Wow, I can't believe I haven't written anything here for nearly two months! Well, yes I can believe it . . . time just slips by, doesn't it?

As it gets close to the end of the year, I sometimes find myself shocked to realize that I've been here that long. Many mornings as I ascend the steps from my apartment to the street, it still feels like I'm on a movie set: Cue the New York extras -- the lawyers and brokers with their briefcases schlepping to the subways, the students heading to St. Francis College with their computer backpacks, the nannies with their strollers, the moms and dads dropping off kids at St. Ann's School before grabbing a train to the office.

One key extra in my daily script is the doorman at the building across the street. I've never met him, but a few months ago, he started waving to me as I left the apartment every morning. It's a simple smile-and-nod relationship, but it makes me feel secure, like he's going to make sure nothing bad happens while I'm gone.

As I walk through Brooklyn Heights to Dumbo, where my office is, I sometimes find myself saying, "Holy crap, I'm living in Brooklyn! How did this happen?"

As with life anywhere, much of my life here is routine: Work, groceries, laundry, movies. But I find that I deal with certain chores very differently here than I would have in Seattle.

Take laundry, for example. Here, I go to a laundromat, whereas in Seattle I had a washer and dryer in my house. So I have to set aside an evening to do laundry. Because it's more of a project than it used to be, I find that I can go a lot longer between trips to the laundromat than I ever would have imagined. But I try to go on certain nights that I know are not busy. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are usually good. Friday night is what I call Loser Night -- only people without plans end up doing the wash on Friday -- but this is an occasion when it's great to be a loser because you're guaranteed to get washers and dryers when you want them.

I fill up my wheeled cart, a gift from Sophie, and roll it to the Expressway Laundromat on Atlantic Avenue, which is about three blocks from my house. I rarely do laundry on weekends because the laundromat is waaaaay too crowded, and the patrons way too cranky and competitive, on Saturdays and Sundays. And I still have not succumbed to the temptation to drop off my laundry - maybe next year. That's partly because I've watched the Chinese women who run Expressway work their butts off doing other people's laundry and don't want to burden them. Such a chick reaction, I know - but whaddaya gonna do?

I often combine my laundry chores with grocery shopping at Trader Joe's, which is an avenue and a half from the laundromat. I dash down there while my clothes are in the washer, pick up a few things, and dash back. This TJ's, by the way, is in an old bank building that is very grand and elegant. Oddly, even here, the clerks have that same friendly-happy-helpful quality that they have in Seattle. Wish it was something they could bottle and feed to the you're-standing-in-front-of-me-but-I'm-pretending-I-don't-see-you clerks at the Key Market down the street.

On another topic, Ian's back in town, and last weekend we had a nice little adventure. Ian said he felt like he'd spent a weekend in some European city -- and I agree. We went uptown to see a David Hockney exhibit and ended up strolling along Madison Avenue and in and out of a couple of shops: the Gagosian Gallery's retail store, where you can buy $100,000 gifts for all your friends, and Fred Leighton, a jewelry store that sells mostly vintage pieces from the last several centuries. Even though we were in our rain gear and didn't look like money, the guy there welcomed us in and took out several pieces for us to look at. The loveliest was a pair of gold pins in the shape of hands - $40K, but who's counting?

After our nonshopping spree and lunch at Viande, a New York style deli that specializes in turkey, we finally made it to the Hockney at Pace Wildenstein on 57th- new landscape pieces that I found so-so. Then downtown to Chelsea, where we were planning to see the second part of the Hockney show but got sidetracked by the Richard Serra exhibit at the Gagosian. I love Serra, and these two pieces were particularly great because, as you walk into them, they somehow seem to be lots bigger than they look from the outside. From above (as you can see if you look at the images on the gallery's web site), they look like giant eyes.

From there, we headed to a great little store called Printed Matter that sells mostly small-press and art books, posters, and the like - many small editions produced by artists, well known and unknown. Then on the Angelika to see the Argentine movie The Maid - a really wonderful family story that I've been thinking about ever since I saw it. When it comes to Seattle, you should definitely see it.

An amazing day in New York - not least because Ian is so much fun to spend time with.

Eleven months in and more to come. I've just signed my lease for 2010 . . .