BREAKING THE CYCLE
When I first moved to New York nine years ago, I was all over this city. Lower Manhattan... Harlem... Chelsea and the Village... the East Side... the West Side... Times Square... I was even known to cross the East River on occasion.

I mention this not because it makes me unique, but because over the past year or so I've come to realize that I've been getting lazy. The city may never sleep, but I can't say the same for my sense of adventure. For the past few years, I have made myself a captive of Manhattan between 42nd Street and 96th Street; my rare forays south of Grand Central Terminal have usually been work-related.

Which is why I have particularly enjoyed mixing it up for the past couple of weeks.

Cabaret at The Duplex in the West Village. Friday Happy Hour not, for once, at Posh, but at XES in Chelsea. A party at the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookstore in celebration of the new ownership. An evening of community theater, followed by my first return trip to Brandy's Piano Bar in years. None of this exactly makes me a jet-setter, but it's a break in the home-work-Posh cycle in which I've trapped myself. And that's a good thing.

If this keeps up, I might actually end up in Queens one of these days. Although I can't imagine why...