God for Harry, England, and Saint George!

I'm back in the Clinton Hill coffee shop which has served as a virtual office for me over the past few weeks. There's nothing remarkable about this place except to say that they have a fairly large selection of vegan eats and that it's pretty mellow. Large front windows are streaming light in from a hot sunny day as the ceiling fan on the high ceiling revolves ceaselessly.

The eye has passed overhead. It's about to get hectic. Two Celebrate Brooklyn concerts, back to back, tonight and tomorrow provide the funky root to what should be a good end to my month in New York. The first, tonight, features none less that the Burning Spear -- classic reggae which I remember seeing many, many years ago at a street festival in Washington, D.C. Tomorrow, I'm even more excited about: Soulive. Though a long time favorite, I have never seen them live. They're New York based and as something of a 10th Anniversary show, it should be amazing and feature several special guests. An old Wash U buddy, Brian Wyatt and I will be going together. I haven't seen Brian in 15 years.

Another good Wash U friend, Jeff Brecher, and I are meeting tonight on the South Side Seaport in Manhattan. And in just a few minutes, I'll leave for Manhattan so I can walk the High Line Park before meeting Jeff. More details on this after it happens.

Right now it's all about anticipation, a beginning for an end; near enough to celebrate my time spent here, but not so soon as to wax nostalgic already.

This week has been mostly mellow. Tuesday night I joined Michelle and some of her friends at Piano's to see her friend's Minneapolis based band. I don't think I was the oldest person out seeing bands on a Tuesday night on the Lower East Side but it's debatable. Still, the band was decent, and it was good to get out.

It rained a few times, but that did not stop me from going into downtown Brooklyn yesterday. After eating a vegan lunch for a local health food store on the steps of Borough Hall and listening to an entertaining and cheesy cover band, I rode over to the Brooklyn Transit Museum. As much as I love public transportation, the museum is overwhelming with exhibits on trains, subways, buses, tokens, turnstiles, etc. etc. etc. My favorite exhibit detailed the intensive manual labor of the mammoth undertaking which was digging the subway tunnels in the beginning of the 20th century. I can not help but regret the political indecision which has prevented Los Angeles from just getting to it and building a righteous subway system.

I remained in the museum until it closed, at least three hours, bought souvenirs, and after waiting out the rainstorm, went to Manhattan to meet Paula for book shopping at the famous Strand Bookstore near Union Square. We got a good Thai dinner near Washington Park Circle and then took a cab (it was raining again) to the Lower East Side to Lula's Sweet Apothecary, a completely vegan old-fashioned ice cream parlor. It was incredible. And I swear to you non-vegans out there, you would not have known the difference between Lula's incredible hot fudge sundae and whatever you might get for your cow's milk variety.

Well, I'm off, not much reflection or witticism today. There's too much to do.