I’m still in love with this place. Last Saturday I clicked (in boots) through the marble passages of the main branch library. The weather was so pleasant that a handsome man with a boyish face opened the window pane in the microfilm room. With the sunlight streaking through those old windows, I pretended I was a student in a massive, old English school.

Bryant park was bright, but the ride to the west side to meet with Tonya was dismal. The B train was out of service and the bus I rode broke down just once. I dashed up Columbus to Wine and Roses, where Tonya and I sat drinking red wine. We later had dinner at the West Side Restaurant. I polished off French fries and chicken with soft ice cream.

On Sunday my aunt came to Manhattan and we had early dinner in Times Square. We both craved apple walnut pie, but the Little Pie Company in Grand Central was closed. On our way back to the apartment we chased a bus up 1st avenue, and were chatted to death by an old man who talked of Spitzer.

Today I returned to the library again. Drunks rode the 1 train singing a made up tune about a man named Dan Cook. On the platform, a musician was playing flute beautifully. I searched for the origin of the sound.

In the subway maze below Lincoln Center I eavesdropped on a father and son carrying Juilliard bookstore bags.

“I’d like you to live here [New York] if you have a really nice place to stay, and really nice friends,” the father said.

“But then I’d be a rich asshole,” the son said.

Riding the escalator up to the MET lobby made me smirk–recalling that time Dione and I’d met Ethan Stiefel and Gillian Murphy and David Hallberg at the stage door. I slowed my pace in the plaza but stopped to pout. How long will that construction take again? A large crane loomed behind a white partition, covering that gorgeous fountain.

For months I’ve visited the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts, but never scoured the first floor CD’s and DVDs. It was heaven. They even had the complete VHS collection of Balanchine ballets, but I don’t have a VHS player. I returned home with Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky (which I listened too with low lights and the window open to have a view of the east side).

The bus ride home was slow, and the two elderly men across from me muttered complaints while reading financial magazines. But I liked it slow. I liked the view of the sun setting, and people walking home.

As I mentioned I closed off the day looking out the window. The building across the street is quite animated at night. The later it gets the darker the building becomes, more and more residents walk to their lamps and turn them off.

Only in New York.