There’s no smell to New York here, and that’s a good thing – when you can smell New York you don’t want to – but there’s plenty of weather. I look back at Downtown and the clouds are low enough to cover the tops of most of the buildings there, and I start to wonder if this is a brilliant idea, and the wind is picking up off the East River too, blowing everyone around. But what the hell – if I get wet I get wet.

There’s noise here too – noise from the rush hour traffic below – the cab horns, the omni-present sirens, the trucks, the noise that is New York. And there’s noise above too – the weather is pushing the helicopters lower, closer to the plebs at ground level than usual. Plus there are weather choppers and traffic choppers reporting back to their stations – Americans are obsessed with knowing how long it will take to get somewhere, and what the weather will be like when they finally do. And I realise I’d forgotten how loud it is to live here – you tend to blot it out eventually, like those people who live near airports but no longer hear the planes.   Continue

I walk home with my head awash with images, and the air tastes sweet, like peaches. Up the stairs and I’m home, and he’s still on the lounge, watching that late night news discussion programme he likes, and he’s about to speak but I straddle him and stick my tongue down his throat and stop him. And then he moves to get the remote and put a CD on, but I don’t let him, and a politician drones on and on about healthcare reform or something as I grind up against him, and then his shirt is unbuttoned and his pants are down and I’m doing what I love to do. And later in bed he’s lying there asleep with his arm around me, his hand cupping my breast, until my leg starts to cramp and I undress myself of him and get up and go back to the lounge room. I light up and look at that big blank canvas in the corner because I can’t sleep. Sometimes insomnia just means more time to paint. 

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