04/01/97 11:36:33 PM
It's never until late, late in the day that I decide to do something constructive. Or meaningful. Or anything at all. But I've felt terribly positive all day today. When it gets like this I tend to say breathless, naive things. Meaningless little asides like "Oh, I can hardly wait for that new software to arrive." Or "This is fun. I'm having a good time." And I wonder if most people are not like that all the time, even without realizing it, clearly informing themselves: "I like this. This satisfies a need. I think I'll do this now, because it was such fun the first time."

I'm listening to a very strange midi file of music by Charles Alkan. The piece is called L� F�stin d'Esop. I think that's how it is spelled. I have a copy of the music around here somewhere. Here, listen to it, so then you can read this and listen to Alkan just as I am writing this and listening to it. We will be together, and I won't feel so dopey listening to this almost comical version of what is supposed to be music of dark, bombastic humor.

It is originally a piano piece. I have played it, more or less, though never bothered to perform it in all its monstrosity. A tinny midi rendition does its pomposity no justice, I might add, though it is still amusing.

I spent the better part of this week telling everyone I know and work with that I will be moving to Atlanta in the coming weeks and months. Even though it is only about 98% certain, I expect to be there by May, quite possibly earlier. I intend to be there for only 1 year, maybe less, before either returning to New York or heading further south to Fort Lauderdale or the Keys, or else up to Chicago, or else nowhere. Nowhere at all.

But the more I think about having a nice big house and a car and associating with more normal women than I've found here, the more I think that this might be the end of New York for me for some time. At this particular time there is no real advantage for me to live here. I can play piano anywhere, write this website anywhere, do almost anything I want and need to do almost anywhere, and I know already that it will be easier for me to do all those things and do them well in a more sane environment.

But it's sad in some ways to leave here. I've built no real roots, have had no meaningful romances, and have no romantic prospects whatsoever. I've made almost unbelievable professional advances (especially considering how I started out), but made and celebrated almost all of them by myself; that sort of youthful promise which would seem to exist for anyone in this town has fulfilled itself for me almost entirely in professional situations.

And that, I'm starting to see, is just about all a lot of people think this city is about. Now I'm a bigshot. Yay me.

Or, as I said outloud on Sunday when I turned on the radio and realized it was Easter: Yay, Jesus.