I walked today, and I ran some, too. I wanted to walk from here to Rockefeller Center but I didn't think I had the time. So I ran.

It's about a mile to the bridge, about a mile and a half to cross the bridge, and a mile and a half or two miles from the bridge to my 181 at Rockefeller Center.

It's all about the 181.

Ah, so I went looking for the bar on 7th Avenue, the bar I thought was named the Slaughtered Lamb. It was never called the Slaughtered Lamb (that's a recent-college-graduates bar on 4th Streret). I don't remember what it used to be called but now it's called The Irish Bar. Occasionally I have overwhelming desires to be at that place, but those desires vanish as quickly as they rise.

I used to go to that place when I worked in midtown. I don't know if that helps explain the fetishistic compulsions.

Whatever the explanation (I am sure it is a deep, profoundlypsychological explanation that explores the numbed muscles of my unconscious) I wanted to be there today to watch the Yankees/Rays game. No luck. They had soccer on every screen. Football, rather. Fütball.

The place looked different from how I remember. Cleaner. It smelled like a hotel lobby.

Jimmy's Corner On 44th Street is likely the only place of its kind in midtown. Genuine. Earthy. The Wakamba Lounge is another favorite. Of mine.

I went to Patelson Music Store and purchased blank music paper. 64 double-sided pages of blank orchestra score. This month I reached the end of some blank paper books I've been writing into since high school. Today's masterworks intermingle with adolescent yawps.

I recently found myself writing comments (comments like this) into a book that had stuff I'd written when I was 13 or 14.

Someday all my books will be filled. All the blank books I bought at the mall in grade school will retire, exhausted and weathered from the vigorous lifetime.

I remember stocking up on those blank books. I bought them with righteous, expectant goals of starting a story on page one and finishing on the last page. Perfect fit. Then, the sequel. Pick up the next book, fill it to perfection, move on.

Piles of books, empty, would be filled (to my perfection). Or my heavings. Turgid ramblings. Piles of turgidity.

Speaking of which, I am in a place that is loud. Too loud for me to think straight, crooked, or upways. Disjointed thoughts.

When noise mistracts me I remember, with some regret, making fun of a substitute bus driver in grade school. He begged us to be quiet, saying that he was having trouble seeing the road. I loudly asked, how hard can it be to see through all that noise? There was hearty laughter all around from the other kids in my class who thought me hie-larious. Eventually I would learn that noise really can obscure one's vision, via the volume-hammered inability to concentrate or focus.

I got recognized last night. RECK-A-NIZED. It is unfair to suddenly be with someone who thinks they know a lot about me while I (suddenly) know nothing about them. (Suddenly) we are best friends. I am starting to resent all the invisible people in my life.

I need a haircut.