**The Manhattan Chronicles**

Well, my fair reader, you were neglected shamefully last night. I had every intention of arriving at the apartment in dusky twilight, filled to the brim with creative and witty anecdotes, and, while I did arrive around dusk, I was hardly filled with witty narratives. I was exhausted. I had walked over one hundred blocks- actually spent the entire day walking- and I was not ready to sit down and expound. I was ready to crawl into bed.

However, sleeping in Manhattan always seems like a sacrilege, so I decided to rest a little before going back out. Alas, a violent thunderstorm allayed my plans. Umbrella-less and scared of wandering damp streets alone, I curled up with several movies and spent a blissful night wrapped in fictional characters' problems.

But yesterday was delightful.

I went to Bryant Park, Rockefeller Center, Saks, St. Patrick's Cathedral, browsed homes on Park Avenue, shopped on Fifth Avenue, and found the most amazing hummus and organic mint green iced tea.

I began my day quite confidently- I was standing at a street corner, when a little lady with a child pulling her arm out of her sockets, asked me in a harried way which direction Fifth Avenue was. I gave her incredibly lovely directions and earned a "thank you" and a confidence that I was becoming a New Yorker. (I know, I know, Fifth is easy to find when you're standing on Sixth, but please give me some credit.)

Bryant Park, where I nibbled on fresh fruit and iced coffee, trying in vain to keep the heat at bay, was filled with people reading at little tables under the trees. Across the lawn was an outdoor yoga class. If I hadn't been attired in a skirt, I might have joined them in their downward-facing dogs. I mentally noted that law enforcement officers in NYC seem particularly attractive, but then remembered that I'm scared a lot in NYC, and this could be the reason for their attraction...

At Saks, I met my new best friend "Javier." He was delightful. And incredibly flamboyant. We talked make-up and he gave me a make-over while we chatted it up about graduate school and different skin tones. He's going back to school in the fall- to be a teacher. Just to have a little Saks' bag hanging from my wrist, I bought some concealer and bid Javier "adieu".

The rest of the day was browsing, amazing hummus lunch in Central Park (complete with the world's best mint tea).


I decided that since I had never been to mass- I should go at St. Patrick's. The beautiful cathedral was awe-inspiring. But mass was not. More thoughts on that to follow. But as I sat there, flipping through the hymnal, I realized I didn't know any of the songs in there. Wracking my mind for a song they might sing that I would know, a sudden thought popped into my head, "I wonderful if the have 'A Mighty Fortress Is Our God...'" Then realization of what I had just thought made me stifle a snort of laughter.

Of COURSE they wouldn't have "A Mighty Fortress"! Martin Luther and the Catholic church HATED each other! Why would they be singing a song penned by one of their old arch-rivals? I resisted another urge to chuckle. What on earth was I thinking?

As I wandered the burgs of the socially elite, glancing in store windows and trying on impossibly expensive shoes, I was trying to stifle an overwhelming sense of loneliness. I don't have much recreational alone time. Granted, during school I'm alone a lot because that is my mode of studying, but when I do fun, random, Fifth Avenue type of activities, I'm usually surrounded by a bevy of family with a sprinkling of friends.

Every now and then the reality of what I would be doing, should I choose to come to NYC hits me at a different angle. I would be so lonely out here. If I'm plagued with loneliness in West Lafayette, (which I have been as of late) with my family and friends near-by, then how much more so would I be plagued in a mammoth city, all alone? I know, I know I would eventually make friends, but there would be quite a long while when those friendships would be just planted and new, timid shallow things. And that's always a hard time...

All well. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, won't we? I won't know if I got the externship until the first week of September. I'll let my worries take a snooze until then. Who knows, they may not even need to be awakened...

Okay, last day in the city! Going to visit a famous bakery and try to see the top of the world from the Empire State Building. Then I've been told I need to try some delicious frozen yogurt called "Pinkberry." Hello, Wednesday in Manhattan!