At first it felt like I was camping in the wilderness.  Besides my bed, I really had no furniture, just empty space.  I had no microwave; everything had to be heated up by fire on the stove or in the oven.  I had no plates.  I had no cable or internet.  I had my books, and that seemed like enough, but eventually I did get internet.

I hunted down every noise. The radiator was the loudest; it clanked and banged all through the night.  At first it was annoying, then it became comforting. There were encounters with various creatures: earwigs, centipedes, most recently a mouse, or mice. I caught that mouse in a trap this afternoon and took it down to the dumpster and prayed that that was it.  Then I walked a few blocks down to Grand Army Plaza and into Prospect Park just as the sun was setting.  I sat on a bench by a big meadow and listened to Otis Redding on my iPod for 20 minutes.  I left as it got really dark, walked back out that tunnel that reminded me of the last scene in Cloverfield, and came upon the street to behold this:

I stared at it for a moment and snapped it in my Blackberry to remember that I do love Brooklyn and I love New York and I love living here and all the things that seem bad are actually making me good and strong and wise.