Found Connections

Total distance: 3.9 miles.

Down Fifth Avenue to Madison Square Park. Madison Square Park = dog city.  Able to finish the latest draft of a short story and read 20 pages of Robert Olen Butler while in line at Shake Shack (single cheeseburger, regular Arnold Palmer).

Back down Fifth Avenue to buy a hundred bucks’ worth of Japanese clothes and gifts. And then: Union Square Greenmarket! First time I’ve gone this year. Yellow onions, and Hungarian cake with blueberries. Then down to East Village Cheese for turkey, cheddar, fish, H&H bagels.

Up Third, then up Irving Place. Teens slump on the sidewalks waiting for the Irving Plaza box office. I fall in behind a Southern college girl and a British man. On Irving and 17th, someone still keeps the faith:

I get a little closer:

Up to Gramercy Park. A couple confusedly pulls at the locked gate. Then it’s back to Madison Square for a breather. I look over my short story to see if there’s a better title, but what I’ve got fits. I retrace my steps up Fifth Avenue, past the Museum of Sex and some models having a wedding:

And a man walks around.

Four hours, 3.9 miles.