A LIFETIME OF WHENS

Wish I could get a more nuanced shot of the building on the left.

Really. Six. Thirty. A.M.

Jackhammers. 

I hardly think that is fair or civilized. I did need to get up in 45 minutes, but those last minutes of sleep are the deepest, sweetest, most precious. And when you are tired and stressed, those minutes of relief really matter.

I had to move my car for street sweeping today, and I had to get in to the office to have a new budget underway should I be asked about money. I made coffee but I had no time to drink it. By the time I got to the highway-robbery caffeine establishment across the street, Le Pain Quotidien, I was stumbling. The barista over there is an effervescent hoot of brightness and charm. He took one look at me and added a fourth shot of espresso to my tall latte. That's how I wore my exhaustion.

I am hoping for an early night tonight. The rest of the crew is busy getting out the director's cut to the studio, so VFX is not high priority today. Tomorrow the heat will be back on. And hopefully, I will be more rested.

Last night I walked over to the Trader Joe's to get some fast food for dinner. I was so enjoying the city, the wet streets sparkling with lights and twinkling with rain drops, the distant camaraderie of similarly afflicted wet pedestrians rushing in the rain. I felt like a tourist for job a moment. I was just savoring New York. I bought a bottle of red wine at a liquor store I frequented on the way home from both Possible Worlds and FlickerLab, feeling a vague flash of rebirth and nostalgia.

This was all ruined, of course, by a hellish train ride home on the subway. Nothing like knowing your lime popsicles are melting. 

It's fun to be on the subway and look at what people are reading. Yes, there are some of us who still read books. I failed to bring to Brooklyn the volume of Proust I am woefully (yes! woefully!) behind on. I'm reading The Middlesteins which has some nice writing and is, all in all, a good work of fiction, if not literature.

I was musing in the shower this morning on the difference between fiction and literature. Haven't come up with anything yet.

"It has been a lifetime of whens." — Jami Attenberg, The Middlesteins

Great phrase. And something to think about at this birthday moment of reflection. Turning points, decisions, missed opportunities, new acquaintances ... when I went to college, when I moved to New York, when my brother died. Whens.