Monday

Still spinning out Kristin's door I decided to change plans. The air stirred gently, made me think of flags. At 9:26 I saw the clean white backs of waitresses in a Gee Whiz Diner window.

Someone in charcoal suit and tie sprinted across Chambers towards a pharmacy. It hadn't opened. He turned back to his car. I took off my coat and bunched it. I crossed between busses, blinking when a photo of fast-food chicken got in my face, cutting east with a blind woman and her father. A kid weaving a handcart through everyone wore a baseball hat that said Caireful.

Tribeca smelled like soft rolls and coffee. Office towers from the seventies stood tinted pleasant green. All the scaffolds dripped on Broadway. Squares had been torn to let a sapling through. A bush on Franklin held a plump melodic sparrow. A woman smiling at someone behind me waved in case I'd misunderstood. I turned up White but can't remember it. I don't remember Church except for the clapping sound of pigeons' wings. At Canal I dropped into the art-deco post office thinking Union Station L.A. I asked a clerk where to find passport applications.

Monday no passport she said, never looking up. Tuesday Saturday Window 20. Monday Window 20 closed.

Near the exit I passed Window 20. To me it appeared open. From Thompson I remembered dreaming about fire escapes last night. I felt at ease across from six-story columns identified as Shaftways. A parking attendant dragged his chair into the center of the sun. He closed his eyes but kept talking to the co-worker behind him.

A street-sweeping truck followed me down Spring. This scared a floppy spaniel which nonetheless kept up its owner's brisk pace. Two blonds seemed thrilled to be tall and heading to work and more generally everyone looked buoyant. The joy hinted that it would last. Handsome black men took off helmets, walked motor scooters along the curb. My big toe ached from pushing too hard. I stuffed my hat in a coat pocket.

Damp air blowing in from Chinatown smelled like mushroom bulk bins. There were so many 50-pound bags of onions. There were ashy carrots as thick as forearms. I couldn't pause to examine fish but I did appreciate bubbling tanks. I split through murmuring couples. Hunched women stopped to consider produce. Others turned so gradually I saw it coming a hundred feet off. Someone Haitian called out Cel-e-ry to his grinning Chinese counterpart: an old guy in appealing thin pants. Behind them somebody mentally-retarded passed by unattended, wiggled her foot—pushed beyond the disjointed blocks between Bayard and Confucius Plaza.

One Asian girl in gold tights and sneakers helped an ancient couple cross Catherine. Upon close inspection all three looked gray.

I got to Chatham Square Library just as it opened. The clerk fixated on a tower of DVD check-ins before retrieving my John Cage audio hold. The neighborhood grew steamy. Someone catching crates of strawberries couldn't help squishing each box he caught. Somebody paced herself to pass between boxes. A woman sidled up to a police officer and asked without eye contact Where's the World Trade?

As we waited out the light one mom started blinking. Her non-glossy freckled skin reminded me of cookies. Soon we were smiling, mostly staring straight ahead. Saturated with goodwill I strode right toward my favorite Bellbates cashier before even grabbing a handcart.

Back at Church a girl's wheelchair glistened. A cook drenched the sidewalk with soapy water. In Park Dayschool it was story-time. The woman had gray dreadlocks.

Tuesday

No one had an umbrella so I assumed it wasn't raining. But from the door I saw drops slap a white garbage bag. By 7:30 pools gathered in its creases.

With snow gone I wanted to check out the Conservatory Gardens. Ducks paddled stoically across The Meer. Swans didn't look distinct yet. Seagulls' feet get so much yellower here than Battery Park. Three women hoisting umbrellas came towards me in a solid line, taking up the entire walk, then broke ranks as they passed smeared horse poop clumps. A wide green garbage truck passed next—I had to spin sideways to let it fit. There was something Japanese about the wobbly boots park workers wore as they speared paper scraps in the rain. The chords geese behind us honked tingled like seltzer.

