Monday

I spun out behind two smoke-black shaggy dogs. Before getting an umbrella up at 8:46 cool drops had seeped through my collar. On her erratic dash down Warren a woman used awnings as shields. I watched kids get greeted in Park Dayschool. I turned and almost stepped in a stroller pushed by an attractive blonde mother wearing plaid. The shyness of the encounter sexualized it. Stores stood quiet because of rain.

By Chambers I felt caught in someone's weekend summary: So these dudes fell asleep....we went on the roof to talk....finally they came up and were just total assholes. Stains spread down buildings like a Clyfford Still. Four women bunched beside the Cosmopolitan Hotel communicated a non-verbal friendliness my way. I think it was weird for us to be around thirty. A guy clutched his blanket and watched it pour. Behind somebody'd pasted sepia scraps into a person.

On Walker a kid with his arm in a sling smoked a rain-pocked cigarette. A modest man took a running leap off the curb. An obviously intelligent African carried his drooped umbrella like a broken wing. A ruddy white person's snapped, but he flipped it straight and used what was left. Fence behind him opened on an earthy pit. Men amidst construction vehicles murmured in groups of two and four.

One basset hound wouldn't step beyond an awning. The owner used his foot as a spatula. The dog's red eyes lacked pupils. The adjacent boutique announced Endless Possibilities. A grid of sixteen pictures portrayed a black woman and a white woman bonding, admiring a rocky seascape, alternating neutral tones.

A girl in yellow boots pushed her sister's stroller. Though I didn't recognize the mom I assumed she once modeled. An Asian girl practiced landing in puddles. Rapids running down the curb reminded me of a guitar's bridge. The dots comprising a pedestrian figure now reminded me of raindrops. The Community Gardens north of Houston hadn't greened. Moisture beaded along a bush and its berries. Plangent garlic aroma hovered. Fiorello De La Guardia's pediment flickered with constant rain taps.

By Washington Square my cords clung at the shins. A boy nosed his way under a friend's umbrella—made me miss getting through the whole day flirting. After someone kissed his pink-haired girlfriend goodbye her smile lingered. The rain running down deli windows reminded me of carwashes. The scaffolds sufficed where women lay beneath a puffy blue bedspread.

On the walk back my intuitions sharpened. When I forked left a sparrow splattered puddles with its wings. NYU's solid Near Eastern Studies Center compelled me to want to work on that subject. For the first time I passed NYU Law: appraised the life I almost chose as people frowned at mist. Bacony scents wafted out The Peanut Shop's cellar. Townhouses on Sullivan alternated where the doorways were. I peeked up one landing to where pigeons sounded glad. My toes hit water (cool flush felt right).

Near Houston a valet hurried around a double-parked silver limousine, handing off his umbrella just in time. It turned out to be a hearse trailed by low-beamed cars. The boss said We can't open the goddamn door like this Freddy; you're gonna have to back them all up. Freddy splashed down the block shouting Everyone's got to back up ten feet. But by the time he reached the procession's end there was a delivery truck with hazards on.

I passed a Greenstreets plot lined with bicycle taxis. I hallucinated blonde flames coming from a flower. Approaching signs that said Organic I thought I smelled waffles—but the windows opened on an abstract salon. An Islamic couple pushed a baby carriage. Their voices evoked being happy in a city. The woman's headdress traced marble doves. A loud red restaurant I normally disdain had filled one entrance with Easter violets. A ladder led down a manhole reeking of cigars. A 12-year-old sat at a Park Dayschool desk, surrounded by much smaller kids.

Tuesday

At 8:50 I could finger dew off cars. The Dana Discovery custodian called out Hi. Swans slept on the driest rocks. Mallards tailed a band of albino ducks. A goose chomping grass stopped and stared at me sideways. Pardon I said but it hissed then clambered off like a man in flippers.

The park had returned to overall green. I thought about the land and wanted to care for it. Macho joggers had on shorts. An old guy carried a satchel of rushes. Beeps announced a van was backing up. Heads bobbed along the reservoir fence. A cop asked somebody cute in running tights What's your dog's name? and she said Alex.

Strangers talked at bus stops, scanning the street. Lines sprawled down The Met's stairs but I guessed it wasn't crowded. From a bench somebody delirious filled out applications. Someone Middle Eastern sneezed while fastening together a t-shirt display. Someone else Middle Eastern smiled setting up soda cans, got serious when a woman crossed in red rubber boots.

