Gary and Diana and Justin

Dagnabit! (Is that how you spell dagnabit, you think?) I didn’t see that Justin was looking down!

Oh well. Dagnabit. I’m watching my language in case Justin is reading this. HI JUSTIN!! He beat me at Operation. That’s a hard game. Was it always so hard??

My friends Gary and Diana (pictured) had me over for brunch today. Thank you!! They live in Hoboken. My new favorite city. LOVED Hoboken. It felt a little bit like the Village where I live, a little bit like Brooklyn, and New Orleans and also a little European at moments. It just had a good feel the minute I stepped out of the train station. Brooklyn is like that. The minute I get there I feel good.

Bizarrely, even though I spent a couple of years researching a murder there, I want to live on State Street in Brooklyn. Once again, I just loved the feel. Whenever I was there I felt good. Here’s what I wrote about State Street in my book:

“Every year, for the past ten years, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden has held a contest for the Greenest Block in Brooklyn. The block where Jean Sanseverino was murdered won first place in both 1998 and 1999, prompting the contest organizers to make the rule that no block can win two years in a row. ‘From a horticultural and aesthetic perspective, that block is one of the most beautiful blocks in New York, not just Brooklyn,’ says Ellen Kirby, from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. One block west, purple and blue hydrangeas grow in front of suspect Bill Miller’s place. One block east, the building where suspect Joe Moore had a room is listed in the National Registry of Historic Places. To rent a studio apartment anywhere on this stretch of State Street would run you $1,000 a month now. But State Street was likely always lovely, even in the worst times. The neighborhood looks elegant in the crime scene photographs taken outside Jean’s building. A Native American reminiscing about State Street, which used to have a large Mohawk population, called it the most beautiful place in the world. There is something almost magical about the block where Jean once lived.”