Yesterday at lunch I went to sit in Madison Square Park. I ended up next to a businessman who was making a conference call. The benches were like subway trains – people grabbing seats as soon as they were vacant. And every bench was lined with people appreciating the sunlight.
The businessman was so happy to be outside. He told me that you have to think of New York as a constant adventure.

Last night I went outside in my sneakers to make sure that there was street parking on Taaffe, for A’s visit. There is. It was a hot, windy night, and I was looking up the side of a building at a fire-escape stairway, zig-zagging like ivy up the bricks. And cheesy as it was, I suddenly heard someone humming “For there’s no one for me but Maria…Every sight that I see is Maria…(Tony, Tony)” And I remembered that I have dreamed about this place for a long time.

And this morning, outside on the deck, with wireless in the open air and a square of sky above.

I worked full-time every day this week, except for the day that I missed my train then took the wrong train and ended up in Queens. It’s been five days of subway rush-hours, lunches in blazing sunlight, elevators, doormen, accounting, check requisition forms, and general dayjobbery. And the evenings – I saw a friend at a Oaxacan restaurant, went to a SSDC meeting, saw another friend at a British restaurant, drank with my Pratt Institute roommates and, last night, made phone calls to a host of people I’ve been neglecting. Did I mention I also furnished the apartment?

The SSDC meeting was amazing – it was called “Directing Your Directing Career,” and it was the first time in my life I’ve been in a room with sixty other stage directors in it. I understood what it’s like to be an actor and feel those eyes on you. Analyzing. It was wonderfully liberating to feel myself in their company.

Today, the weekend promises to be an invitation au voyage. Where to is undecided. But the cities of the East Coast present themselves like shells on the beach to be picked up.