Spend nearly a month in Manhattan and you can expect some sort of shift in your life's plan, especially if the plan is sketchy to begin with. After saying hey to Ann and Gary, planting the trailer under the 9W overpass and installing the cats in the spare bedroom at 39 Tompkins Street, I rumbled down to the Poughkeepsie Metro North station and caught a train for the most intriguing human confluence since ancient Alexandria, here I refer to the incomparable New York City.

Each night I spread my sleeping bag next to Swami Bua and every morning (after practice) I walked the two blocks to the Arts Students League. Morning and afternoon sessions drawing radiant living flesh made all the more mysterious by the lack of any obscuring garments. Models 5 days a week, with instructors showing up on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I must admit I was a bit apprehensive about instruction as I am a fellow who more often than not is obliged to carve his own paddle, as they say. Also I recognized the possibility that painting with my laptop instead of a hunk of burnt willow might piss someone off. Well, because the universe has arranged a very pretty alignment of the various heavenly spheres, things went quite smoothly. My instructors turned out to be very capable guides and my fellow students politely curious.

My primary realization at the ASL was that I could really benefit from seeing the human form with the same intensity I dedicate to moving it, specifically at Swami's two blocks away. What would it be like (I wondered) to frequent this neighborhood daily for a year or so? In spite of the robust economic recovery, sales at the art shows have been sort of sluggish and might need three to six more months to perk up, so in the meantime wouldn't it be swell to set up and sortie out of the dream city?

The main challenge with camping in or near NYC is finding a cozy cave in the urban canyons, a soul enlivening nitch where one might nest and farm a few cats. If a lovely space manifested, I would know it was time to return. I unfurled prayer flags and extended antenna in anticipation of some subtle magic.

In the course of finding friends and doing my various metropolitan rituals, I went to visit my resin and polymer artist pal, Fabrice. The third floor of his little building just happened to be available... I didn't need to examine the entrails of a chicken to know what to do. A short list of why this apartment doesn't suck: 1) there's a huge volunteer food coop just blocks away, so hippy rations are readily available 2) it's a 15 minute ride on the Q train to 57th Street and my primary attractors - the Art Students League and the Indo American Yoga Vedanta Society, 3) I've got a trustworthy neighbor on the floor below whose native tongue I almost speak, 4) the landlord is sane and even friendly, 5) the rent's affordable, 6) it's in a thriving neighborhood, 7) it's got big opposing windows for cross ventilation, 8) there's a bathtub (essential), 9) the very managable alternate side of the street parking let's me see my ride from the front window, and 10) I enjoy an uncannily hitchcockian "Rear Window" view that just begs for a timelapse treatment.

Wandering hither and yon, I am making it up as I go along. It seems appropriate that "Neptune the Mystic" is playing iPod-wise. I am a mystery even to myself. Perhaps this is why I am the ultimate answer to those who try to enslave and subjugate, for one never knows what divine nonsense a Dan Kelly is about to pull.

In the next few days I'll pop up to Kingston to finish my ingenious postcard selling machine and drop off the cats, then I jet to Michigan to check on the death ray deflecting copper roof which Roger is installing on the Artist house. It's an interim measure to be sure, offering protection until I yank out the plug, pour sand into the gears, jam the septic pipes and bulk erase all the instruction tapes at the black iron prison. For those of you in the vicinity of Beulah on Saturday January 10, come to a naked potluck I'll be hosting. Bring fuel - for humans I recommend organic, vegetarian, mind expanding and love enriched foods/medicines and for the woodstove seasoned hardwoods no longer than a half a meter. This is your window to touch and be touched as the following Monday I'll be breaking the sound barrier once again to resume the Florida tour. Happy New Year and love times three.