I'm in NYC, but thanks to a return to The Palace (from days of yore) I am moving slooooow. It was a good time though! Fab Dinner with Jeremy and Rachael (who have set a wedding date!) followed up by sister-dude, $8 pitchers of budweiser, Priest on the juke and me stepping up to some guy with my early-2000 street-cred. He was born in the neighborhood, so I ended up buying him a shot, but given that the place is overrun with kids these days I felt like I had to stand up.

Anyway, muddling through things, I goofed around with Pantheon a bit, and then google analytics data exporter, which I plan to start integrating for more accurate statistics of reads on my posts, etc. Fit of pride: 3,500 actual reads of this essay.

And now a txt from the momster. She's arrived. Time to get up and go!

It's a heady collection of tags: authentic experience, nyc, love, sex, friends; should be a real barn-burner of a blog.

Back in Humboldt for a week now, feeling the raw world-conquering momentum bleed away into wood smoke and the smell of fallen leaves. It's not unpleasant at all, this country home of mine -- next week will be alive with family and friends; the way I fell in love in the first place -- but today it gives me a feeling of wistful sadness.

It seems I make myself a smaller person here, or maybe it's vice-versa with the Mother City making me bigger. Much as I believe the hype about the internet flattening the world, it will always be true that different things happen in different places. It was an immense recharge, to walk again the streets of Brooklyn, to feel the quick hard snap of real subway doors, the great heaping crush of humanity, densely packed ambition and excellence. I draw power from the capital of the world.

And it's not just the women, but I won't lie: they're a big part of it. I have a no kiss-and-blog policy, but this little slice from William Gibson has stuck with me since adolescence, and pretty much nails me to a T:

But Bobby had this thing for girls, like they were his private tarot or something, the way he'd get himself moving. We never talked about it, but when it started to look like he was losing his touch that summer, he started to spend more time in the Gentleman Loser. He'd sit at a table by the open doors and watch the crowd slide by, nights when the bugs were at the neon and the air smelled of perfume and fast food. You could see his sunglasses scanning those faces as they passed, and he must have decided that Rikki's was the one he was waiting for, the wild card and the luck changer. The new one.

So far it's the best Monday evar, and not just because I had a fantastic dinner last night (butternut squash + garlic + house-made pasta + grappa = WIN). I'm hanging at The Change You Want To See and the good news is rolling like thunder:

• Obama will close Guantanimo. An excellent and important first step.
• Obama has a 75% favoribility rating, which won't last, but bodes well for getting a good Big Push done early.
• Mike Lux is on the transition team, which I like because he's connected to people I know and trust at Open Left. Bodes well for coalition building around the new administration.
• Sy Hersh will blow the lid off the warrentless wiretapping as soon as his sources no longer have Bush retrebuition to fear.

It's looking like there will be some results. Elections have consequences.

Of course, the big thing we'll all be waiting on is what we do for the economy. That's a huge thing, but I'm feeling mildly optimistic about it all.