In case you’re wondering who the beauty in the new photos on the website is, that’s my goddaughter Eve. No, Jews don’t have godchildren, but we’re not really related so I can’t be her aunt. She’s 5 months old, the daughter of very dear friends, and of course the most marvelous thing ever to not-yet-walk the earth. Except my actual nephews, who are equally wonderful and all much older (the youngest is 6, the oldest will be a father himself in a few weeks).

Leaving tomorrow for Japan, so in the middle of a bad case of pre-travel jitters. This is the point, before every trip, where excitement is overruled by anxiety and I wouldn’t mind a call from my traveling companion saying, “Let’s put this off six months.” Except this time my traveling companion is already in Japan – he lives there. He’s a friend of a friend. The guy in the middle, Our Mutual Friend, was supposed to go, and now isn’t going, leaving me and Seiichiro to decide what the hell, we’ve heard enough about each other and had made these plans already, let’s do it. Tokyo, Kyoto, Kanazawa, Matsumoto. 12 days. The anxiety will start to fade on the plane and end as soon as Seiichiro picks me up at the City Air Terminal, wherever that is. But right now I’m glad I’m going to the NY Liberty game tonight, because I need something to drain these jitters!

Incidentally, I’ve been having technical problems with this blog but I think they’re fixed, so youse can expect to hear more from me than you probably care to. I’ll try to do this from Japan – stay tuned.