilla. I’ve yet to capture this on film, but it’s hilarious.

5) Changing Reilly’s diaper is like giving a bath to a feral cat. She thrashes, cries, whines, yells, rolls over, rolls back, arches her back, and tries to stand up. When you are trying to remove a diaper covered in poop, these sorts of motions tend to cause the poop to get places that it doesn’t belong. Like on my finger.

From the Archives: April 18, 2002 - Age 26

Today, today. Hot, hot. My day today was not unlike yesterday, so, let’s leave it lie, shall we?

Shawn, shawn. She’s been having a great week—great karma. Some would call it luck, but it is hardly that, has no such relationship with the wheel of fortune—instead, I’ll say, she’s reaping, reaping what she has sown, cultivated; grown. Yes, and I am proud, so proud. At her ISPI meeting tonight she presented, voluntarily, on the facets of HPT. Jargon to you? Jargon to me. All the more reason that a person who can present this concept, a person like my wife, deserves hearty back pats and laurels.

The leader of the chapter, Richard, lauded her presentation as, “brilliant.” I say, it’s about time, and tell me something I don’t already know.

Perhaps the strength of our relationship is the mutual respect that we hold for each other. Today, it was my turn, and I stood in awe of her, as a person, a woman, a friend.

And within this relationship, our relationship, it would be accurate to say that we have both been down for some months now, holding each other up as best we could. And at a time that I need something uplifting, anything, someone has come along, has shown me that we—as a team—are not just surviving, we’re okay, and we’re succeeding, and really, that is the essence of a team, one lifting up the other, one shouldering the load when the other is weak, so that when the day comes that both might thrive there will be only sun at their backs. Everyone gets their turn, when they earn it.

And so this one is for you Tewks, for everything that you do, carrying the lantern before me so that I might see.

Eating 102: Intro to Teething Biscuit

Reilly is now the proud owner of two top teeth, bringing her total up to four. To celebrate her accomplishment, we rewarded our daugther with a teething biscuit.

The life of the biscuit, in five frames:

Curry in a hurry

This morning, we decided to take advantage of the beautiful day and head up to Central Park. Unfortunately, so did everyone else in the City. We thought we might stop by the new playground over by Columbus Circle, roll over for a quick visit at the zoo, then maybe play in the grass a bit before heading home.

This is what happened instead: we entered the park at Columbus Circle, Reilly crying her eyes out. She kept up the crying even as we made it to the playground. Shawn tried to nurse her, but she didn’t want that either. So, we decided to walk toward the zoo to see if the baby would calm down. The walk to the zoo was a nightmare. There were so many people in the park, probably the most I’ve seen since the Gates came to the City. We did eventually make it to the zoo, but the line to get in was at least 100 feet long. Shawn rolled the stroller right on by without even asking me. She didn’t have to.

Around the corner from the zoo, we saw a rarity in the park on a day like today—two open benches in the shade. You see, with the trees still mostly bare in the park, the sun was really beating down on us. To find shade and a seat was to find solace. We parked the stroller, Reilly fell asleep, and Shawn and I just sat in silence for a few minutes.

The combination of the baby’s incessant crying, the crowds, and the sun had created one of those environments where most couples start taking out their discomfort on each other. Shawn and I were on the cusp of that very same argument, but knowing each other well, we just automatically fell into a quiet period so that we could calm and reorder ourselves.

A few minutes later, I put my arm over Shawn’s shoulder. She smiled up at me. The cloud had passed.

We killed time while Reilly napped by counting how many people were passing us. The average came out to 1.5 people per second, at a 2:1 ratio of adult to child. Busy. Later, Cindy, Seth, and Cindy B. stopped by. They were in the park on a bike ride, and rolled over to our location to say hi and check out Reilly.

After they left and Reilly had a little snack, I turned to Shawn and said, “Let’s get the f*** out of here.” She nodded and we battled our way through the other parents and strollers to the sidewalk at 67th Street and 5th Avenue. We caught a 6 train at Hunter College to Union Square. Still wanting to recover what was left of our day, we walked over to Olives at the W Hotel for some wine and cheese.

The wine and cheese saved the day. Not because the wine was cold or that the cheese was fresh—though they were—but because we had a celebrity sighting of one of our favorite TV personalities: Ann Curry of the Today Show. She sat right next to us. She ordered a Mojito. We were happy.