Suffering mild daytime vertigo I bent and scratched a dog's wet snout. When the owner laughed her lipstick felt close to my eyeballs. A squat man hobbled from the Indonesian Embassy as if one leg was a cane. Are you waiting for a cab? he asked a woman at the corner. Non Non she beamed, pawing him, clearing space on the curb. A private-school boy passed puffing his lips, practicing for the bassoon maybe.

On the Hunter College steps I trailed two beige-skinned men bearing irises. From the Lexington Ave. skywalk I saw a girl bind her wrists with a rainbow scarf. Low-beam headlights couldn't cut through the gloom. I dropped off Rings of Saturn and Lucy Church Amiably. I didn't acknowledge the library guard. But opposite an Indian woman all in gold I fought a strange compulsion to say Thank you. Instead I murmured Morning: no response. I signed out on a photocopy pickup too lazy to really write my last name.

In Shakespeare's Books, as a clerk found my shelf, I listened to "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" on bootleg, was moved and wondered about the sixties, felt a part of something external and alive. Almost weeping I filled out the form for my complimentary copy of Claudia Rankine.

Across 68^th a woman's stride suggested muscular discomfort with skirts. When the light changed I tried to match her pace. I cut through liquor boxes stacked overhead.

From the ATM alcove of an old-fashioned bank I overheard customers requesting things, then the tellers stood busy and the hall felt buoyant. A shy man twisted some special device and parking-meter change dropped into his cup. A staring pregnant woman seemed to wonder if I was kind. A Korean girl's waist gleamed when she bent to gather laundry bags. She glanced as I reached the windowsill.

At the 96^th St. Public Library I dropped off One Train and John Cage Reads John Cage. I fled with my body scrunched in case the clerk called me back for late fees. Still I grabbed state tax forms. A teenage couple made out from the steps and it was for some reason sexier because they both had zits.

Continuing west I passed a blotchy man whose lips wagged constantly like a fish's. A giggling Mexican caterer had an insulated hotbox strapped to his chest. In Gourmet Garage I sampled Moroccan Olives, Spanish Olives with Cumin, Brown Rice Crispy Squares. Careful this one's got a little chipotle the clerk said as he passed a spoon of chicken salad. Amidst narrow aisles that made my muscles clench I heard "Orange Crush," then a catchy Van Morrison tune, then something recent and kind of quiet by The Boss. It was obviously weird I didn't have a cart so I gave up shoplifting bagels. The cashier's skin glowed within the context of the store. I regretted gross fingernails scraping against her palm.

When a Hasid almost hit me I screamed through his window. This passed so fluidly I was never upset. Cafeteria cooks smoked behind a brown dumpster. Each stood dressed entirely in maroon. A redhead's tights made me feel pliant. A black woman my age smiled as we passed. A boy with a plaid suitcase stared at the park (his upside-down umbrella reminded me of musicals).

Wednesday

Beyond the courtyard people passed and I felt the day through their posture. It was 9:26 and warm when the air stirred. For the first time this spring I wore an oxford with the sleeves rolled. Honking geese set off pleasant vibrations inside me like a Stravinsky concerto for woodwinds. Floating ducks sat distributed in a way that made The Meer look extra big. Someone Chinese laid a cane along a bench, followed her fingers for eye exercise. Somebody walked ahead of a maintenance van unhooking emergency ice-break ladders. Someone else pulled the spikes on which ladders had hung. A jogger gyrated through a sexy form of push-ups. I held my breath then sort of gasped spotting soft skin against concrete. In a reedy corner police barricades stood ready to be deployed.

A groundskeeper pondered which branch to trim then tore through like a savage. A blonde removed scraps with a pair of pincers. A frizzy woman wore purple: lipstick, earrings. Screechy bus brakes swarmed my attention. Another bus stopped to let a woman step off with her cane, a mother carry a daughter off on her shoulders, a stylish old woman glide down erect.

A sunny gap between high-rises smelled like cleanser and made me sneeze. Under a random black plume of smoke kids lined up in gray sweatshirts. One short girl kept jumping to whisper to a friend. One Haitian woman stared off pushing a white boy's swing—just for a second though, then she was sweet to him. From a bench two guys in business suits screamed Hola! at everyone.

A fiftyish woman walked a bike past The Met with a pant leg tucked in her sock. A tour-guide sitting on bus steps wore a Times Square tie with an apple at its center. A phalanx of girls smiled down from the staircase. Chaperones took pictures with dozens of cameras.