Chains circled the Gardens. I'd come too early. Plants seemed somehow put away. Where I crossed 5^th a cab almost crushed a girl. She stayed quiet about it. I screamed Idiot through the passenger's window. Through a basement window on E. 102^nd I watched great quantities of sandwiches and some mayonnaise-soaked side dish get wrapped. Loosely chopped lettuce heads spilled down a long counter/cutting board. Tins of sliced tomatoes stood red and filled with seeds.

Black school children waited for busses: too many to fit under the fiberglass. At the crowd's edge a blond stroked his tense sons' bangs. Are you sure you're OK? he said. You look silly.

Coming out from Long Island Railroad tracks I found a bed-table wallpapered blue with white stars. I turned amidst cops in orange rainproof headdress (a straggler jogged behind: chubby and really bending his knees).

On the walk up Lexington it became clear that pedestrians with no umbrellas moved non-committally while people under cover set a quick pace. Between Kim's Nails and Our Laundry sprawling, frustrated groups waited for several busses. A Poland Springs water bottle sailed down the curb. Tough guys clasped hands without ever speaking. One crowded store sold cakes and balloons. A mural for Popate (1973-1994) included a cross-eyed man's portrait, a Puerto Rican flag, a moonlit inscription: From Family And Friends.

As I continued north a contact lens began to flutter. I kept having to stare to dissipate the film. People weren't comfortable with this but the alternate option was to wink a lot. I knew I'd been approaching the Triborough Bridge but couldn't remember how it connects to the Bronx. Geographically I'd grown confused; it felt like someone might jump me. At 131^st, where Lexington ends, a giant Sanitation warehouse starts. Oldies songs drift at modest volumes. Hot twin clerks in an office supply store called out from distant display-room desks.

On the way down Madison my knees began to fade. The evening before I'd biked Manhattan twice. Passing the Mt. Morris Turkish Baths (underground at the corner like any innocuous subway stop) I wondered if they could still possibly exist. The gate blew open, actually. A girl protected by a vinyl rain cap frowned just beyond her mother's umbrella.

Sloshing across Marcus Garvey Park I pushed up stairs with waning strides. At the peak a timid white person approached asking me to sell him a cigarette. Temporarily stunned, I said No thanks. The spiraling tower at the park's tip stood locked. Still there was a pleasing amount of space. The swimming pool lay filled with muck. Through branches Fifth Avenue resembled strips of stars.

The park path dropped me south, which seemed fine, though I'd grown self-conscious about the broken zipper on the khakis I always wear in the rain. A muscular guy's miniature collie yapped at cars but always managed to heel. On 116^th a Harlem Sports Club's Coming Soon window-display looked pretty disorganized. On 112^th a co-op's multiple doormen suggested high-security gentrification was already well in progress.

On 111^th city workers strained to unhook a manhole cover. I'd always wondered if these are heavy. As I paid for orange juice at the nearest bodega a kid asked Y'all got headphones? This stayed inscrutable while I passed through the lobby provisioned and spent.

Wednesday

Kristin came from the elevator, which smelled like coffee. The florists had installed yellow daisies, yellow lilies. At 8:12 I flinched against a frigid gust—couldn't get my lips wedged under a scarf. People's eyes expressed abandonment. I cancelled my walk along the Hudson and scurried toward the island's center. A suitcase held down someone's burrito-wrapped blanket. In the next alcove somebody Hispanic read tabloids atop a milk crate.

Judging from body language boys with facemasks were the coldest. For a block it turned too bright to look past sidewalk. A young malamute lay calmly breathing. Ethereal X's ran up a building fa&ccdil;ade (these seemed to maybe come from hubcaps). Broadway had been so heavily salted I couldn't gauge how much snow there was. Under Leonard Street scaffolds ice-dust glimmered. A white man slipped then ended up doing the splits near City Hall. A Korean couple in high-tech winter gear spoke intimately, moved gracefully. A bareheaded cop guarding the state courthouse smiled; he appeared to have just remembered something.

