New York, recollected in DayQuillity.

What the hell? You take a trip to New York City--a trip you're taking for the benefit of your place of employment, or else why would they be paying for it?--you overpack, you learn a bunch of new stuff, you go to sessions, you buy judicious amounts of useful books at the bookfair, you schlep your sorry self from JFK to midtown and back again, hauling your judicious amount of books plus the extra new shoes you bought in Soho or wherever, you eat yourself into bliss/a stupor several times, you improve yourself by seeing (a) art and (b) a play, and when you get home, you feel tired and sick. For crying out loud. I'm kind of bitter about it, if you want to know.

But actually, even this illness comes with a little Manhattan aura. The day we left, I got to see these paintings. I saw them first at the Tate Modern, and since I thought I'd never see them again, I sat there in that gallery and looked at them for as long as I could. But then, when Dr. Write and I walked down the stairs in the MoMa, there they were, big as life or even bigger.