Mood: Festive

Coltrane's "My Favorite Things" again. Somehow it's become a holidayish album that I always dig out those first few fall days that never feature the sun. All's I need now is a big fat cinnamon candle burning. There's that implication of a nip in the air which always gets me thinking "cinnamon candle." Alas alack and woe that I didn't nab one of the numerous cinnamon candles I held in my hot little hands on this afternoon's workless sojourn. Flat white skies all day, which day I spent profitably by exploring my part of Brooklyn's centers of commerce. Went down to the Atlantic Terminal and the Atlantic Center, which if you go through the former obligates you to walk through Target - ingenious! - to get to the latter. Although I had a mental list of sundries, my transit from street to shopping center wiped my mind clean, and it was all I could do to tour the cut-rate mall, with a Chuck E Cheese and a Burlington Coat Factory, which I haven't seen in 10+ years and never south of Buffalo, NY.

From there however I thought I'd strike along on foot toward was I thought was 4th Ave., hoping to swing up to 7th Ave. where I'd seen a record shop I hoped would take a few CDs I disdain and hope to unload. This decision led me astray to neighborhoods I still don't know the name of, being mapless even now - but it got me thinking about the usefulness of being lost. Whenever I move to a new place, I go on jogs hither and yon without really knowing where I'm going, which I've found to be the most useful way to figure out where things are and more generally to get a sense of the place, the area. And boy howdy did I get lost today. Wandered into some neighborhoods which were a-okay except for a few perplexed looks. At any rate, wandered home along 7th Ave. which I eventually did find, and found to my delight that the bars and cafes of Park Slope are a mere 10 blocks north of me. The whole walk, which lasted from 2 to about 6, stitched this borough together in my mind in a new and encouraging way. And it is mine to soon cook up some braised chicken w/ penne and salad, mmm yes please.