heading for Santa Cruz

It's for real --- I'm heading for Surf City in a week and a half. I can't wait to catch up with friends and family, stuff my gullet with Takara sushi, hang out at Pleasure Point, run the trails through the Forest of Nisene Marks, and, I hope, get a lot of writing done. I love New York City but I'm tired of dodging buses, crazed taxi drivers, and disgusting rats lurking around the laundry room of our building. Before I leave, I'll try to cram all the NYC experiences I've been putting off -- a reading at Symphony Space, exploding soup dumplings at Joe's Shanghai, and a run down to the Battery. Then I'm going into my final round at Columbia -- thesis, teaching, and, I hope, training for the NYC Marathon if they take me in the lottery. I also went to the dentist, which was an unfortunate experience. They cleaned my teeth, all right, but one of my teeth (or most of it) fell out almost immediately after the cleaning while I was eating Thai food. Bummer. In the next three days, bits of my molar fell out one by one at inconvenient times. I stored all the pieces in an empty film cannister (which is starting to look like a medieval reliquary.) My advice to everyone is to put off going to the dentist as long as possible if you value your molars.