In the sixties I passed a police-chase film set too dumb to describe. I blanked until through mesh canopies I sensed exotic birds. A black goat bent around a wall to stare at me. Its mother looked porcelain and edible. As a zookeeper approached with pellets in her palm goats lined the fence nudging faces. Behind them a pig shook straw off its back, all except one strand. I turned to catch a mom watching me; we smiled.

At the park's south edge stood more barricades. I peeked inside The Plaza (which didn't feel famous). Someone not naturally attractive had altered herself in a charcoal suit. Someone working-class peered into a van's hood. His dusty sweatshirt was like the sky before dawn. A boy strapped to a father rubbed balloons against his leg. Another boy clung to this same dad's arm. A teenage girl stomped, convinced her family was headed in the wrong direction. A heavy woman from the South said Look hon there's an H & M.

The giant inflatable union rat pointed its claws at Trump Tower. Local One Elevator had been locked out. Workers swelled behind barricades. Daughters distributed flyers. Tourists stepped closer to crop all this from pictures. A homeless man made birdcalls. For half a block it smelled like eucalyptus. For the same length a quote from the Mahabharata stretched along a clothing store.

In front of a bank, beside a wet woman sprawled asleep on one elbow, Japanese girls squatted studying maps. Men spun around with boards on their chests advertising buffets and computer parts. One passed me a flyer with a snapping sound. The melody from "It's a Hard Knock Life" coursed through my head though I never saw the movie "Annie." The lilies in Rockefeller Center reminded me of gramophones. Stooping tourists with cameras reminded me of old-fashioned cameras with curtains and tripods.

Across 35^th a couple folded against seatbelts: wanting to see some building tops. A pair of discarded jeans made a tidy bundle along the curb. The African driver of a Heineken truck stopped to talk with a woman smoking. Behind him car horns went crazy. Noise peaked just when I turned into school, under rippling ads for The Gap.

Thursday

Soft air at 7:46 made me want to always stay calm. Workers next door played salsa. Both dumpsters overflowed. Where I crossed 110^th Catholic schoolboys sprinted. The kid in front glanced sideways to make sure he kept his lead. A large green apple rolled to the curb. Snow-piles made The Meer feel sort of like an ashtray. Cabs curving as they climbed through the park evoked Edward Hopper and horses. I didn't walk Central Park West as planned. I hate traffic speeding in the opposite direction. I dropped along a dirt path below the mossy park wall.

Twigs glistened against the slope as if iced. The glinting came from broken glass: more than I'd ever seen. There were also eviscerated cigarette lighters. Two birders passed, withholding focus. I knew I lacked talent for finding birds. Two gardeners gossiped from parallel carts. A stuffed pink dinosaur sat beside one. Sparrows rooted amidst woodchips—made scavenging together look sweet and attractive.

On the climb up Great Hill I met two black poodles, one with whitening paws. I passed Abraham Lincoln on a newspaper scrap. Lawns shimmered like a friend's bangs when the sun hits from certain angles. Two dogs chasing each other snarled when they came close. A woman who'd had a face-lift cradled a puppy biting its collar. She was orbited by four tempestuous bichons. Far ahead on the track a jogger called out Sandy! Sandy sprinted around the curve. When her owner spun around and jogged backwards Sandy even accelerated.

Workers swept a tennis court with tools with round black heads. Debris lay just beyond the baselines. A couple in mismatch sweats volleyed soundly. There were really tiny bags I associate with drugs.

The grooved East Meadow softball diamonds suggested infinite concentricity. Robins picked through fenced-off outfields. As I cut on a downhill diagonal towards the Loch the skewed perspective was refreshing. An Indian boy pouted with boredom as his preppy elders examined The Ravine. North Woods felt thin with winter gone (like a wet dog's skinny legs). My eyes stopped where a woodpecker gorged itself. Larvae tumbled off its tongue. Over the last several days someone had carved Bobby in a stair along the waterfall.

Coming out onto Lasker Rink the ice looked drier than expected—much more like what's in a freezer. Nearby a hose leaked steadily. A shy, pony-tailed park worker made a point of saying Hello.

Back at The Meer a turtle surfaced. Its legs dangled in shafts of sunny water. When I stopped to look, it dove out of light but a new kind of alternative duck swept past: blue-billed, slant-eyed, with punk-rock hair.

