Besides my not having an office or, um, a paycheck or anything, this week so far has been JUST like having a job, seeing as how I’ve been going into the city every day. I was planning my itinerary early this morning—if the baby is up at ten to seven, we are all up at ten to seven—when CC said, “You could even go now, with the rush-hour crowd.”

“I have no intention of going with the rush-hour crowd,” I said, and it is here I may have snorted.

“So it’s not at all like you have a job, then.”

“No.”

Very well.



These summer-winter days are nice for forays into the city, a Japanese printed cotton tunic among the pinstripes at lunch. The 507 dropped me off exactly where I wanted to be, minutes from a courtyard in the sunshade, a crusty baguette sandwich, and a grenadine-Perrier in a frosty frosted glass. On the way out, a small bag of ten dark truffles had the pleasant heft of magic.

Across the street at the Museum of Contemporary Art, contemporary art was multicolored neon rain falling down down down. Down down down the hall there was a grey window looking out on a grey scene, but I followed its pull to find the window was no window and the shadow was no shadow, and I remembered when we were in Las Vegas and the full moon was shining so brightly against the winking, blinking backdrop of the city as to be but a simulacrum, and I was lost in wonderment and marvel and fatigue, not even knowing if we were real ourselves. We walked up the Strip and down the Strip, and when I caught sight of the moon, it took me by— — it just took me.