Waiting to Get There. Usually on the A/C/E in Chelsea, New York City.

Here's Tom's "last day at the office" snap. Day 1: Tom gets a text from someone at his office asking if he’s in the Cayman Islands. Tom replies that he’s at Acme buying Ketchup. “In the Cayman Islands?” Ha ha no. “What did you do this morning?” asks the former colleague. Well, says Tom. He says he went to the YMCA to swim, but the pool was closed. He headed up to the gym. It was empty. So he played basketball all by himself.  Day 2: Tom cannot figure out how to stop his car from trying to get him to drive to the office. If he tries to go anywhere in the morning, his car beeps at him and says, "21 minutes to the office." Day 3: Tom takes apart my bass guitar and fixes it. This takes 12 hours. He bought a large magnifying glass with a flashlight attached, a soldering gun and some fancy tweezers. But he did it! Now he's working on fixing a microphone dropped on its head one too many times. Day 4: Tom gets a cold. Da...

I asked the front desk person why the Morgan Library was so packed. It’s never packed.  She said it was because everyone waited until the last minute to check out the John Singer Sargent  drawings. Last day is tomorrow. Right. I rolled my eyes at the same time as her. Then I beelined to the John Singer Sargent exhibit. I saw this water color I really liked: John Singer Sargent Watercolor at the Morgan Library We all have a friend who used to be that guy when he was 26 and knew everything about existentialism and nihilism and John Coltrane. I looked at this painting for a while the first time I saw it, but then decided to go back and snap a picture. A small crowd had gathered in front of it, including a hawkish woman in a light blue sweater.  As we inched closer to the picture, I got the distinct impression that this woman’s goal was not to see the painting, but to position herself in front of me so I couldn't see it. I felt the combat vibes ...