I get to make dumb Beatles allusions this time of year because I share my birthday with John Lennon, and while I’m not a big Beatles’ fan, I confess there was a time where the eternal piano notes of “Imagine” soundtracked every lonely cigarette drag and disappointed stare into the distance. Besides, I love it here, and John Lennon in that “New York City” t-shirt is as big a religious icon as I’ve personally got.

So, yeah, today IS my birthday– I made full confession on my Facebook page– and I love New York and am so glad to be back (despite the mess) that I took a break from the clean-up and went walking. The autumn sky was once a year autumn blue today, so crisp and deep against the hard lines of New York. The upper stories are still drenched in end-of-year sun, so gold that the cold stone several stories up glows warm, inviting, as if it would yield gently to the touch, for a few passing moments, anyway.

Like I said, its so poignantly beautiful today that I aimed for an unfettered walk uptown to MOMA and the Park, an escape to the century old concerns of my Cubist heroes and the magic palette of the most recent fallen leaves against still-green grass–
God, I love NewYork, and despite my recent dalliances, I always will.

I love New York even though today she guided my carefree wander subversively back to the blocks I walked that day in the snow back in March when all this shit started. Always subtle and karmically exacting, the city today subconsciously enabled me in retracing the route that led me eventually to the other end of the country and back in six months time.

I suppose I should be grateful for the encouragement, but I was just trying to enjoy myself for an afternoon in the company of the familiar and unwavering. You could back off a little when it comes to one of your most ardent fans, yeah?

Seeing it typed out like that, the answer to that one is obvious, and so I’m back at the desk on my birthday Saturday night, sorting out a little bit more. That’s instead of finding a new cure for loneliness over a perfect pint glinting with last sunlight of the day, which had been this year’s answer to the age old birthday question, “What do you want to do today?”

I’m telling the next part of the story, now, okay? But I’m not fucking publishing it until tomorrow.

So I didn’t make it back to the city for New Year’s Eve.

Not for Fin, not for Chef, not for no one.

Last Sunday, I joined in the Pittsburgh-wide post Christmas ritual of watching the Steelers game. Fortunately they won, which makes for much cheerier holiday conversation with the locals you don’t know as well. Cases of Lite beer and a big pot of chili at the house, so thank God I took the time to make a beet/carrot/romaine salad with goat cheese and cashews, because my insides were done with the ever meat-centric Pittsburgh meal planning.

Even so, on Monday, watching the snow flurries out the window of my sister’s house, I was getting ready to pull out my laptop and start getting back to it when my head started to twinge in that more-than-a-hangover way. I figured a cozy pre-emptive nap was in order to make sure I would be heading back on time, but by Tuesday morning I was so stuffed-up miserable I knew New Year’s Eve at Fin wasn’t happening, at least not with me ready to play.

I knew Sis and her husband were wanting a night out without the kids, so since I was already curled up mostly useless in a blanket reading the twins stories to keep myself from stewing about work, I offered to stay into the weekend so they could get out and rage.

I mean, if you’re already going to babysit on New Year’s Eve, and you know you’re not going to be in top form, what the difference between an aging rock and roll foodie and a pair of four year old boys?

An easy choice for me, because the inevitable tantrums wouldn’t be fueled by Jim Beam.

So now I’m back and going to watch my Jets try and make the playoffs tonight with a friend, some delivered sushi and a bottle of old vine red zin I’ve been saving from last year’s trip to Paso Robles.

Now that’s more like it.

I’ve been trying every night to write again here since getting out of the city (just ahead of the snow) back home to Pittsburgh, but its been good to unwind and watch the snow fall from my sister’s kitchen window with nowhere else I have to be.

We grew up a few blocks from here, so even though Mom & Dad sold the house, it’s exactly like coming “home”– her guest room even reminds me of my old room, both on the third floor under a sloping Victorian roof with a maple tree outside the arched window.

Winter solstice sledding at Mellon Park

Pittsburgh still always feels so comfortable to me when I’m here after New York, especially after my last night at Fin. I always like it when a nice enough client ruins a brilliant evening with a drunken shouting match.

Given that I’m a PR professional, shouting someone down in a nice restaurant usually means the undoing of some of my hard work.

Maybe because it’s his own restaurant, the guy who writes the checks felt like he could antagonize his signature chef in front of a full Thursday night dining room. Chef (the one I’ve been hired to help) had to one up him with the help of five tequila martinis during, and a triple shot of espresso after, dinner- it was like Kurt Cobain trashing a drum set and getting carried offstage.

Anyway I’m taking advantage of the lack of drama here to catch up not just with my sister and her family, but my reading and reflection, too. The last few weeks were the first few weeks of the Fin account, and I’m all out of sorts on my year end routine.

In fact I’m going to bed right now, so even though I’ve got a lot to share here on what’s going to be happening in 2010 and what you need to be doing with your business to get with it, I want at the least to wish you all a Happy Holiday and a positively brilliant New Year – more soon!

My sister's Christmas tree