Week 40 Pictures

Week 40 pictures are up of our trip to Florida. You can check them out here.

For now, the picture of the week:

The 9-month checkup

Today Reilly and I headed out to West 11th Pediatrics for her 9-month appointment.

When we got in the door, a five-year-old boy approached me and said, “Don’t let them give your baby a blood test.”

I told him not to worry, and that Reilly wouldn’t be getting a blood test, though she might need a vaccination.

“What’s that?” the boy asked.

“A shot,” I said.

He wrinkled his nose at me and walked back to his mother. Clearly, I was one of them.

When we got into the examination room, the first thing that Doris the Nurse said was, “Okay, no shots today, but we will be taking Reilly’s blood to test for anemia and lead.” I had to laugh. Damn that little kid.

The taking of the blood from the baby went as you might imagine it would. Doris the Nurse was apologetic, but Reilly was screaming too loud to hear anything anyone was saying. Doris the Nurse got out of there fast. Unfortunately, I had to stay and comfort a baby that was looking at me with betrayal in her eyes.

By the time I calmed her down, Dr. Zullo came in for the checkup. Reilly broke into tears the second she came in the door, no doubt recalling the ear cleaning she received last time she saw the doctor.

The stats, generated by this percentile calculator:
15 lbs, 14 oz = 4th percentile
2 ft, 3 inches = 23rd percentile
44 cm head circumference = 35th percentile

So, she continues to live up to her nickname, “Pippy” (short for “Pipsqueak”). Also, she has real potential to end up a tall, skinny girl with a big head.

The doctor also gave me a lecture about our lax sleep training, overuse of the pacifier, and slow introduction of the sippy cup.

Prepare yourself for some lamentable blog entries in the very near future.

Palm trees and a cool breeze

These past few days in Florida had an amazing effect on Reilly. It was such a pleasure to watch her petals unfurl as the tropical environment stimulated her little mind. She was all smiles all the time, giving them out for free to anyone who was near her, but especially to her three grandmothers, two grandfathers, her aunt, and her brothers and sisters (the pets).

Her favorite thing to do was to chase the dogs around the house. Leia, our old dog (now rooming with the in-laws) would settle down for a nap, only to have Reilly slap her way across the tile on hands and knees to pinch her nose. Leia would then move to a quieter spot, only to have Reilly crawl her way over to interrupt her nap again.

Speaking of interrupted sleep, Reilly didn’t take well to sleeping in the porta-crib. She would wake up afraid, not knowing where she was, and howl for her mama and dada. To punish us further, she took to waking up around 4:30am, and refusing to go back to sleep. Shawn and I would take her in the bed with us, only to be kicked and prodded and punched with tiny fists of fury as our maniac baby tried to get comfortable.

The one sweet moment that came of this was when I woke up one morning to find my baby with her head resting on my stomach, her face calm, quiet, and still.

Reilly also had a truly brilliant afternoon swimming in the pool, slapping the water and squealing with glee.

After her swim, she lounged with her mother in the sun for a bit before taking a nap to end all naps in the shade of a camphor tree. Don’t you wish you could nap like this?

Another highlight was a visit with Nana and a trip to the playground at Central Park (that’s Largo, not NYC). And what else would we do there but go to the swings? Reilly was smiling from ear to ear the whole time, her hair blowing in the cool wind that is the harbinger to all afternoon thunderstorms in Florida.

There was something so nice about being in Florida this past weekend, to see Reilly with her family, and to watch her open her eyes to a whole world that she never knew existed. More than once, I caught her just staring at the trees, as if she was trying to decipher what all the greenness was. And though it is supremely difficult to travel via plane/car with a baby, it was all worth it, if only for just this one moment:

Week 39 Pictures

Week 39 pictures are up at the Smugmug site. Please click here to view. Since I'm posting this from Florida, there is no picture of the week for this round. Sorry!

The Old Monk and an Apple

As many of you know, our family lives in a brownstone that is owned by a Buddhist church. For most of the year, we are the only tenant, and the house is overrun with the minister, his sisters, parishioners, and students of the religion. There is one monk, we call him, the “Old Monk” (for obvious reasons). He used to sit in a chair at the landing below our staircase and pray. We never could tell whether to acknowledge him or to let him go on praying, so, for a long time, we walked by him without ever speaking. Over time, we have attempted some conversation with him. I say ‘attempted’ because he doesn’t know a lick of English. Still, we got to like the guy, an eccentric old monk wandering the building.

