Insomnia has returned...

It is early in the morning and I need to be up and out of the house in approximately 10 hours... yet I've been lying in bed waiting for sleep for nearly an hour now. I just gave up trying to fall asleep, I blame one too many delicious homebaked cherry chocolate chip cookies consumed in the attempt to forestall post dinner coma. The weather has been really great in NYC (until yesterday that is) which has allowed me to slack in egregious ways. I've also recently rediscovered the joys of bittorrenting (found a really decent tracker site) and thus have upped my media consumption while at the same time spending more time walking and relaxing outdoors enjoying the sun. Walking around, I am reminded of the public sorts of intimacy that people in NYC experience. In California, people tend to be in cars while in transit. In NYC, you walk admist throngs of people, noticing the texture of passerby's napes while listening to snippets of conversation that float over the hum of the city. It's a pretty intense sensory experience. I recently played host to an 18 year old girl visiting as an admitted student to Columbia, R1, and her very concerned mother, R3. Friends of the family. R1 had originally wanted to attend NYU, R3 forbade her to apply (the family is based in California), so R1 secretly applied to Columbia. R3 was excited that her daughter had been accepted into an Ivy League institution, until she realized that Columbia University is in NYC, oops. R3 said to me "I never saw any pamphlets for Columbia, I had no idea R1 was applying!" R1 pleaded with me with her eyes to assuage an overprotective mother. I figured, if R1 could handle secretly researching, applying, and getting accepted into Columbia without any guidance, she's probably ready for NYC. It set me on a whole nostalgia trip for a couple of days, remembering my own college visits and the giddy anticipation of college.