This post brought to you by 'Winter Song'

Sometimes I imagine New York City from a birds-eye perspective, and pinpoint the tiny dot that represents myself, there, almost at the very top of the island. With all of the thousands of dots milling around me that represent everyone else. And then I see all of the dots that represent those people who mean something to me, and where they might fall on the map at that particular moment, amidst all of the vibrating stranger-dots.

Right now, almost all of those friend-dots are gone. Vacated the island for the holidays. All of my go-to phone numbers for when I want to see a friendly face are not currently available. I am still here, just me and my City. And these absences make my interaction with Manhattan feel unaccountably different, even though this day may have progressed exactly the same even if all my friend-dots ran along their usual tracks on the map. But today feels not unlike one of those days in Latin America, alone in a foreign city, divvying up my day according to only my own needs and desires. Except that I'm in the city I know best in the world. But isn't that the thing about New York? You never really know it?

I will actually be going home this year, unlike the last two years spent respectively in a retail-bound New York City, and then the far more relaxed Caribbean waters of Panama.

I am really looking forward to seeing Pittsford again. Upstate New York is so beautiful, and though I would much prefer to be there in warm weather, I can't wait to take a long winter walk in the country. I loathe winter, though every day I do my best to find reasons to like it, and a country winter walk is the best thing about it I can think of. Silence, peace, stillness, and snow crunching underfoot.

I also anticipate some forced-relaxation at home, as even a day off here in NY compels me to run errands, and yes, even frequently do some work. Speaking of which...