Our Thursday

Another colder and damper day. Grand Central Station, lobbies of the Chrysler Building and the Empire State and general midtown wandering were done, subway trains were taken, bagels and a fabulous lunch were eaten, coffee and champagne drunk. Tomorrow, similar, I should think, with a different section of the midtown to start. Happy.

I still haven't bought a book, although I've held Michael Cunningham's 2002 book about Provincetown, and Anne Tyler's paperback Digging to America and many, many notebooks in my hands and thought about it. Then wiped the slaver off them and put them back. So strong-minded, no? Well, I've bought one notebook, I confess. I thought that would cure me, but of course, there are always more notebooks begging to be bought. Besides the decorative ones, they have these hardcover Composition Books here; I got a rather flash one of those, but I saw another kind today, that was much fatter and sturdier and humdrum-looking. It cost all of $1.98. I thought of my suitcase, and the weight of all the books I intend to find at World Fantasy, and virtuously replaced it on the shelf.

Woman in bagel shop (I had smiled at her son, who was in his stroller, cradling his new bagel in his lap and gnawing interestedly on the upper edge): 'I know, bigger than he is, isn't it?'