It's startling how quickly it all changes. Circumstances have turned on a dime in a New York minute about six times in the past two weeks and my adjustments are always too slow to serve any purpose.

Incredible how quickly a music video can ruin a song.

We have entered the Age of the Milkshake. I now have a blender, a can of protein powder, and a few bags of berries in my freezer. The tofu looks particularly lovely next to the low-fat vanilla yogurt.

The weather has been cooperating in with my soul recently. Very Shakespearean. Maine was an idyll of light, sun sparkle and candle glow and starshine. The past two days in New Orleans have been uneasy winds and fitful gusts and rustlings, but no resolution; no storm has come. The ease I felt in the Northeast reconciles me partly to leaving here. If I call it the Northeasy, will that make me feel more at home?

Driving home a couple of nights ago, I was startled by three black cats reclining under a red Chevy Tracker. Their green eyes caught the lights of my car and Lady Bracknell would have been hard-pressed to look so disdainful. I circled around the block to make sure I had seen them correctly and to see if they had anything to say to me, prophecies of fortune or doom. They patently couldn't be bothered with me and my future. Macbeth's weird sisters on their night off.

I have put away my DVDs. I was addicted and it was doing me harm. Since then I have read more and accomplished more, although less in my own life than in the restaurant's.

I wish you could hear Rebirth singing "Aint' no party like a Rebirth party 'cause a Rebirth party don't stop! The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire!" I wish you could hear the crowd roar back "We don't need no water, let the motherfucker burn!"

I'm in the Rue on Oak Street. When I came in they were playing Hall and Oates and now, as I leave, they are playing Rdaiohead's Let Down.

Something's coming. The weather said so and it must be true.