My eldest nephew, Jon, is just shy of four years my junior. His wife, Cisca, gave birth yesterday to their first child, Phillip. This is my nephew we're talking about here. This is the little kid who I used to play with in the dirt. The little boy who's now suddenly all grown up and is a father himself. Does that make me a great-uncle? The realization hasn't yet fully registered. This is all so surreal. So surreal. And great material for my midlife crisis.

Congratulations, Cisca and Jon! And welcome, little Phillip!

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I am salty. An image immediately comes to mind as I run my hands over my skin, feeling the salt encrust my arms, my legs, the nape of my neck. The image is of Martha Stewart's salt baked red snapper, the top layer of salt browned from forty-five minutes sitting in a 450 degree oven. Gently break away the crust. Separate, and serve.

I spent the day with Victor and Chris today, biking twenty-something-odd miles downtown, across the Brooklyn Bridge and back over the Manhattan Bridge. The bridges swarmed with ten thousand tourists, each taking ten thousand photos of frozen smiles, the sun beating mercilessly down on them as the cameras clicked away. Smile, Aunt Maude. They'll love this shot. Back at the apartment, all I can think of is Martha and her red snapper. I think I'll take a shower.

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Greg left this evening with his parents for two days in Reykjavik en route to a wedding in Berlin, where they will spend a little over a week. They will drive and drive and drive from Frankfurt to Berlin, touring the German landscape. Greg is sure to show them everything he remembers from his time there, including stuff from our trip last year.

We spent last weekend in Vermont with Greg's cousins and parents, who had flown in from Texas. He's only been gone a couple hours, and already I miss him so. I'll even consider forgiving him for upping my two-point leaner with a three-point ringer Saturday evening as we pitched horsehoes under the light of the rising summer moon.

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At 7:05 yesterday evening, the Cayah Michele backed away from the docks, heading down to the southern tip of Manhattan on a three-and-a-half-hour round-trip journey around the city. Suddenly she stopped. One hundred of my colleagues and I pitched forward, drinks in hand, the music still roaring raucously above deck. Had we already drunk too much? We had only been at the bar for an hour; certainly we were not that tipsy. The crowd broke out into a cheer. Hurrah! It was then someone noticed the yacht had backed into one of the pilings, cracking it impressively down the middle. What a way to start our department outing. The rest of the evening went smoothly enough, the deliciously intoxicated crowd dancing madly as we passed the Statue of Liberty.

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Seven-fifteen this morning and a million passengers are staring at the letters clicking happily away on the board at Penn Station. Click, click, click, clickety, click. They rest soon enough. Cancelled, they say in unison, beaming down proudly at the audience below. The Acelas are cancelled. The passengers look confused. What do you mean they're cancelled? I have to get to Boston, to Washington, to anywhere but here. My colleagues and I look at each other. Our 7:30 has also been cancelled. So we sneak on to the 8:05 train, battling the mad rush for seats, and the train begins its sluggish trek to Wilmington, straining under the weight of angry passengers. Nine o'clock tonight, back in New York, the story hasn't changed much. Cancelled, delayed, overbooked. I feel lucky to be home.

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My flight from South Bend today left at 6:45 am, and I arrived into Chicago's O'Hare with a couple hours to spare on the layover back to New York. As boarding time came, the lady at the counter asked for volunteers to give up their seats on the severely overbooked leg, and in return she offered a free return ticket to anywhere the airline flew. Sure, I agreed, and I booked myself on the 6:45 pm flight back home.

Now what was I to do to do with my newfound time in Chicago? I bought a few minutes of internet time at one of those airport data hubs and browsed the web for Columbia FunMaps, where I found the Chicago guide. I printed the map and headed to the subway; I had decided upon a couple hours of sightseeing in the city's flourishing gay district.

It was noon by the time the bus arrived at the corner of Belmont and Halsted, and I was hungry. I glanced at the map and headed to its sole restaurant advertiser, Buddies', where I settled comfortably into a corner table and was offered the brunch menu. I had noticed out of the corner of my eye a man at the opposite end of the room watch me as I took my seat, but I thought nothing of it as I pulled out my printed map and began to pore over its contents.

"Excuse me, I couldn't help but notice, that's a FunMap you're reading, isn't it?" I looked up, startled.

"Uh, yep," I replied. The man who was sitting across the room from me was standing there at my table, smiling.

"Did you print it off the web?"

"Yep, not more than an hour or so ago."

"That's fantastic. You don't know how happy that makes me. I'm the publisher."

