18 minutes of fading light. swam to the subway this morning. the umbrella broke one of its wing joints and so i was one of those guys who held a strangely broken round object above his head. that train station on 7th ave and 57th street really has a cave like appearance. mineral water of the freshest kind drops from the ceiling onto tiny landing places all over the platform. how many coffees have i managed to pour into myself today. many too many. and they were not the short kind either. i should be holding on to the ceiling with one foot while writing this. i am in front of the open window. there are still the very last remnants of daylight over park slope. and it is almost 9pm. fantastic. i visited some temples tonight. walked past rockefeller centre to one of the department stores and let the wood panelled elevator bring me to the top ("notch") floor with all the tight and shiny and ridiculously expensive weird stuff. it is amusing to look at some of the things from time to time. weird things. very much so. for me at least. there must be many out there who love this kind of stuff. i dream of buying things once. the shoe department was amusing as well. such odd personalities. shoe people. buyers, sellers, foot fetishists. i left the building after having purchased nothing. and i mean it. right next door: st. marks cathedral. it does have a shop which i did not visit. i looked for the most quiet spot and just cooled down as far as i could. once the snow began to fall in my head i was ready to complete my shy round around the church. i ended up by the black madonna, the one which i had seen in original when visiting czenstochowa at the age of maybe 7. there was a good amount of tourists by the shrine. a woman was there to ask for some seemingly very serious favors or maybe close to impossible forgiveness? the painting stared patiently onto the burning candles. i wonder how many copies stare over burning candles all over the world... it was really good to visit the church. after that visit no store really made any sense. (I visited two more. buying nothing.) things appeared very weird. weirder than the shoe department at sacks even. yes, that's possible. i took the train home. the f. f is for hmm... "very" slow. and it was good. it made sense to just sit by what used to be a window and now looked as if some ghost had wiped its behind with it. the 7th avenue train station smelled like the rim of a truck exhaust. and indeed, an ambulance was idling right outside the exit. two friendly people were eating their sandwiches with the engine pumping diesel fumes into the train waiting chambers. no swimming was needed for the return home. my laundry was many pounds of stuff. that coffee just makes me feel incredibly disoriented. the thoughts in my head appear to be like bees mixed with flies mixed with pollen. I am afraid to even open my mouth right now. would even like to close my eyes and press both hands against my ears. daylight is gone. i have some work to do. for weeks now. oh dear. i have to sign some things. now.