Tonight I walked.

I set out late tonight in search of stage time. Instead, I walked.

I walked around the West Village, the part you can get lost in. All the windy brick old streets, with the quiet pretty townhouses. I walked to the gay bar at the improbable corner of Eleventh and Fourth Streets, and it was jammed, far too jammed for a Monday, so I left. I walked and smelled the faint chocolate from the new location of Li-Lac. I walked past Bleecker, did a lap for good measure, a lap of indecision. I walked Eighth Avenue and continued on Hudson, past the little concrete park where I'd had some nice times with some nice friends. I saw a pet portrait gallery next to a baby beauty shop. Past the Sazerac House, where I'd improbably watched the World Series alone one year, remembering Randy Johnson on the Diamondbacks. Past the White Horse, nodding sagely, remembering its implications. Feeling lonely, a little, and remembering I had a notebook and a pen, with which loneliness is not possible. Sat at the bar at Cowgirl and hastily ordered catfish, writing a poem while it cooled. Talked to a friend on the phone about alcoholism while sipping a stiff Wild Turkey. No judgments, here. Drafted a script outline. Got the once-over from a hostile butch who drank half a glass of water, picked a fight with the bartender and left. Sketched out a character for a show host. Settled the tab as the eternal process of cleaning the empty bar seemed to finally wind down. Walked some more. Saw some fashionable gay boys picking on each other, loudly. Everyone seemed spirited, yet restrained, like they were scared it was spring, and only wanted to put one toe in the water of life in a new season. Places were closing, cabs were hailed, small groups laughed nervously outside the terrible dirty delis. A thin dark-haired woman sat in the window of a bar on a velvet chair. I let her read my tarot cards. She looked like Gilda Radner; she did not seem to know who Gilda Radner was. She spoke of agony and happiness and choices and positive, strong magical forces. The candles and the incense made me feel strange and good. Behind the red velvet curtain was a bar whose name I don't know; hookah smoke, or perhaps more incense, drifted past as people left. She was Egyptian but spoke with an English accent. I wrote down her name.