Today was a complete turnaround from yesterday. The weather has turned autumnal. Workmen showed up on time. Things got fixed. We now have sisal stairs and phones that work. DSL is still down, but happily I have several neighbors wireless connections with easily guessed default passwords. Note to everyone out there. If you don't want people using your bandwidth, don't use the password, "password" or "secret" or "1234".

We are discovering a good collection of local restaurants. Today we had lunch at Teresa's a Polish place at 80 Montague. The cabbage soup and kielbasa as was the pumpernickel. I've eaten more good bread in the last week than I did in my last year in LA.

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I've been taking tons of photos but haven't imported or scanned anything yet.

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Question: My lovely wife wants to have a baby shower for the both of us. I have no problem attending a shower for her but I think it's weird to officially have the shower for both husband and wife. I also think it's weird to invite couples. Baby showers seem like a ladies only thing. Am I crazy old fashioned or is Jenn trying to bully me into something odd.

Today has been an exercise in frustration. Verizon has managed to completely screw up our phones/DSL (our number was changed without our permission, Only one jack out of 20 works and our DSL is just dead).

It's steamy. And the mugginess is made worse by the smell of cleaning solution throughout the house.

Our ibook drive will cost $380! to replace.

The subways are screwed up because of the Penn Station fire.

Our furniture doesn't fit.

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I saw a mail truck run over a dog.

Right now I'm sitting at Tekserve, the computer place. I have ticket #88. They are on #54.

We discovered this groovy fragment of wallpaper behind the toilet:

Our handyman, Dave, says that he often discovers odd anachronisms in the neighborhood, like the 90 year old woman who still uses gas lights a few blocks away on Boerum Hill.

Our stairway awaits sisal carpet. Over the years the stairway has been covered in wood, linoleum and a spectrum of carpet colors...

I am once again mobile:

I'm trying to take it easy today and have, so far at least, not left the bed (happily today's Sunday Times--especially the magazine--is full of good reading). Hard not to get up and deal with the chaos all around though. Boxes everywhere. We have yet to unearth even our sheets. Jenn has been working double duty getting the kitchen in order. She has forbidden me from doing anything today, so here I will remain.

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When we were in Chicago a month or so ago I woke up with an inelegant scream, in a cold sweat, and all discombobulated. Jenn now unphased my my noctural distress calmly asked what was wrong. Apparently I looked at her with frightened eyes, shuddered, and whispered "sea snakes". Afterwards I fell promptly back to sleep.

Today I realized I might have been having one of my fish dreams. I have had these aquatic dreams all my life. In them I am a fish, not a human who thinks he's a fish, but an acutal fish. I think simple thoughts, wiggle through the water, and admire the concave world around. Normally I wake up feeling pleasantly refreshed by my osteichthyesian adventures... But if I were a fish, what would be more frightening than sea snakes? See where I'm going with this...

I went in for another round of acupuncture and I came out feeling like a new man. Dr. Zhuang can't speak a word of English, but the guy seems to know exactly how to fix me. He even fixed my big toe which has been numb and pins/needlesy for weeks. Today's treatment involved pins both in my back and my legs. The latter had a very slight sting... Amazing how quickly you feel better. I wonder if the pins stimulate adrenaline production which numbs pain? Whatever...it works.

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Weird day out there.

We kept breaking things in the house (including Jenn's ibook which we dropped).

There were cops in random places for no apparent reason (these guys were on Baxter):

And the encounters I had with people were kind of out there.

Example: This is a conversation I had with a young Korean deli guy (with a SF/Bay area accent):

deli guy (apropos of nothing): Do you believe in ghosts?

me: It depends.

deli guy: What do you mean by that?

me: I think I believe in ghosts in Mexico, but not so much in New York City.

deli guy: Mexican ghosts. Oooh. Very interesting. What kind?

me: Well for starters there would be the ghosts of the dead, and the ghosts of those not yet born.

deli guy: So many souls.... (picks up a guitar) Do you play guitar? Mexicans are musical people.

me: no

deli guy: Is it ok if I write a song about Mexican ghosts?

me: Knock yourself out.

I managed to throw my back again yesterday... probably while hauling 20 or so boxes up the steep attic steps. Today I'll be in the prone position all day. It's days like today that I'm happy my work requires only healthy fingers and mind.

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There are 8 Dominican guys in the house replacing the hall/stairway rugs. These guys work super fast. It has taken then less than 30 minutes to remove 4 floors of heavy carpet.

We attended our first lamaze class tonight. It was pretty much what you would expect... a bunch of crunchy couples sitting on tumbling mats asking sincere questions. All the various types were there... the couple that wants a super scientific birth, the couple that wants a totally natural childbirth at home, the geeky couple (where the woman kept worrying her husband would pass out) and the good looking dumb couple (who kept calling each other "sugar baby" during the break). I kept thinking if we were in an episode of Fear Factor with these people we would clean up.

We've read too many books so most of the info seemed sort of basic to us. Jenn asked a couple of questions about exact physiological processes which seemed to throw the teacher a bit...

We'll see how it goes, but my sense is that these classes are good if for no other reason to remind you of all the steps involved and to help you ask informed questions when the baby is ready to make it's appearance.

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Unpacking is going to take at least a week... it's been s l o w going.

The 18 wheeler arrived in Brooklyn Heights this morning just as Wednesday alternate side of the street parking rules went into effect. This did not please the local commuters who gave my truck driver a big New York welcome (it almost came to blows). But after about a half hour of dramatics the driver managed to park in a fire zone and the move was on.

