"A billion souls all dying to know me."

"Well here I am!
Loaded with promise
and knee deep in grace."

Things I saw while floating around a foreign land:

The unexpected kindness of strangers, as a fellow Canadian heading into town for a business meeting offers me a ride on his dime. He doesn't ask me for anything. I am floored. After pulling over at his stop, he hands the driver enough cash to get me where I need to go, including tip.

The driver doesn't mind the extra mileage and as we crawl through mid-morning traffic I see the beauty of New York City on a rainy day -- or any day, for that matter. I feel like Serge Gainsbourg singing about "New York USA". Waldorf-Astoria, oh! C'est haut! It's almost mythical and more than stunning.

The driver and I talk to pass the time. He is friendly and sharp and proud of his business. He was recently granted US citizenship! Wow, it was only three days ago! He's beaming. His father sponsored him; now he, his wife, his son, his older sister and his much younger brother all live here. His mother is still "back home" and he is making plans to bring her to New York, too. He has lived here for ten years and cannot imagine living anywhere else.

Later, in the East Village, I run into Ron Livingston. Well, not so much "run into" as "walk past without trying to stare". Hey, do you know that I, like countless others who have accosted you in the middle of a sidewalk, love Office Space? Also, Swingers, right? That was really great, too. These are things I could have said to him, but didn't.

Back on East 11th, Gloria Reuben is across the street, looking for something or someone, pacing a little, doubling back. Someone yells something at her, possibly the name of one of the characters she's played, possibly something flattering, possibly something lecherous. She waves, smiles, hails a cab. I am fond of her, perhaps only because she is another fellow Canadian.

The last thing I see before Kimmmmmyyyyy and I head out to meet up with PF and the kitty is the guiltiest of guilty pleasures, or at least one of the guiltiest. Kimmy justifies the detour as "retail therapy" and I follow my own dubious logic, that it's okay to spend money at a store that doesn't exist in Toronto. In my defense, at the time, I didn't know how fleeting that excuse would be.

TRACK LISTING: Prefab Sprout, "Hey Manhattan!"