Today was rainy. Or at least misty enough to ruin one’s hair and others’ suede pumps. What a shame. Suede pumps are among my favorite things on earth.

I paid the dentist today. A simple token of future payments. A measly sum of $1000 in cash. I haven’t the plasma to pay the rest just yet. I keep hoping to step in front of a well-heeled, well-insured but negligent driver.

I had a return to make at Banana Republic. I won’t be doing that again on the UES. The workers were surly. And the clothes were poorly handled. If you’re going to Banana stick to the UWS or SoHo. On the plus side I’m excited that it’s almost velvet season.

I’ve been in desperate need of nerds lately. UCB has comedy nerds but they have and asterisk next to the nerd title. Their version of nerd comes with a dose of jazz hands. I needed straight up nerds who know trivial things in annoying quantities. And for that, one must seek out the breadcrumbs that lead to bars and basements. Where there is trivia, you will find them.

I found some in the basement of the Alamo (that joke will never get old). They have Geeks Who Drink on Tuesday nights. I started playing that when I was separated. And then again when Nathan came back to Tucson and I forced him to make a team every week at Congress. I think it helped both him and me.

The location is great. It’s full of food stalls and Trader Joe’s. There were only nine teams tonight. I didn’t have one of my own so I paired up with Jewish newlyweds (and me dressed like an Orthodox Jew sans wig). The wife soon got bored so it was him and me and my South Sea pearls. I looked like Ally Sheedy at the end of The Breakfast Club. He was an uncanny match for Anthony. I loved him all the more for it.

We got fourth. Not too shabby. And very reassuring. Moving to NYC has been tantamount to moving to the dark side of the moon. I knew what it looked like and I’d taken the obvious precautions before coming, but so much of what I’ve learned has been “on the job” experience.

I may be a rube here and have to learn things on the fly, such as how much your hand can hurt from holding a cheap umbrella in the wind. But it’s nice to know my intelligence carries a 1:1 trading currency in this city. It’s like a mathematical or physical constant—the golden ratio (1.1618) or how a calorie is the amount of energy required to raise one gram of water one degree Celsius. I will never not be smart. I’m just too dumb to remember that sometimes.

How I wish a I’d gotten to meet Nora Ephron lately. She has a saying applicable to every facet of my life.

Like: “Our education was a dress rehearsal for a life we were never meant to lead. We weren’t meant to have futures. We were meant to marry them.”

Or: “Summer bachelors are like summer breezes. They are never as cool as they pretend to be.”

Or: “Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.”

Or this one, which I feel down into the cockles of my heart: “In my sex fantasy, no one ever loves me for my mind.”

I think we’d have gotten along just grand.

Por el amor eterno que no muere con el cuerpo. Una paloma triste que canta.