And I feel like some bird of paradise

Like some desperately sleep-deprived swallow to Capistrano, I am returning to Brooklyn in order to catch the animation block of the Coney Island Film Festival where some friends of spatch's have a short premiering. It is not true that nothing bad has ever happened to me in New York, but it is the city of my parents and grandparents and it has traditionally treated me well—I have never been interviewed on the radio anywhere else. I have not visited any of its boroughs since 2019. I have been missing it. The weather is projected to be dismal, but I can still say hi to the Cyclone.

If you want to ride this wheel of life, it's roll on

We drove four hours to Brooklyn and seven hours back and it was worth every second, despite the fact that as soon as we crossed from Queens into Brooklyn, the hitherto luminous sky opened up into a spectrum of rain which would persist until well into our return to Massachusetts. All the highway safety signs on the Merritt Parkway had gotten into the act for May the Fourth: "Slow Down You Will." "Han Says Solo Down." "Buckle Up Young Skywalker." I had packed a book as is my custom for going anywhere and did not have recourse to it once.

( Better let all your business drop. Nobody knows where it will stop. )

Between the zero sleep which I had gotten last night and the snail's pace at which we were leaving the city between construction and weather, I went out like a light before we even made it off of I-678 and woke up somewhere around New Haven with the fortunate results that I could take over driving once we hit the Pike in torrential rain and Rob was done. I did not collide with the FedEx truck which kept weaving across the lanes obscured in spray and reflection and I hung a prudent distance back from the sedan which was doing even more of the same. The fact that we could park in front of our own apartment was super-lagniappe. I expect to be toast tomorrow, but I regret nothing of this flash trip. I do not intend it to be another six years before I am in New York again.