yesterday was a long, directionless, wander, like the days of yore. some months ago i registered WanderLIC.com, for to stuff my billions of pictures from these years of wandering around Long island City and Astoria. i intended to set that site up last night but instead i engaged in a lengthy sexual encounter followed by late-night beers at the bar accompanied by conversations about bowel movements. good times. i did not do WanderLIC.com today because i had a need to get out again, this time walking to and from the Upper East Side, but feeling uninspired by the jaunt. the sun felt good. i haven’t looked at today’s photos, though. maybe they are all golden, every last one of them radiating with immortal love and adoration from distant generations.

the wanderLICs are getting less and less interesting to me. tall, ugly buildings are stomping out smaller structures, and rendering some areas unrecognizable. a strange plan to revitalize queens plaza seems to have been embarked with little interest from this apathetic voting populace. only now that the plan is nearing completion are some folks saying wait, what? what what? i appreciate the safer crosswalks, though i ignored them at first, assuming they were to be reserved exclusively for bikes. it would not have surprised me if the city turned the whole plaza area into a velodrome. the areas by Gantry Park and surrounding environs have been mostly stomped out, with ugly buildings rising up like mushrooms to form an instant city of sparsely populated residences. rumors attend that the buildings went up so fast that they largely failed ot meet standards, but rumors are just rumors. it is jarring to stand in the old town, 2- and 3-story houses just blocks away from these vulgar behemoths rising 60 stories. i am not inspired by the future of the area.

i spotted my first new Telephone Exchange Name sightings in months on Saturday and Sunday. JAmaica and DAvenport. whoot

the bicyclists racing down the queensboro bridge scare the crap out of me. they always have, for years now, but as the biking fad has taken off it becomes too hazardous to go certain places. i’m sorry, but it is true. it is illegal to race down the ramps, you are supposed to get off the bike and walk it down, but the bits of signage which announce this rule are probably the most universally ignored bits of signage anywhere in this town. i will probably never again visit that west side riverside park at the west end of 79th street. there are just too many bikes noodling around among us lowly pedestrians, barking obscenities and ordering us to get the fuck out of the way.
i do not look forward to getting old in this town, but i guess the biking movement isn’t saving the planet for old people. they’re doing it for the children.

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i go piano shopping tomorrow. i meant to do that today but it got too late. i may purchase an avantgrand, by yamaha. gotta try it, though. allegedly it has the same action as a “real” grand, at a fraction of the cost. i am somewhat skeptical, but as one who believes that the future of virtually everything is digital i find that at this stage of evolutionary meanderings i have to compromise on quality where pianos are involved. digital pianos have evolved at a glacial pace compared to other digital products, but i think this is based largely on significantly less demand for pianos versus something like digital cameras, and no small amount of snobbery among potential buyers. i think the future of everything is digital. everything from pianos to human consciousness will be digitized.

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standing behind a short cement wall that separates the FDR from the cement park along the East River, i felt like i was in a maelstrom. traffic. cars. relentless movement. to-ing and fro-ing. to and fro. my mother and i used to joke about asking someone: “are you to-ing, or fro-ing? are you going to, or fro?”