Lately, he’s stopped going to the chair at the bottom of our landing. I don’t know why—perhaps his bones are getting old. He lives on the first floor, and his chair is on the third floor, so perhaps his age is preventing him from making it up those two extra flights. As it is, he has a hell of a time making it up the first flight. So, instead of sitting on the third floor, he stands at the top of the first landing. And every time I pass him by with Reilly, I feel obliged to stop, since he just loves the baby. He loves to pinch her cheeks and touch her face, which Theresa downstairs says is a great blessing. I don’t see it that way. I see it as an old man with dirty hands touching the face of my baby.

It’s gotten to the point now that I hate coming home, because he is always there, and there is no way for me to get past him without the compulsory stop and pinch. It’s hard because sometimes all a guy wants to do after a long day at work and an annoying pickup at daycare, is to get up to his apartment and kick off his work shoes. For those in suburbia, imagine coming home from work to find your neighbor sitting on your porch. EVERY TIME you come home. Shawn takes another angle on this. She says he’s just a sweet, old, lonely man who has nothing to do all day except wander the hallway outside his apartment, and so he waits all day for Reilly because it gives him a little human contact.

This past Sunday, we ran into the Old Monk downstairs as we were leaving the apartment. He went to the Holy Food Box and pulled out an apple. He then handed the apple to Reilly. Never mind that Reilly is incapable of holding an apple. Or of eating one. The old man wanted to give her a holy apple, and so he did. Shawn took it on Reilly’s behalf and I ushered our family out of that weird situation and into the Sunday sunshine.

Later that afternoon, as I sat outside of Shawn’s salon, Avalon, waiting for her appointment to end, Reilly started to get bored and cranky. I reached inside her diaper bag for a toy, and instead pulled out the apple. What the heck, I thought. I gave Reilly the apple. She grabbed it.

She studied it.

And to my amazement, she stuck it in her mouth.

And to my great surprise, I found myself silently thanking the Old Monk for giving Reilly her first apple, and just a few moments of joy.

The Holy Food Box

As I was writing today’s entry, I realized that I would have to explain one of the proper nouns that shows up in paragraph 4, sentence 2: “Holy Food Box.” Since the Holy Food Box is such a unique part of our daily life, I figured that I would give it its own, private entry in the annals of Big City, Small World.

The Holy Food Box sits near the entry of our apartment building. In it are various different foodstuffs that have been blessed in the Buddhist prayer services. To drive this point home, there is a little sign that says “Blessed Food from our Prayer Service. Please Take.”



One might expect the contents of the Holy Food Box to contain authentic Tibetan foodstuffs like thenthuk:
or momos:

Instead, there are holy Fritos, holy Diet Coke, and assorted holy hard candies. The other day, I ate a bag of Wise brand holy barbeque potato chips, and they gave me a holy stomach ache. Now I stay away from the Holy Food Box. I don’t trust its karma.

From the Archives: April 2, 2002 - Age 26

One of the things I love about The City is that there is always something new to see, if I only take the time to look. Tonight I went to a screenplay reading at the New School by Marsha Norman (quite famous, it turns out—a Pulitzer and a Tony under her chiffon) and then walking home down 6th Avenue in the cool (that’s right, the cold is abating, the trees bursting forth in petals and leaves) night I noted a young woman with one of those padded guitar case backpacks strapped over her shoulders.

The sight somehow triggered in my mind that I have seen an outbreak of these guitarists lately, guitars strapped to backs. Is this a trend, or is it just the first time I took a moment to not just look, but process, recall, and form memory into concrete meaning? Or perhaps the spring brings out not only soft green shoots, but the outdoor musician in all of us, a whistle or hum; a tapping of feet. For certain the birds are for it, practically chortling with their enthusiastic song. Well, now I’m laughing at myself, at my sentimentality, but really—isn’t spring great?

Week 38 Pictures

Week 38 pictures are up at the Smugmug site. Click here to view, or click the link on the sidebar at the right for the main photo page. Here is your picture of the week: