Yesterday I had a quintessential NYC moment. I was riding the subway to Central Park to walk off brunch - five of my grad school friends met at a super swanky SoHo brunch spot (which made NY Mag's Top 101 Restaurant list and which a certain Brokeback cowboy tends to frequent - alas, he wasn't dining that day). The train pulled up to a platform, just as wild pre-teen screaming broke out. I looked out the window to see a gaggle of prepubescent girls running down the platform - and then I glanced out the doorway, just in time to see an enormous rat bounding down the pavement in front of them. I'm talking bounding like my old Peek-a-Poo, Shadow, used to do. Bambi-like bounding. I swear it was the size of a small cat. Anyway, it made me laugh. Especially cause these girls were screaming bloody murder, yet running after the rodent instead of in the other direction...

After finishing up my flavored condom research last week, I moved on to something even more exciting - interviewing a NASA astronaut. How sweet is my job?

Other highlights of recent days:

Catching the new Oprah-produced Broadway musical "The Color Purple" with a hometown buddy, who was in town because he was the assistant lighting designer (!) for an opera at Jazz at Lincoln Center. The show was fantastic (the musical, I mean - I didn't get to see the opera). I'd place bets on the fact that you'll be seeing the song "Push Da Button" during the Tony Awards...

Speaking of Tonys, I caught Ms. Toni's dance performance Friday, which rocked, and then we went out afterwards and had a balls-out dance party at Trash, after which we somehow got roped into helping a band (which I didn't even see play) haul their shit home. I'm not entirely sure, but I may have at one point had three guitars strapped on my back. Which is likely why my left shoulder is all sorts of fucked up right now. It was totally worth it, though, for the sole reason of witnessing one super wasted girl fall over literally four times - On the sidewalk. At the bar. Off the couch... It was amazing, really.

Checked out Moby's cafe - TeaNY - with my roommate-to-be and the girl whose bed I'm going to be sleeping in for six months (odd). Who knew there were 300+ teas out there? Why have Earl Grey when you can have Coconut?

Got to pick through several months' worth of preview book copies, accumulated by my mag's literature dept., and keep whatever looked interesting. I greedily hoarded about a dozen in my arms - hey, if they're not going to give me a paycheck, I'll happily take my compensation in books - until someone dropped the bomb: whatever we didn't take goes to the city's library for AIDS patients. Well, crap. Nothing like that news to make you feel like a selfish asshole. Is it fair to assume that people who may or may not live to see tomorrrow wouldn't bother wasting time on Nichole Richie's "novel"? That's what I'm gonna tell myself, anyway, because I knicked that one for myself. I've got plenty of commuting minutes to while away with mindless diversion. The inside photo spread alone was good for at least two hours of ridicule and amusement. Of course "Chloe" and Nichole aren't the same person. Or "Simone" and Paris - this is fiction people. Brilliant, empassioned fiction, born out of one indeliably creative mind...

One thing that sticks out here as you walk the streets is the extremely unequal distribution of wealth. I hit the Upper East Side after Central Park, and it reeks of consumerism. Nearly everyone on the street is carrying a shopping bag of some sort. I briefly stopped in a Best Buy that must turn over its entire inventory every other day. And then there are the batty old ladies wearing their ankle-length mink coats out for their Sunday stroll... Good lord, save it for the Opera House. What does one do on a "special occasion" once mink becomes everyday wear? Me and my Target sweatpants will never understand.