Columbus Park had been eviscerated. Pipes lay everywhere. Trucks' blonde shovels stood filled with snow. Along a hastily assembled fence I slipped and strained my neck catching balance. Along Baxter Chinese women talked and did aerobics. One's hips wouldn't stop shimmying. I spun off in vicarious ecstasy.

I couldn't feel the cold as a young Asian woman crossed Canal in clogs and yellow neon socks. Behind her men pushed delivery carts: four Andyboy lettuce boxes, four marked TROUT. There weren't any Italians yet on Mulberry. They must all drive in from out of state. One dark-skinned boy chipped away at ice. One door sat surrounded by olive oil tins. The one gay pride flag for blocks had gotten entangled in fire escape steps. Neatly stacked Malaysian newspapers had been bound and stamped Recycling.

Pigeons spread up sidewalk on Grand, tearing at cinnamon-raisin bagels. I plowed through then felt bad approaching their patron—a compact lady with bags. One mom strained to tie garbage bags without taking off gloves. One squat guy hauled heavy cement-mix bags to a pick-up. Each time he spun back to the vestibule he faced chic tall mannequins in short denim skirts. He seemed to appreciate this.

A woman knelt wrapped in verdant shades I'd never seen anybody wear. After we glanced in each other's eyes I looked at flower barrels, a parking garage. Mulberry ended at Lafayette, where someone had written across a bus-stop sign Except there is no such bus on weekends! I walked over subway grates since these felt the least icy. I love any enfolding path of gridded metal squares. I got excited watching a restaurant's cellar door rise. It turned out to be a mechanized process.

Cancun Lounge (adjacent to Woo Lae Oak, my first job in New York) had been converted into a fish-bar with an abstract one-word title. The big design change was slightly more neutral tones. A drop of water fell in my mouth as I passed the store for kid geniuses. A resident's recycling bin overflowed with green bottles. Hispanic contractors huddled in lobbies: except one woman washed windows in just a teal sweatshirt. Someone carrying a load of bricks spaced out, screamed Sorry, crashed into me. Crossing Canal I could barely ignore movie billboards where the tunnel dropped. I straightened as an attractive waitress passed and our faces seemed bizarrely close.

I got confused at the diagonal intersection with Varick and ended up sprinting across in a panic though it turned out I had a walk sign. Tree-branch shadows flickered off busses. Otherwise they didn't exist. A potted fir tipped in front of the French restaurant on Duane. A couple windows hung open in the Cosmopolitan Hotel. Those rooms must have been unbearably hot. On my way back to the elevator, as I passed Raphael, "Hello" never got through my rigid jaws—my lips just moved silently.

Thursday

Luis was talking with an older resident when I stepped out of the stairwell. I knew he wanted to remind me of the exterminators coming. I slid brusquely through the arch their bodies made. At 8:17 cold air lay still.

I crossed through scaffolds strung with caged lamps. Icicles and nails poked down near the exit. Silence and light gathered around tabloid salesmen seated on milk crates at 110^th and Lenox. Slashed garbage bags spilled their contents. Shredded documents clung to each other. Books sprawled, some flapping. The guy ahead grabbed several without slowing down. There was a Benito Cellini, P.G. Wodehouse, Kathy Acker. There were also hundreds of greeting cards.

Curled shoots like thin green tongues kept unbinding themselves in sidewalk plots. I crouched to read a plant's identification tag. Dark ice showed where bus passengers spilled coffee. Across the street joggers expelled mist onto shrubs—a different morning.

A girl chipped ice off an SUV. She used something small like a credit card, looked 80% hypnotized. A Vermont Bus Lines coach turned south though its destination board read Bangor. An old Jamaican dropped his walkman: scattering silver plastic. He flinched then spun around before stooping to pick things up. After carrying home too many books last night I could barely peek in the farmers' market. My neck and back muscles wouldn't bend. Spasms flickered like lightning bolts somewhere around my kidneys. A dwarf carried her mesh Speedo bag off one shoulder (two bananas inside).

