Thursday, June 17

It's Thursday and on Thursday I sit down and write my column for www.haleisner.com. Yet, today, I can hardly believe that a week has already slipped by and I am back at the computer screen again, attempting to make sense of the last week.

I was riding the 5 train downtown today and there was a strange noise in the car - and people looked up from their newspapers and books and self-contemplation to see what it was. There were a couple of hushed: what the hells? Then everyone saw that the noise was the sound of man bouncing a basketball off his head while surfing the rails of the MTA.

So, you see, we're still jumpy but ready to smile. When we know it's not a bomb. But it was also an exclamation mark on the wild world that New York is, never knowing what might be happening around us.

Then one of the buildings on Rector had been evacuated as I walked from the train stop home - never found out why. But no one was panicked. And that was good.

It's been an interesting week. Someone attempted fraud with my personal information so I have had a bit of hell cleaning that up - though it could be worse. [I lit a candle at Trinity about that today.]

And we're having rain, here, breaking a bit the drought that has had us in its grip for awhile.

In the course of the past week, I've been back up to the house in Claverack, had friends over for dinner there, and watched Tripp plant ferns, sat up all night talking with him about the shape of our world, something we haven't done for years. We watched the dawn break over the little house and saw the splendor of the morning world.

The friends were Larry and Alicia and we talked and laughed through a barbeque while the night became unseasonably cool. On Tuesday night I had dinner at the Algonquin Hotel on 44th, one of my favorite spots in New York because it evokes the world of New York before I was born.

It was quiet, clubby and the perfect place to visit with my friend Michael Cunningham, who was being thanked for referring a client to us. I had more conference calls than the average bear this week but avoided any traveling.

Last night we went out with our friends the Whites to celebrate Tripp's birthday a couple of weeks ago Tonight we're meeting the friend who cared for the cat over Memorial Day Weekend and buying him a drink at the new Ritz-Carlton, whose bar has an incredible view of the Statue of Liberty. Tomorrow I will ride out to Princeton on the morning train with my friend James Green, for whom I worked during my internet adventure so that we can chat about the new company he is running - and see if there is any consulting work that Intermat could do for them. You see, this was the most ordinary week I have had since 9/11 - and, oh my god, but it feels wonderful.