2002-07-13 - 11:23 p.m.

And I'm feeling amazingly contented. The boyfriend isn't here, but I feel really peaceful and happy tonight. I'm sitting here with coffee, with all the windows open and the TV on for background noise. I can hear noise from the street here, too, if the windows are open. Honking and laughing and people talking. The windows draw me in in this apartment, I find myself stopping whatever I'm doing at least 3 times a day, to look out the windows. It's good, almost meditative, feeling the breeze on my face in the darkened kitchen, smoking a cigarette and watching all the life, in miniature, below me.

The south windows get the widest angle, full views of the avenue and the blocks around it, the tops of the trees and then the lights of the drugstore across the street, the old-fashioned facade making it look like a drugstore in a tiny replica of a city. I see people for BLOCKS, walking with coffee or walking their dogs, carrying papers and briefcases in the morning, beaded purses and water bottles at night. Watching it, especially at night, soothes and excites at the same time. I'm learning the rhythms of the 5 block radius of this city. On the weekend mornings the busy avenue is deserted, sunlit. The occasional cab, few people on the sidewalks. The park across the street is busiest on Saturday afternoon and Thursday evening, and on the east side of the apartment I see the clocktower, mark my days by the clock chiming. Beyond it, at night, the Empire State Building, lit red white and blue.

Wonder when the other shoe's gonna drop.

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