It snowed there today

Two inches of snow fell on St. Mary today. Awesome? Awesome! I find comfort in the contrasts. I love shorts; I'll wear gloves well into June! I'd love to shovel the walkway on Memorial Day. I'd rather earn seven dollars an hour shoveling snow in late May than messenger again. I've spent the week camping in my parent's backyard. My sleeping bag kept me warm when it dipped under thirty a few nights ago. Check. As a joke, my father "forgot" to turn the sprinkler system off last night. The good news is that my tent is as water-proof as advertised! As soon as I get the "touring" bike built, I'm ready to go!

I spent the night as Chris' Uptown, Manhattan, scratch again last night. Cold beers, no limes, on the fire escape. We listened to the "Reminds Me A-a Bronx Basement" mix I made more than two years ago. Johnny Ace, Eric Dolphy, Grant Green, Horace Silver. (When Chris lived in the Bronx we made music in the basement one night. I got a concussion. When I came to, there was a party all around me: girls grinding, feral kittens, the door was wide open, it was January.) The New York night glowed a hazy orange. Chris said something about calculating how many times a year the street lamp across the street clicks on, then off, then on again. Below us, three men, two women, paced nervously, picked through the garbage, bought crack, then half-jogged toward Broadway, toward Riverside Park. At a point, more than thirty Columbia students paraded down the block, protesting or partying. We watched "Dude," the block watchman, buy a bag, too. I said something like, "The last forty-eight hours are the hardest. The only thing harder is the last twenty-four." I followed that with, "Sex is only two things: pleasure and guilt. It's nothing more." I left my cell phone there, too.