Alan introduced himself and I offered him a seat at my table. He was curious to find out how I had ended up at the particular restaurant and why I had used the internet to get the map. We chatted for quite a while as I shovelled forkfuls of food into my mouth, him growing more and more animated as I became apparent as one of his Success Stories. He made me relate my story to the waiter, who seemed impressed, and for which I was presented a free cup of coffee. "You have to let the advertisers know it's working," Alan said, grinning.

After brunch, I walked along Halsted Street, Chicago's preeminent gay district. The entire six-block area was closed to traffic for Market Days, and vendors hawked their wares off the street, music blaring from the live bands every few blocks. There certainly was a lot of eye candy walking about, and the few hilarious costumes brightened even more the already sun-drenched street. I walked about for a few hours, sampling the various wares and ogling the occasional scantily-clad person prancing about, before heading back to O'Hare.

Thanks, Alan, for the tips on what to see and the interesting tidbits about FunMaps.

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Greetings from South Bend, Indiana, where my nephew Chris is graduating today with his Master's from Notre Dame. It's a wide and beautiful campus, and one can hardly go anywhere without bumping into a football icon or religious reference. We enviously eye the occasional golf cart speeding through the grounds, our tired and aching feet begging us to stop torturing them through the obligatory tourist traps and photo moments. All in the name of education.

Congrats, Chris!

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Last Friday, as I sat sipping coffee in San Francisco's Castro, a strikingly handsome man came up and started chatting. To me. He was a personal trainer and certified massage therapist from Nebraska, and thought I was cute. Me! We chatted for a quite while, talking about this and that, and at the end of our conversation, he wanted to know if I was free for dinner. Wow, I thought. This is strange. This is the first time someone has ever tried to pick me up. I politely declined the invitation both to dinner and his phone number, feeling all hot, flustered and out of sorts. I called Greg as soon as I got back. "Can you believe it? Someone tried to pick me up! This never happens in New York. Maybe we should move out here." Greg and I laughed as I told him the details, my ego all puffed up and my head terribly swollen. This never happens to me in New York. Never.

Well, today it happened again. And this time in New York. As I waited for the bus to take me home from work today, Pedro came up to me and gave me a piece of paper with his name and phone number on it. "Call me later," he said. "Call me tonight." He turned around to walk off and as I studied the piece of paper dumbfounded, he turned back to me and asked me my name. Call me, he mouthed, and he was off.

Guess I don't need to move to San Francisco after all. West Coast: one point, East Coast: one point.

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I was running late for work yesterday morning, so I hopped a cab to save a few minutes. It was one of those nice taxicabs, one with lots of headroom and very comfortably spacious, and with the air conditioning set to that perfect temperature to combat the oppressive heat of a summer day in the city. The driver was an older gentleman, his graying hair neatly groomed, his shirt freshly pressed, and his polished spectacles delicately framing the austere expression he wore on his face. The radio was set to the Classical station, and music played softly in the background. I felt embarrassed at my frenzied haste and wondered in envious awe at this man. He was certainly not the typical New York taxi driver, I thought. Here he was, this man with one of the most stressful jobs in New York, and he seemed so calm and collected. I scolded myself for being so harried and took a deep breath as I tried to soothe my frayed nerves. Let's just sit back and enjoy the ride, shall we? The taxi cruised smoothly down Broadway, through the early morning traffic, and headed over to the East Side. Everywhere around me, the city went by at its frenetic pace, but I felt safe and calm in my little sanctuary, protected by Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries and the perfectly controlled soothing ambiance.

At Madison Avenue, the driver crept slowly into the zebra crossing to make a right turn. A young man, looking uncomfortable in a suit and apparently in a rush waited for the car to make its turn, and as it passed by, he rapped angrily on its side. That seemed to not be a good idea. The driver slammed on the brakes, sending my bag sliding off the seat. I flew forward. The driver flung his door open and his threw himself out of the car, swearing and screaming, and waving his fist in the air. I had not heard such creatively colourful profanity in quite some time. What was this? What had happened to my docile and seemingly at-peace mentor? I was startled for a minute, and the poor pedestrian looked absolutely terrified as he walked away clutching his briefcase. The driver then got back into his seat, calmly patted his hair back into place and continued driving as though nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.

So much for my sanctuary. New Yorkers are just so cool.

Last night was also one of those nights. Two nights of absolute debauchery in one workweek? Delvis and I got ourselves deep into trouble. 'Nuff said about that.

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