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After I go to the gym I will be curling up with him on the couch today, getting caught up on my TV watching. I am on vacation until May 1st and plan to do nothing much beyond reading and catching up on all shows I’ve recorded. No thinking.

I saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall with Jonathan yesterday. It was incredibly sweet. And Jonathan pointed out that the star of the movie, Jason Segel, wrote it — very talented guy. Good lord he’s only 27. I’m afraid I have to hate him. And his parents. (Kidding.) Good job Jason and everyone in it and the crew.

Carly is voted off and whiney Brooke, and Jason, who isn’t even trying, stay? Really?? Oh America, America, America. What are we going to do with you? First you vote Bush into office. TWICE. (Still haven’t recovered from the shock of that.) And now this.

This is Hector’s Diner. Me and my friend Tim have started a monthly diner-crawl, and this is where we began. It’s at 12th Street and Washington. It’s right under the highline, (the old elevated train tracks) in what was once a completely dank and unpleasant (but interesting) neighborhood that is now quite fashionable. But Hectors has that old New York feel. I should have taken a picture of the outside, because it has just about the most unassuming storefront ever.

I bought this blouse from Anthropologie as a present to myself. I was dying for a few other things, but I stopped at the blouse. It was a hard. I’m in a frenzy of want, want, want, apparently. Wanted this pair of linen pants, a new pair of jeans, a Spring cardigan. (The males have stopped reading by now. Oh! Now we can talk about them!)

– I want people to be more courteous on the street.
– I want cars to stop going through red lights.
– I want people to stop treating elections like baseball games and hating the fans of the other team.
– I want a flatter stomach.
– A chihuahua.
– I want my book to be a best seller, of course. Had to throw that in there.
– A great new take-out restaurant to open within blocks of my apartment.
– I want the perfect haircut (this doesn’t exist, does it?).
– I want Joss Whedon back making TV shows.
– As long as I’m on the subject, I want Buffy the Vampire Slayer back. (Sob.)

That reminds me, I was trying to think of how to phrase something like “world peace” and I remembered Howard trying to cheer me up when I was bemoaning all the hate in the world. He was saying how slowly, over the centuries, as much hate and war as there is, there is actually less, and we’re slowly slowly slowly improving. He brought up a lot of convincing examples to prove it (slavery, women’s rights, etc.) and I was once again wondering if perhaps it’s true.

I’m doing a bunch of these today and then I’m done with “then and now” for a while. First up is my block in 1937. So much is unchanged in my neighborhood. The biggest different between then and now seems to be trees.

The trees are blocking the view of the buildings that are virtually unchanged.
I am pointing out the ones that stood out for me.

This is St. Luke’s on Hudson Street. I didn’t write down the dates, it’s either the late 20’s or early 30’s.

The interesting thing here is, the church was mostly destroyed in a fire in 1981. This is the rebuilt church. But look how unchanged this section of the block is.

Another shot of St. Luke’s.

St. Luke’s today.

Update Added two more of this building! Please scroll down.

This is 385 and 387 Bleecker Street in 1928.

Here it is today. #385 has a Marc Jacobs store. I wish I could remember what it was when I first moved in, but I can’t.

Here is #385 Bleecker shot in 1937, from the side.

Here it is now.