Alive...but busy...

I'm pretty sure nobody thought I was dead, but I have been lagging on keeping up with this blog.

My bad, all of my loyal readers, whom I love and think about often, especially with some of the cool things that have been going on in the City.

For one, Corrie and I hosted a Canadian couple from Ottawa as a result of Freeloaders.com, a website that connects foreign travelers with people willing to open up a room or couch for strangers. We wanted to utilize the site for our travel purposes in the future, but we get all sorts of requests because we live in NYC. Finally the request dates fit in well with our schedule, and we had a nice middle-age boyfriend-girlfriend couple staying in Tuxedo's room. I'll enter some more later (with pictures!).

Marc and I took a long walk in Westchester County, on a warm and overcast day, and eventually got tossed off of private property (there were no signs or fence jumping...both of us are too old for that kind of trouble). I'll post some pictures later.

In the news, maybe some of you've outside the five boroughs have heard of this, a kitchen supplies salesman located in Harlem, who works mainly in cash, was attempted to be robbed. The same thing happened thirty years ago, and afterwards he bought a shotgun. Licensed and registered and everything. You can see where this is going. Four young hoodlums came in right after a stove was sold and started yelling at a young guy working there. He was being uncooperative, and they started pistol-whipping him. The old owner, 70+ year old lovingly called "Shotgun" Gus, pulled out the piece and stormed over to them. He blasted two pretty quick, and the other two as they fled. The two shot at close range staggered off, across the street, and died in pools of their own goo. The other two took off, and police followed trails of blood and caught both of them. Gus fired four rounds, and connected on all four. The pistol-whipped employee was seen chasing the dying guys and screaming at them, kicking them as the fell. He was arrested and released later in the day. No charges have been filed against Gus.

The poll in the paper said readers in this extremely anti-gun city had a whopping 86% approval rate of the defending-shots, vs 2% disapproval (somehow 12% had no opinion).

The same day (!) in the Bronx a meeting between judges, prosecutors, and public defenders being held at the courthouse ended, and as they left the grand chamber--still inside the courthouse, mind you--there was a present waiting for them. Somebody had dropped deuce right next to the chamber's door. Can you believe that? Inside a courthouse, dropping your pants, pinching one off, and not being seen? They said it was something they'd never seen. You don't say...

A friend of mine is on a small vacation, and they've asked me to come in and cover a few days at their restaurant, so for the next few days, this site will probably be a little light.

The past few days I've been writing a ton, but not on this blog. I've been getting my next novel hammered out, as somehow my motivation is to that and not this site, which sucks for people who like to read this site regularly, but, in the big picture, doesn't suck for me.

Right now I'm calling that novel Epsilon Neighborhood, and I'm trying my best at gluing together the traditions of Denis Johnson and Thomas Pynchon, not consciously of course, that's just kinda how my stuff comes out.

Tomorrow I'm working the market at 6:30 and then straight over to the restaurant til about 8 or 9. Nice long days, getting that extra scratch we all need.

Hope everyone is well, mad I can't talk enough on the phone, and miss and love everyone...