short version

Well, I succumbed to the urge of unemployment. Or something like that. I'm actually looking for a new job while I finish up at the old one -- and knowing that the old one now has an expiration date on it makes it that much less wretched. Like being forced to eat a bowl of something bottomless-seeming and gross and then finally, blessedly, getting a glimpse of the ceramic below the food.

Mr. Ben, my companion, has started his summer job and it affords him, as law school did not, weekends. Weekends! So exciting. We celebrated by doing various touristy New York things, some of which we'd never done: crossed the brooklyn bridge, strolled through lower Manhattan to Ground Zero and all the way down to the Staten Island ferry. Took the ferry, peeked through our fingers at Statan Island, then dashed back to Manhattan and walked up through Chinatown, with a stop for dinner, to the Sunshine theater back in our old East Village stomping grounds and then to a new thankfully unpretentious wine bar.

It took us 12 hours and it was exhausting and wonderful, especially since the weather, after dilly-dallying for months, has finally decided to grant us warmth. It seems fitting after a day like that that the NYT should offer something cool and new yorkish like an interactive literary map of the city like so.

It feels a little funny to be looking for work again and dealing with the question of What Shall I Do again a year after I dealt with both for the first time. But I have two interviews in the next two days and I'm keeping my chin up.