City of Blinding Lights

This was New York in the first week of October:

A ride on the A train, a night's sleep on a couch half my size. A meandering, 80-block walk that took me along Central Park, past the gleaming new towers at Columbus Circle to the musty old towers of Saint Patrick's Cathedral. A candle lighted. Bouncing through the foot traffic of midtown at lunch hour, a sweat-soaked pinball. A respite by the fountain at Bryant Park, with an Internet interlude of email checking and instant messaging on the wireless signals bouncing off the concrete and sinking in the grass. Popping into that Old Reliable Mac Shop to say hello to former co-workers. Lunch at Union Square. Your standard New York encounter of running into someone you haven't seen in ages, just walking down the street. Sitting at my favorite table and my favorite bar in New York, raising a glass with a good friend, seated beneath a photograph of Ruby shooting Oswald, savoring the worn wood of the tabletop, the sawdust on the floor, the calm and warmth of a pub at midafternoon on a rainy day. A glimpse out the window of a girl, looking pretty and happy, riding down the street on a BMX bike, her dark ponytail streaming behind her, untouchable by the rain, an overwhelming reminder of just how fun it is to be young in New York. Down through SoHo, a purchase at the Housing Works used book store, a mocha Frappachino at the Starbucks and a welcome rest of the feet, sitting back in the comfy chair and alternating between the book, the mocha, and the view of the SoHo street outside the window. The smell of the bakery at Balthazars. Dinner with friends. Another tavern, another beer, more conversation with friends. A night on a leaky mattress, which feels like a king-size bed after last night's sleep on a loveseat.

Belting out U2 songs in the morning shower. A delicous brunch with family and friends, munching on bread fresh from brick ovens a dozen yards away. Coffee in the Village. Another friend, another beer. Regroup. Dinner at the Landmark Tavern, the oldest such establishment in town second only to yesterday's pub. Steak, wine, dessert, a peak in the upper rooms, which look untouched since the last hundred years; there are ghosts here, fed on Scotch eggs and whisky. A cab in pouring rain to the Garden. Transcendence. Hands sore from clapping, throat sore from yelling, but still managing to sing along with the multitudes, the same question over and over: "How long, to sing this song?" The answer: until the lights come up. Guinness, and Guinness, and Guinness at another all-too-familiar Irish pub on the Lower East Side, and the best 4 AM patty melt ever. The air mattress again.

And after a bacon-egg-and-cheese-on-a-bagel that I've waited a year for, and one of the best chocolate-chip cookies I've ever had, a walk through the West Village on the way to meet the missus, and a sit on the steps of a quiet brick townhouse on a solitary Village street, as a light rain falls and an October breeze rustles the leaves of the trees, and the thought that, truly, this is a place for which there sometimes are no words.