New York is blissfully quiet, and the New Yorkers who stayed in town this wekend are not hurrying anywhere.

Traffic is almost non-existant.

I left home round about noon, and lunched at Ollie’s, a local Chinese restaurant.

After lunch I photostrolled my way through Central Park. I’m in the Village right now.

Spent the afternoon walking through parks, Central, Bryant, Madison Square & finally Union Square.

The last three are mere postage stamps compared to Central Park. My walk through Central Park was the equivalent of 21 blocks, and I only walked way less than half. The park begins at 110 Street & ends at 59th Street.

My guesstimate is it’s about 5 or 6 city blocks wide.

Toyed with the idea of seeing a movie, but none of the theatres seem to have anything that I would pay to see.

Sasha Baron Cohen’s Bruno will be opening in a few days, so hopefully I’ll be able to see it next Sunday.

The restaurant I’m in had some newspapers on the bar, so I borrowed one to browse at my table. I haven’t actually bought a paper in years; Yahoo and MSN keep me up to date.

This whole Michael Jackson thing is going places it shouldn’t. As I walked downtown today I passed people were selling MJ memorial t-shirts and posters. There’s a lottery going on for the memorial service, and his portrait by Andy Warhol is up on the auction block. Looks like there’s going to be a fight for the kids and the money that goes with them.

MJ was only a little over 2 years older than me when he left this plane of existence. I remember playing my ABC 45, watching the Jackson 5 cartoon show, when Michael went solo, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen Thriller.

I have quietly replayed MJ memories on my mind’s screen several times in the last few days. It is my hope that he is now in a place of painless peace.

Waving at you all from NYC