There's a huge flying beetle above my head

Wednesday
A bit of a late start to the day but it started nonetheless. Breakfast turned into lunch and outside the hot, balmy weather turned into hot sticky and rainy weather. Going out was not particularly appealing. I thought I would take the opportunity to send emails to all my buddywoos when J came up with the inspired suggestion that I should start my very own webpage. Being new to all this stuff, the beginnings were shaky and wobbled dangerously on their lallies, but after a little patient coaching I was soon on the right track - and low and behold...I gave birth to a bouncing baby blog. Thank you for all your kind emails and encouraging comments - I'm happy to report that mother and baby are fine. But no cigar. I finally ventured out between showers (of the rain variety) to buy food, and then spent the rest of the evening writing away. I really did.

Thursday
How can these people be so noisy? It would appear that they custom design all vehicles to rattle and crash after 11pm and every single alarm available to anybody in New York City must be sounded by law between 2 and 4am. And if your car's fitted with an alarm - oh what the hell - let that go off too. On top of this, the most dilapidated rubbish carts in the world must be driven by maniacs and all trash thrown at maximum velocity to create the loudest noises know to man at approximately 4.15am. Apart from that, I slept very well. Went out onto the damp and humid streets to buy milk, juice and the New York Observer (a most excellent newspaper) and after a leisurely breakfast (broadcast live by webcam - guaranteed to cause indigestion) we headed off to 50th Street on the fantastically airconditioned subway. J had arranged to purchase a gizmo-gadget from Manny's - probably the most famous music store in New York. Keyboards and guitars from floor to ceiling, but what fascinated me were the signed photographs of all the famous customers - from Lou Reed to Samantha Fox - and everybody else in between. We took the subway up to 96th Street and made our way to the Jewish Museum on 92nd and 5th to see the Modigliani exhibition. There was a queue winding around the block, and given the extreme heat and melting J, we decided this would be best left for a rainy day. So instead, we followed Dustin Hoffman's Marathon Man footprints around the reservoir in Central Park. We passed many a sweaty jogger running in a 'for gawd's sake get me to the church on time' stylee (bless them) before we flopped down with a chilled drink by the lake. A couple of hours passed in a blink in the company of Jack Kerouac who has the delirium tremens now. We took the cool subway back to the apartment. In London, you dread getting on the Underground in hot weather. Here, we are using any excuse to step onto those fantastically cooled trains. It's worth paying $2 just to cool off a while. After a while, we headed off down to Bleeker Street and back to our old favourite - The Red Lion where the waitress (who previously gave us grief) is now our friend and even remembered our order from...how ever long ago it was. We sat outside, and braved a torrential downpour which sent less hardy drinkers scurrying inside to witness the delights of the rather poor cover band bashing out 'Born In The USA' and other standards indoors. Back to the apartment for supper and G&Ts via Greenwich Avenue. Yesterday I saw a mouse (where? there on the stair - literally) and tonight my midnight typing is watched over by a super-size me cockroach type affair which isn't a cockroach according to J because it can fly and moves like a tiger on vaseline on the ceiling as opposed to scurrying around on the floor. Bedbugs and failing airconditioning aside, all is well in the city that never sleeps (that'll be Stomp performing in the back of that dustcart again then).