“

We walked in and out of half a dozen restaurants. I told him any place he selected was fine with me, for I knew if I ruled out anything, that would be the one cuisine Scott just had to eat, and if I made a suggestion, Scott would find something wrong with the restaurant. We ended up at a decent, inexpensive Mexican place on Eighth Avenue and 18th Street.

“

The Knitting Factory is a pleasant coffee house/performance space above an Argentine restaurant on Houston, and Josh was wrong when he said everyone would be wearing black. I had my Soho Soda, Josh his white wine, and Pete, in his usual performance suit, came out at 9 PM. His routines about his vain, selfish, unsupportive and greedy mother were funny and kind of poignant.

“

At dinner at the Grand Canyon, Dad asked me why I was staring at him. “You’re grayer,” I said, not telling him that he reminded me a little of Dustin Hoffman in Death of a Salesman. “I got old,” Dad said. “At my next birthday – I can hardly believe it – I’ll be 69 years old.” Dad remarked that the block we were on had been his territory when he worked for that private investigating firm while he was still in high school.

“

After class, a Haitian girl asked me to look at her poetry, and then a black girl came in and started crying and explained that her uncle, whom she lives with, had locked her in the house for days because he flew into a rage when she asked him for money for books. “It’ll be all right,” I said, as I gingerly touched her shoulder.

“

I was surprised when Ronna said she always felt a strong sexual attraction to me, “even when I was madly in love with Jordan.” Just as I once hoped Ronna would marry Jordan so she’d be “safe,” she told me she had hoped Sean and I would move in together. I told her I thought we could adjust to being just friends.

“

I lingered on the Columbia campus for a while, scribbling in my notebook on the steps of Low Library before going over to Hungry Mac’s to have dinner.

“

When I got home, I found that Josh wasn’t the only one to sell a story today. I got my ninth acceptance. The letter from Stephen Morse of Juice, published in Oakland, said: “Richard – You write well: good, clean, interesting work.”

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Give me a 4-bedroom, 1-bathroom apartment so far uptown that it isn’t even considered Manhattan.