There's still more to be said about my latest exploits in NYC, but I'm still not quite up to discussing the particulars -- so for the time being I'm simply going to paste from an e-mail I wrote that gets the message across (though it's fairly similar to what I wrote in the previous entry):

So right now I'm trying to hash out my options and my next move -- I want to be somewhere where I could be happy, or something resembling it. I'm not happy here, but also I don't think I could be in a place where everyone talks fast to try to confuse you so they can swindle you out of your money or your place in line or whatever. I want to be someplace where people don't scowl at you when you smile and say, "Hello," as you pass -- someplace where people are moving slowly enough that you can actually pause to do that without being bowled over by the person sprinting along the sidewalk at your back. Someplace where the politicians don't strike me as obviously being gangsters. (But maybe that's just their accents.) Someplace where the concept of "speed dating" seems as ludicrous to everyone else as it does to me. I held the door open at Port Authority for the person behind me and was stuck standing there while fourteen people pushed through without a second glance in my direction.

I did finally get my hands on a copy of the Cutie Honey live action film -- the 2-disc Collector's Edition, no less! -- so the trip wasn't a total drag. Eriko Sato is bloody hot, dontchaknow.

In other news, I recently entered the ThatFirstLine Writer's Contest. I doubted I'd win (and I didn't; you can see the winning entry here, though it doesn't strike me as being very novel at all, seeing as how I've seen this kind of thing done in more movies, books, cartoons, and comics than I can remember -- for example, the scene from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles where they're talking about Raph and then he comes crashing down through the skylight -- so I find it kind of interesting that it won), but since 100% the $5 entry fee went towards financing literacy groups I thought it would be a good thing to do. Anyway, here was my entry, from a short story I started writing a while back and decided might work better as a play:

You would not believe the things that I have seen in my thirty years as an umbrella vendor on this boardwalk by the beach.

I'd much rather hear about the observations of a beach boardwalk umbrella vendor than find out why some dude came crashing through a window -- 'cause if you think about it, there's only one way it could've happened (someone threw him through it, duh -- and don't go saying that he could've jumped through it himself, 'cause that would simply mean that he threw himself through it, and he still counts as someone!) -- but apparently that's just me. 😉

All for now -- ja ne, minna-san!