today it felt like fall. summer in the morning, and then a storm blew through to clear out the heat and the humidity, so when i hopped on the bike at the end of the day it was nearly crisp. i biked up from soho on the path by the west side highway, past all the fools trying to get in the holland tunnel for their weekends outtatown. that path is a little aggro for me, with all the cars nearby and all the people getting their outtadoors on, walking all up in the bike lane and wandering about with their boyfriends, but it's a pure new york experience. i like remembering that i live on an island, actually smelling it, looking over to jersey, watching the helicopters land, seeing picnickers on the grass next to homeless people. i biked up into riverside park and over into central park, around and around to meet my brother at the met. the museum was more peaceful than usual, i guess the message hadn't caught on that they were open till nine. so we went through and talked and saw all the museum guards gearing up to get off their shifts. it was nice and chill, with the evening light starting to show through the curtained skylights. it's been long enough for me that they've rehung the modern section and different pieces abut one another than i'm used to. this is my idea of a good museum, that you get one sense and then you reevaluate it. museums as big as the met have more than half their collection in storage at any given time. they put some pieces away and pull others out, they move shit around. it's one thing to see a painting in isolation and another to see it with neighbors, then with different neighbors. i like it, and i like feeling at home with it. in a totally cheesy sense the met belongs to everyone, it's one of the privileges we pay for as part of our absurd cost of living in nyc. it's one of the reasons i live here. before i lived here the met was where i would go to kill time if i had to when i was in town. now that i live here it is in a pain in the ass part of town that i avoid whenever possible, but all of a sudden with the bike, it's a reward at the end of a pleasant trip. one of the most peaceful places in nyc is the temple of dendur with its moat and its skylights. watch the dusk fall there and in the turrell room at ps1 and you've had the best peacefulness new york has to offer.
i'm smoking again, i don't fully know why but it's part of this sensual impulse that i'm embracing rather than fighting, but i'm not writing this from the roof, there's something too primeval about the cold breeze up there that makes me catch up my belongings and hurry back into shelter. we saw a rainbow and a spectacular cloud display last sunday and now soon it will be chilly again and i'll be longing to be back up in the hudson valley.