Noncommittal weather to accompany my noncommittal mood. I need groceries, but I also "need" to go to the gym, since I'm "running" a half-marathon in approx. 37 days and have yet to run farther than 3 miles. But I also really need to check my email, and futz around online, and sit in my room and consider it. Paint it blue? Paint it green?

Elma is the youngest of the four girls who live on the first floor. She's 2, and looks like a real live Cabbage Patch Kid. She's bilingual, but also kind of nonlingual when around strangers. I hear her screaming in Montenegrin most times. Anyway, she loves me for some reason, probably because I sound like a Muppet, but she never says anything to me, no matter how many questions I ask. She just follows me around smiling. Then just now I was starting to climb the stairs with all my bags and my keys clanging when she poked her head out the door and smiled at me.

So I said, "Hello, Elma. How was your day today?"

And she just went, "Hehhhh," and kind of laughed at me.

And then I said, "Okay, well, see ya later!"

And she said, "Seea way-tuh!"

Felt like $1,000,000.

Oof. I've discovered that Sunday morning is an utterly perfect time to do your laundry. However, I still hate doing it.

When I got back and hung up all my damp socks, which never fully dry, no matter how long I leave them in the drier, I made a baby pot of coffee for myself--one of those four-cup coffee pots that looks kiddie-sized. And then--I drank it all.

I didn't really mean to. I never drink more than two cups, ordinarily. But I just kept going, it's so completely good, "Eggcellent Coffee" that Leah got in her Easter basket, and now I'm utterly JAZZED about the walk Leah and I are about to have in Central Park, and totally THRILLED about how gorgeous it is out right now, and completely EXCITED out of my mind at the prospect of attending Juniper Summer Writers Institute, which I should really send in my application to, shouldn't I?

Later, later.

Oh! I forgot to tell you: the first thing I watched on our new TV set? Charlie & Lola, naturellement.

Time to go outside. Ta-ta, chickadees.

I'm at home. On my bed. Using the internet. The dynamic of my apartment has completely changed, and I certainly mean for the better. The dulcet tones of the TV are coming in under the door. Fifty years of technology in one day. Now that's progress.

I am clandestinely typing this in the body of an email because I have no internet at home yet. Blogging on the sly. I hate the word 'blog.'

Long story, involving shared custody of a TV, not really worth telling, but I'm going home this weekend to internet (!) and TV (!) and civilization. Ironic that living in the city has made me more removed from daily life. Ohmygod, The Daily Show. I'll get to watch The Daily Show.

Benchmark of success: I will consider myself arrived when Jon Stewart interviews me about my book and does the requisite, "My favorite part was..." to make it seem like he actually read it. (Book TK.)

This has been a week of eats. Pizza at Mama Carmella's around the corner from my apt., and--dare I say it? yes--it's better than Scotto's. And also, it makes me think of Mrs. Fink.

Then dinner last night w. Katja at Freeman's, a country farm house-type restaurant at the end of an alley whose storefront looks like a Free People/French bistro--bicycle, pots of hydrangeas and hyacinths, strings upon strings of white lights. And inside it's all rustic, white-washed, walls lined with taxidermied everything, exposed light bulbs along the ceiling, and MASHED POTATOES WITH TRUFFLE OIL, which I ate on a separate plate, with a tablespoon.

Then lunch today at La Pizza Fresca, which is so good I pretty much want to rub the pizza all over my face. Doesn't compare to Scotto's/Mama Carmella's; different beast.

Tonight will be a dinner of doggie bags.

Big, belated news. Am moving to Queens! Well, half-moved, akchully. Yesterday took all my boxed belongings to my sunny residence in Astoria/Woodside (depends on who you're talking to: me, or the PO). Official launch date is Mar. 8, because paint smells bad and it's nice to have furniture to sit/sleep/eat on. Next week it'll be couch, bed, kitchen table, my great-grandmother's chest of drawers (known in our family as "Nanny's chest," which always sounded so weird to me as a little kid), etc. My room is skeletal right now; a lack of bric-a-brac. And only one pair of jeans! Eep!

New roommates makes me more nervous than any possible thing else. Friends of friends, Leah and Sarah, both my age, both work in publishing as well. Uncanny, but also nice. I imagine us venting to each other in complete and utter accord: "And toDAY I had to retransmit and entire 500-pg. manuscript because the author decided LAST MINUTE to add an entire INDEX." Eggh, I get buggered just thinking about that.

Okay, to the specs: 3rd floor of a three-fam house-ish thing, last house in a row, lots-o-windows, gorrrrrgeous kitchen, granite countertops, marble bathroom, I taxed the tiny br because a) less rent, b) better view, c) kind of kozy. So front to back: my room next to living room, kitchen off living room, down small hall to bathroom, other two brs.

I have big baking plans.

That's the news. More TK.