A bit of shopping and lunch today with a cousin. His first book came out two years ago, he’s working on his second and it looks (fingers crossed) as if it could first appear as an article in the New Yorker early next year.

We had lunch at NYC’s fabled Shake Shack. Burgers, dogs, fries and shakes, they have 3 locations in NYC and look to be expanding further soon. I’ve seen this place get multiple raves in multiple blogs. I’m told that at their original location, 23rd Street on the east side, people line up for an hour for one of their burgers.

Well, it was a burger. It was a good burger. It wasn’t a great burger. The beef had a nice taste, cheese was good, but the bun was soggy and almost ruined the whole affair for me. Fries were decent, the shake was nice. I think the appeal is that given the whole gourmet burger thing going on in NYC, this is a damned good burger for the price. They say the meat is fresh ground and hand-formed daily. But I wouldn’t go out of my way to go back there again. (My cousin agreed.)

Finally got the Frye boots I’ve been lusting after for more than a year. So glad I didn’t buy them online. With most shoes, I always wear US size 11. The guy measured my foot and pronounced me a size 9. I ended up getting a 9-1/2 and it was a damned near perfect fit. (And the best part was, the price was the same as Zappos, so it didn’t cost me any extra.)

Also got R. Crumb’s complete illustrated version of the Book of Genesis and from what I’ve looked at so far, it’s magnificent stuff. The odd thing is that on Amazon, it’s listed as shipping in “1 to 3 months.” The first Barnes & Nobles I went into was sold out. But another one not too far away, and they had a huge stack of them. This is something that definitely would not work on the Kindle.

It was both nostalgic and alien to walk around Manhattan’s upper west side today. I lived on the corner of 76th and Broadway for 10 years, from 1976-86, roughly. Almost all of the buildings are the same, but the shops have all changed. The shops in my old building used to be magazine stands, shoe repair joints, actual useful places. Now there’s a branch of Barney’s there. Burger Joint is still there, Gray’s Papaya is still a few blocks down, and I can make out where Plato’s Retreat and Tower Records used to be. The new Apple Store looks like it will open soon and they’ve finished the renovations on Alice Tully Hall and Julliard at Lincoln Center.

The odd thing is – I hadn’t brought my camera out with me today. Okay, it was roughly 38 years ago when someone pulled a gun on me on the corner of 93rd & Broadway (I looked at the two guys said “oh, come on” and walked away from them, taking the chance that the street was too busy for them to actually pull the trigger) but all these years later I’m still feeling a bit paranoid about walking around Manhattan with any conspicuous display of wealth. I would have liked to have taken photos of the old ‘hood though.

Tomorrow, time and weather permitting, I’ll walk over to the street where I spent the first 24 years of my life and take some photos there.

Anyway, one more full day here and then the 18 hour plane ride home. And I’m gonna be both glad to leave and very happy to get home. My gf’s flight comes in from Manila half an hour before mine, so we get to meet at the airport and go home together. After not seeing her for 10 days, hope we don’t do anything to shock the taxi driver, at least not too much!