A rabbit appeared in a hand-stitched bonnet. Its owner stared as if waiting for me to smile. Something vanished, leaving foam. Someone rollerblading with gay strokes said Isn't it a gift man? I saw that it was. A Chinese woman who had seemed reserved sprinted around the pond followed by a shih tzu. From a bench somebody explained in her phone There's a lot of shit I'm walkin' with.... and it's hard.

A silhouetted bird spun enormous wings as if to ease tension in its shoulder blades. I prepared for an eagle. It was just a normal goose. Three kids ran towards me with the girl constantly adjusting her face so that tiny red sunglasses didn't fall off.

From a pick-up someone Jamaican called Aha! Good to see you again! Now forget the jacket because it's not cold anymore! Passing a neighbor I pursed my lips, not wanting to confuse him saying hi from the street.

Friday

Kristin and I spun out onto chalky construction at 8:16. One ankle still felt raw against the sock after yesterday's somersault off my bike. But with my nostrils steaming as we parted I felt immortal. Behind Il Giglio a compact truck held thousands of starched white blouses. A toddler watched his preschool's gate rise. It seemed unhealthy for a child to be so patient. Passing parking lots I calculated how much money they brought in: based on rates and number of slots. But what did I care? What did I feel following a billboard-sized horizontal woman reflected off a Spanish restaurant? Would Freud have called it flattery?

Atop the roof of an idling van stood Snack-Packs with the coldcuts uneaten. The driver slept with his mouth wide open. At the next van someone sipped coffee, stared ahead as if steering.

Outside City Hall somebody swerved—straining to get around an old couple. The State Courthouse on Centre had had its steps removed. Flyers directing citizens to a Pearl St. side-entrance faded into rainbows after last night's storm. Men clutching cardboard filecases looked healthy but close to anachronistic. A black boy asked how to get in the building. A bewildered mom was picked to be searched.

On Canal I stood waiting for the light to change beside a short Mexican whose boot heels glimmered. Ahead a white person twitched at the elbows. His arms hung stretched out stiff like clotheslines. Examining a crossing-guard's wrinkled slacks I wondered how many uniforms they gave her. The embossed fabric looked thicker than anything I own.

Continuing north I saw a Singer sewing machine surrounded by sepia scissor-packages from China. I assumed discs priced at $10 a pound were stingrays. A bunch of forklifts scooped crates of skinned pigs. The garage they backed into reeked of incense. Throbbing blue hoses discharged eels with the eels slithering even as they fell.

A Latin dance studio's gaudy sign got me thinking about the neighborhood three flights up. A tan woman walked parallel to me: both of us smiling while staring straight. The way her heels clicked seemed so self-important. I slowed to consider rusty bikes locked along a Chinese takeout joint. I stood surrounded by produce boxes with a composite smell of strawberry. Half a block before Houston somebody held small flags from his window. A quarter-block later someone napped with face wedged under a grocery cart. A chained flowerpot crumbled at its base. A waitress had triceps not toned in a gym.

Across Great Jones two brittle black men filled out applications from a spa's steps. The standpipes had spikes so you couldn't sit. One guy looked sloppy tearing posters from scaffolds (I'd assumed long strips would peel right off). On Elizabeth St., inside a sports car crammed with orange juice boxes, one person slept, hugging himself. Elizabeth's lawn of porcelain statues disarmed me, because at first it resembled a cemetery, and then it became the most open, least used, quietest yard for miles. An inscription about the police department had disintegrated more than any plaque I'd ever seen—as if crowds tossed acid on it for decades.

Two Chinese clerks waved through a window, startled white kids staring at them. I slowed to a distracting pace behind someone translucent with a half-pint of milk. His fingers couldn't close around shopping bag handles. Cold men smoked and huddled selling fresh fish. A sign contained handwritten characters beneath somebody's passport photo. A cellar-door conveyor belt bleated like a lamb.

Outside Red Dragon Extermination Agency an old man's bike tipped but he just went on talking; the fall had been cushioned by a lettuce box. From the southern edge of Columbus Park a woman fed scraps to a tin-drum fire. Fumes left me dizzy. I sat surrounded by rice bowls, half with egg. Someone staring at a storefront checked his zipper. Though it hadn't started raining girls shared an umbrella. A van bumped then ended up dragging a cone.

Torn $12 stackable chairs suggested I was back in Tribeca. Tall Tribeca Works men passed with brown suits the texture of sleeping bags. Filling the line along Javits Courthouse stood just the people you'd expect: modest, stunned. The only person grinning chewed on a plastic fork.