629 days, 5 hours, 13 minutes, 49 seconds

Lying on her back, on Grandma's carpet, she brings her left knee up to her chest, hugs it, bats it back and forth, back and forth, left hand, right hand. This is an exercise. This will loosen the muscles in her leg and back. Back and forth. She loses track of center, starts feeling dizzy, thinks of Bush, then of Cheney. Back and forth. Hitting harder now. By the time the class ends she's a basket case.

629 days, 9 hours, 25 minutes, 39 seconds

She thinks of those FEMA trailers around New Orleans, still lined up there after two years. And how people in New York and New Jersey, hard hit by the N'oreaster two weeks ago, are already getting aid.

629 days, 9 hours, 48 minutes, 28.3 seconds

Actually, people already live in those storage units. There was an article in the Times a few years ago. A man whose wife hates air conditioning spends hot summer days working or reading there. Another man who just wants peace and quiet moved in with his father's recliner. But she heard they cracked down on people spending time there after that article appeared.

629 days, 10 hours, 8 minutes, 25 seconds

Claremont Stables closed over the weekend. They'll no longer hear horses walking home from Central Park along 89th St. She thinks of the individual stalls on the upper floors. Empty now.

629 days, 10 hours, 15 minutes, 50 seconds

Manhattan Mini Storage has the best ads. When her husband's friend moved back to the city twenty years ago, they helped her get her belongings out of a storage place in Harlem. They walked through the corridors, lights coming on as they neared, found her place, and slipped inside. They decided, if they ever married, that's where they'd like to have the wedding.

Too late now. They married at City Hall. Word is all these storage places, in Manhattan at least, are going to be turned into condos over the next few years.

629 days, 10 hours, 20 minutes, 57 seconds

( Bus Stop, 81st & Broadway)

God, closets! When they first moved in together they wanted a workspace built for her. And someone told them about a company that did work in her aunt's apartment: California Colsets. And they thought what a good name for a company that works in small apartments. Only it turned out they only did work in closets. And it turned out they hired them to transform a walk-in closet. After that was done they searched for someone else to build her workspace.

630 days, 0 hours, 18 minutes, 37.6 seconds

Hurry up and wait. Hurry up and wait an hour. Hurry up and wait in line. Seven movies in eleven days, plus one reading, one party, one play, one concert, and teaching four classes. She's out of her mind. Her father says so. Then the iced cappuccino she had with lunch, she realized after she drank it, was from a machine and probably already sugared. Up up up the blood goes. Ten bad headaches in eleven days. She thought, with this an independent festival, it would be different than just going to a movie any time, in any suburb. The whole festival's spread out now, only two of their movies are in Tribeca, the air quality's bad everywhere.