Writing about New York. Starts with my brother in Charlotte, and that goes back to the times we used to walk together at night in Atlanta's summer.

My brother and I hate cockroaches, but love going for long walks together on warm nights. When we both lived in Atlanta, warm nights meant thousands of cockroaches massing from the sewers across streets and lawns. For my brother, sensing a single cockroach could ruin a walk - he'd spend minutes wiping away every last trace of a cockroach from his bare feet, cursing and shivering throughout the operation. I wasn't as bad, but it's still fare to say the crunch of a cockroach exoskeleton between my bare toes is one of my least favorite physical sensations.

But we'd go for these walks anyway, because I think we processed (and continue to process) risks and rewards differently from most people.

The traditional decision making process follows the Plus/Minus model: the decision maker weighs the benefits they'll gain from an activity against the definite and possible bad consequences of that decision. If the pluses outweigh the minuses, the activity is conducted. In this model, the decision maker probably wouldn't walk around Atlanta at night... or would at least wear shoes when they walked.

My brother and I make decisions using the Plus model: if an activity presents any benefits, we do it.

(I'll come back to this later)

So that might explain why I slept so little this last weekend. Here was my itinerary:

Saturday
8:30pm: arrive at the W Hotel in New York, visit with Grandparents and other relatives.
9:30ish: bar with Laura (Oglethorpe friend) and Patricia (friend of a friend, recent NYC transplant from Barcelona)
2am: stumble back to Laura's Harlem apartment for a few hours of sleep.

Sunday
8am: wake, take subway to South Pier
11am: meet Patricia, who is late late late. Take ferry to Governer's Island, walk around and look at art stuff for a few hours.
5pm: wedding
Incalculably later that night: drunken drive with my parents out of Forest Hills to stay the night at an Uncle's house.

Monday
7:30am: wake, subway to Penn Station
10am: Megabus to Boston
3pm: arrive, meet Kyle in Cambridge (Harvard triangle/square)
That afternoon: walk around a lot, get drunk, have adventures
1am: rudely abandon Kyle's nice friends to drive to her house near Hartford, CT
4:13am: sleep

Tuesday
6:50am: wake, drive with Kyle to a train station, rush off to train instead of saying goodbye properly
9:30am: arrive back in NY at Grand Central Station, take bus to LaGuardia.
11am: fly back to Atlanta.
3pm: arrive, go straight to work

Anyway, this doesn't make a lot of sense because I believe I'm discussing a few different things at once. I will write more in the future. Also, I took pictures of my brother washing his cat.

I'm going to be in New York June 13-16. Some of that time I'll be hanging out doing wedding things, but I am free to hangout from the night of June 14 onwards.

If you are living in New York, can I stay with you the nights of June 14 and 15?

Also, do you have a bike I can borrow? I am 5'8" and prefer my bikes to come with lots of brakes.

Part of a story I've been working on recently. The protagonist's name is taken from Evariste Galois, a famous French mathmatician who died in a duel at the age of twenty. I'm not sure if I'll rename him for the final piece.

There was no reason for the turtles to leave the island, so, for the most part, they didn't. Occasionally, a turtle would leave for months and come back carrying much smaller turtles. Evariste's sister had born children three times. Twice she left the island, and once she stayed with Evariste; their children were healthy.

Evariste's shell had been darkened by a fire shortly after he was born. He was grazing, attempting to gnaw through fallen pine nuts, when a fire struck the island. The river was too far away for hm to feel its midday cool, and the fire's heat rose higher than the island's length. Pine trees flared and rained needles which flashed and burnt as they fell. Evariste looked up into ash and swept his pebbled claws, frantically scraping almost all of himself into the island's loam. As the fiery furnace swept over his hiding spot, Evariste's shell was charred.

Now, years and many children later, Evariste's shell is still blackened, but the spot is surrounded by ring of new shell which widens every summer.

Any advice would be appreciated. I'm particularly interested in your opinions on my use of punctuation, whether or not I should keep the bibilical "fiery furnace" reference, and what questions you had in reading the story.'

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I think I might go camping this weekend. If I can get my hands on some cash by this evening, I'm hoping to see these guys:



tonight, and maybe Gogol Bordello tomorrow night.

I was lost in Brooklyn after a party one summer ago, and Pamela Racine gave me a ride to a train station. I wasn't sober enough to identify the other people in the car, but one of them had a moustache, so it's possible that I've actually met the members of Gogol Bordello before. I would not actually remember what the driver's name was, but we stopped in a bar and someone asked me about the book I was reading, which was a collection of Pushkin's stories, and they told me another author I should read, which I wrote down in the front of the book. Then, later, Pamela Racine said "hey, I'm Pamela, do you need a ride?"

I said yes, and someone said her last name was Racine, and I also wrote that in front of the book, along with the directions I needed to get back to my cousin's apartment in Manhattan.

I thought I had written this story down before, but the only post I can find related to New York is this one.  Similar, but a different weekend.

As has been mentioned, this cafe smells like kitty litter.

Spent a great deal of last night, specifically the hour between about three and four in the morning, wandering Brooklyn.  Fled goddamn hipsters, got lost within two blocks of bar, headed south towards lights which I thought might signify train line, called Zack and learned we hadn't read anything by Gogol, entered licker sto', couldn't find any booze for sale, got directions aiming me 20 blocks north, started walking, got bored, watched river/city from roof of Domino Suger warehouse, drew on self and roof, left Stu's signature, found last bits of party and girl I had inadvertantly insulted, walked more, hailed bicyclist for further directions, got on train, switched to slow local train towards 77th, got home, remembered to remove contacts and eat slice of pizza and drink much water, slept, woke, urinated, scrubbed eyes with inked up hands, slept, woke, urinated, slept, woke to cousin's alarm, said fuckit and started out again.

Heading to the airport in a few hours.  See you there.