When you get back to the city after having been away three and a half weeks, there sure is a lot to do besides blog. (Yah, Tom, this goes out to you.) And then when you do do it all, even going to the gym the day you touch down from a twenty-one hour flight, you sure all of a sudden one night need to go to bed at eight.

Rested now. Got up to snowing. Perfect time to inaugurate my new egg cup. Soft-boiled egg, soya sauce, white pepper. Mmmm. Accompanied by an article in an old New York Times Magazine about Jude Law. Mmmm.

So I got off the plane Sunday, and was duly fingerprinted and photographed. Even with the jovial immigration dude (“Say cheese!”) at the helm, it was a wholly uncomfortable experience. Look, America, I’m as law-abiding and servile and obsequious as they come. Give me my fingerprints back.

Happily, there was soon cake to follow, at India’s Ladies’ Tea. Lots of cake, even a lemon tart and a giant doughnut. And tea, especially a winning white melon tea. And, ohmygod, a pile of homemade truffles. And, uh, a bowl of carrots. Wha-ha? Silly India, that space on the table could have been much better used by a large cupcake.

Monday night brought a short walking tour of downtown Manhattan as T. McC. and I looked for a sushi joint that would take us in and ply us with fish. Tomoe packed and its queue outside showing no sign of getting any shorter, we headed for the Yama on Seventeenth Street. It’s a funny thing about the Union Square Yama, you can always be sure you’ll sit next to some loudmouthed asshole. Monday night we got two black-suited businessmen (insurance? stocks?) who started out slow, talking only to the people at their neighboring tables, then moved on to making proclamations to the room. They seemed especially pleased to meet the hippies a couple of tables away from them—one boy hippie, three girl hippies, dreads, a yoga mat, and a didgeridoo. Eventually the suits got one of the girl hippies to play the didgeridoo, after which they said, “That was good for me, was it good for you?” Chortle, chortle, yuk, yuk. Sigh.

Outside again, full and happy from the edamame and seaweed, the crazy hotate mille-feuille, the salmon and avocado roll, the sea-eel sushi, the yellowtail. Tom glowing orange from a streetlight, roadworks smoke rising behind him.