Yesterday I did what I most love doing on a last Sunday in New York (prior to returning home): I walked through Central Park to the upper west side, had a salmon-eggs-benedict-and-glass-of-champagne brunch (bloody marys or mimosas are permissible alternatives) in one of the countless packed eateries on Columbus Avenue (the City Grill this time), poked into off-beat places along the way there and back, and finally called it quits and caught a cab to La Guardia.

I had the eerie feeling of normality in the face of abnormal times.

On the flight back to Madison I had the Dean of the Law School up front, another colleague in the middle and a neighbor right next to me. You might say I was easing in from the anonymity of the city to the comfy quilt that is Madison.

On my doorstep I found one ticket to the rally for Kerry this Thursday. Why one? Who gave them out? Did everyone get one?

Sitting at the Grill yesterday over my nicely poached egg, I tried to avoid spinning back to the topic that is like a plague o’ these pickle herring – the election. In the end, it proved to be impossible. My eating companion and I enumerated all things that are now patently before us – ready to discredit the current administration, yet somehow remarkably failing to do so (this theme is repeated in Herbert’s column this morning in the NYT here).

It was my last trip to NY before the election. As I cut across Central Park I came across Wollman’s Rink. They’re rushing the winter season here! How incongruous it all is: the ice skaters against a frame of still-green trees, moving to the music, all of us listening to the bleak political news of the day that for some reason fails to rock at least 50% of those who hear it – one vignette after another, not fitting, out of place, needing adjustment.

So few days left now to make sense of it all.

(*see “forty-second street pre-election diary” post, September 22, for explanation of post title)