The crew here consisted of 4 preternaturally happy Ecuadorians who didn't seem to mind hauling almost 9 tons of stuff up 2 to 5 flights of stairs. We tipped them well. The job was done by 6. Tomorrow the unpacking begins.

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My dad stopped by.

Just got back from seeing David Byrne and Gilberto Gil at Town Hall (it was a benefit for the Creative Commons License). David Byrne was amazing as usual. He played a strong set of old and new and was just stone cold hip. Gilberto Gil sort of phoned it in. Maybe I'm a terrible snob but any time a guy starts covering Bob Marley and John Lennon, you know you're in trouble. That type of cover should be the exclusive domain of cheesy Philippino wedding bands and bad karaoke. Byrne, by way of comparison covered Hugo Ball (the dada poet!) and Hendrix.

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How many people could the US military possibly recruit from their Times Square kiosk? I mean I understand how they might have grabbed folks back when Times Square was Times Square, but now it's Disneyland....

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Does Alec Baldwin have his photograph in every single New York deli?

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Tomorrow, Wednesday, the moving truck arrives!

The final 2 days drive left me all pretzeled up and dealing with serious back pain. Jenn and I had a Vietnamese lunch in Chinatown and she suggested I try acupuncture. The office was above a Chinese medicine shop and the doctor barely spoke English, but his assistant translated. After much nudging and poking, he seemed to understand exactly where I was hurting. The pins went in almost painlessly. In fact I had no idea there were so many until I peeked over my shoulder. I looked like San Sebastian down there. He used pins in my back, behind, legs and feet and then left me under a heat lamp. The lamp started out pleasantly warm but eventually turned really really hot. After about 20 minutes the doctor returned, removed the pins, stretched me in a bunch of different ways and we were done. I felt 80% better. My sciatic pain was totally gone, and most of the back pain was gone. Today, a day later I woke up feeling much better. Good stuff and cheap.

Lin Sister Herb Shop
4 Bowery
(212) 962-5417

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At the townhouse we checked out the paint job. The best color is the one we were most worried about, the bedroom aquamarine. We were less happy with the colors that came as a result of negotiation. The living room for example is a very standard seafoam green, nothing exciting and the red in the TV room is probably too bright. Both colors were the result of compromises. This all reconfirms my belief that good design is rarely democratic.

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I found cool graffiti in the attic, my future office. Some of it dates back to the the late 1900's. Most are simply names with dates. My guess is that over the years the attic was where kids would hang out to get away from their folks. The faded skull and crossbones painted on the wall would seem to confirm this.

Can't wait to move in. The movers arrive Wednesday.

I spent the night with my friends Tbone and Lisa otherwise known as 'the Bones'. My question, why does their son Harry's chalkboard say "Smoke the Bear, Superman, Crying Indian"?

This leg of the trip was unexpectedly grueling due to my back pain (my back decided to fail spectacularly yesterday and has left me a human pretzel), flooding detours, and grisly accidents. I didn't take out my camera much (any movement was causing me serious pain). But when I finally hit the Triborough bridge I knew I was home and would soon be hanging out with my wife and my dad, so everything felt better...

Jenn had delicious tacos, flautas, soup, and rice warm and waiting... ahhh..

Since California the skies have been remarkably clear and cloud free. Then today over Ohio I spotted my first bit of cumulus. Soon the sky was full... and I'll admit I went a bit cloud mad.

I hate interstate highways, but I've been on them all day long trying to make some time.

Miles driven: I've stopped counting but around 700
Pieces of pie eaten: 1
Discovery of the day: Iowa rest stops have free wireless internet
Goal: to Arrive in NY by Sunday
Biggest scare: Almost being driven off the road by an out of control big rig

I woke up at 5, drove out into the Valley of the Gods and watched the sun rise. If you are driving across country, make this stop. This area has all the grandeur of the Grand Canyon, sans the crowds. My only regret is that I experienced this without Jenn. Last time we were driving through, we had just hit some large roadkill screwing up the car didn't travel the 17 mile dirt road through the valley for fear of breaking down.

Later I ran into a military funeral for a young soldier killed in Iraq. The entire town was out. I stopped for a while and watched the coffin, carried by soldiers, go by.

The put me in a melancholy mood... which was reinforced by the many memorials along the way.

Miles driven: 712
Pieces of pie eaten: 1 (pear)
Things that scared me: white trash woman at the hotel yelling at her little girl
Number of clouds seen: 0
Number of people seen in 4 hours in the Valley of the Gods: 1 (a German backpacker)

Day 2: 630 miles stopping place Mexican Hat

Pieces of pie eaten: 2 (both apple)
Burgers eaten: 1
number of clouds seen: 0
things that scared me: pack of vultures tearing apart a coyote

Once again a day of straight empty roads. While I had to take a detour to get over the mountains, the detour took me past Yucca mountain and through several desert basins. I love desert & mountain scenery. I love empty roads. Don't know why. Maybe it's the Mexican in me. I'm listening to all sorts of college history lectures on my ipod. So far I've covered about a thousand years of Egyptian history and Byzantium. Later I will do 10 hours of geology. Maybe I'll arrive back home super smart. Oddly enough all these scenes reminded me of places I had seen in China (Death Valley looks like Xinjiang, the Yucca Mountain area looks like Gansu, northern Nevada looks like Qinhai...etc). I arrived to Mexican Hat/ Monument Valley right at sunset.