Thursday, 12 August 2004 | Harlem globe

I've been making some (still unrevealed) changes around here and it's completely eaten into the time in which I would normally write (or pay bills, clean my apartment, cook a proper meal, or sleep).

I'd suspect that I was semi-turning into a machine, if it weren't for the fact that every single muscle in my body aches (as a result of returning to yoga after an 11-month absence). Or that at one point today, when I was riding through Harlem in a breezy cab literally stuffed with basketball players, I was so in the moment that I dug my fingernails into my palm and sunk into the surroundings—the R&B music gliding through the back seat speakers; the warmth of the person sitting next to me; the wind pouring over the child-safe window; the wide, busy streets of another majority—and thought, You're going to remember this. I don't know, though, whether it was a statement or a command.