Travel is useful, it exercises the imagination.  All the rest is disappointment and fatigue.  Our journey is entirely imaginary.  That is its strength.

It goes from life to death.  People, animals, cities, things, all are imagined.  It’s a novel, just a fictitious narrative.  Littré says so, and he’s never wrong.

happy new year.  new york says hello.

I guess some of you are from New York, or have been there, are veterans if you will, but my experience there is very limited, from a few touristy days in middle school with the parentals, who warned us "not to look like tourists" because of the mysterious "bad people" who live outside our house and want only to hurt little children.

But this was my adventure.

The trip was my idea, I bought the tickets and planned the whole escapade, I kept the map and led the troops (all three of us), and we didn't get lost even once, I went where I wanted to and saw us safely home.  It was a good feeling.  I can't really describe to you what it was like beyond the physical appearances...the gritty, dirty street where we sat for six hours waiting for the ball to drop, the distinct smell of the subway trains and the large rats the scurried through the tunnel, the terse Italian waiters at Sapore Cucina Italiana and the smoky black coffee, the dull roar of nearly a million people crowding into one very small space, the noonday lighted brilliance of Times Square and the surrounding streets, the sharp ache in my shoulders, hips, calves, after 12 hours on my feet, and the massive, sprawling, monster of a city so packed with people it seems to have been vomited out of the earth.

It was exhilarating and I want to go back.

And it was all mine.