An elderly pedestrian adjusted a yarmulke. His torso stayed bent perpendicular to his legs. The steepest part of this stretch stood covered in paper cups and pieces of rolls from subway platforms. People are always tossing out rolls. Staring at a departed 9 train felt like almost remembering something. Boy Scouts distributed carwash flyers. At 125^th I turned east.

A blonde Hispanic woman cradled a child wrapped in pastel blankets—even its face. Amidst blue sky and snow someone winding down the path from a General Grant Housing Project caught my attention. He looked at home here. The restrictive internal cramps I used to get around housing projects were gone. This happened across from a place called El Tina. A man murmured Cigarettes. Cigarettes. Cigarettes.

A crumbling marquee read Welcome to Harlem, U.S.A. At the corner someone slowed, muttered Marlboros, Newports. Copy-machines rusted under traffic lights. Vendors laid blankets on plywood tables. The crossing guard beside me blew her whistle. My thighs began chafing against my jeans.

(Just as expected) it became hard to walk one of Manhattan's main east-west thoroughfares without mostly losing consciousness. One girl's backpack was a yarn head with dreadlocks.

Cutting through Marcus Garvey Park I recognized the hysterical collie from Tuesday's walk. The dog sprinted in diminishing circles. Its master kept handing himself the leash overhead. Snow caught in masonite reminded me of etchings. A pit bull wore an expensive red top. Pale boys shied along the fence and stared at the owner. She seemed happy with that.

Back on my own block I studied birdhouses nestled within a gingko. A bulbous sparrow peeked out from one. A businesswoman ate a big doughnut for breakfast. I ended up liking today.

Friday

I stepped out at 9:02 in Boston, in Jamaica Plain, in glasses. Like a drug addict I forgot to bring contact solution or even a case. Sidewalks only had snaky paths shoveled. Pizza boxes filled blue recycling bins. Breeze smelled wintry before and after one short guy's cigar.

A waitress nodded out El Oriental De Cuba's door like she'd just reached a big decision. Bottles scattered along the curb pointed away from each other, which seemed somehow festive. Tufts of pine needles made every sidewalk square unique. I stood half-sunken, hoping to cross Jamaica Way, whining that cars would never stop.

As I approached the pond two joggers caught up from behind. One unleashed his lab just to calm it down. A black poodle appeared—guarded at first. Then it showed with every conceivable gesture that it wanted to be chased.

There were dog tracks crisscrossing Jamaica Pond's ice. Dogs would lead then trail their masters. Geese crouched off a grassy island. I'd forgotten how emotional I get around crows.

Keys hung from a bush on Eliot St. Shovels stood (vertically) in the middle of someone's yard. I didn't want to pass another auto-parts place. From the opposite direction poked a war monument. Inside Harvest Co-op a nun pointed at the freezer. Lactaid free rice milk ice cream she said. I labeled bulk-goods with Whitney Houston singing Saving All My Love for You in the background, feeling ok. But the next song was so bad I started talking to myself in the bread aisle.

Scott and Jessica's seemed far as soon as I'd bought groceries. Passers-by surrendered sidewalk so our bags wouldn't touch. White cars looked dirty against fresh snow. A gas station's flags flapped dull and salty. I convinced myself I'd missed a turn and now sat lost with heavy bundles. Postal activities had been transferred to a shed while the elegant main building got repaired. I identified with workers. My eyes were streaming.

Inside CVS it felt so sterile and continuous I considered stealing saline just to ground myself. Instead my bags toppled lotion boxes. A fun employee said Don't worry, it's a trick.

Where I curved around a pick-up a builder told his boss I'm fifty years old and still own nothing: I don't have a house; I don't have a cah. Recycling bins blew across Paul Gore (reminding me of the moonwalk). A mom assumed I would sprint in front of her and honked. As so often happens with guest keys mine got stuck. Desperate for a bathroom I whirled and yanked.