It's raining again. Lord, I'd heard that this had been a bad few months of weather here in New York, but I had to experience this week to fully appreciate it. I don't remember seeing the sun once, except briefly, the day I arrived, when I was too tired and jet-lagged to appreciate it. The view from my office was like something out of Blade Runner; massive buildings shrouded by mist, belching mist from air-conditioning units.

Weather aside, it's been a good week. When not working, I've spent my time settling into my apartment and my neighborhood, casing the streets for my local Starbucks, hardware store, and supermarkets. It's a great neighborhood to be a part of; my neighbors are institutions like Rand House publishers, the Ed Sullivan Theater (where David Letterman shoots his show), Carnegie Hall, and even the New York gay bar of the moment, Therapy. Although my apartment is only three blocks from Central Park, and a few more blocks in the other direction from Times Square, it doesn't feel like it's overrun with tourists, and the street life is authentic New York. In fact, it's really nice to be living in such a pedestrian city. In my first three days in New York, I didn't take the subway or a taxi once - I was able to walk everywhere.

My one-bedroom apartment is fine - nothing extravagant, rather small, but comfortable enough. The only major thing I don't like about it is the noise from the air-conditioning units, which make listening to music a bit of an ordeal. I have a balcony which looks mostly over to the Hudson River, and a small kitchen. The deal comes with use of the top-floor gym, a pokey little place notable only for the incredible views of Central Park from the patio. I've had quite a few problems since moving in; first they didn't have a set of keys for me, then the a/c wasn't working, and the gym had no record of my membership. In working with the people who arranged the apartment for me, they were so apologetic for all the problems that they volunteered to throw in high-speed internet access for free. No complaints here, since I've discovered the telephone line can never connect to the Internet at speeds more than 28 kbs.

I hesitate to complain about ANYTHING, considering how kind the gods have been to me recently, but I'm sitting here at work bored out of my mind. Other days, I'd have been able to find some long-delayed work project to keep me busy, but today I'm very tired from a late night last night (more of that later). So I keep half-heartedly trying to engage myself in something, sitting there listlessly for a few minutes, then closing out again. The truth is that I've arrived in New York before they're quite ready for me on this project.

It's odd how this whole thing came about. When I was first contacted about the project, I just leapt to the conclusion that they were asking me to relocate to New York for a while. I started making the necessary arrangements and suddenly it became apparent that they'd not envisioned I'd need to relocate - that they'd expected I'd work part-time from San Francisco, with occasional visits to New York. However, my willingness to uproot for a while led to a decision that it would indeed be in the best interests of the project if I was to be full time here in New York. And here I am. But there's nothing to do yet. So I'm sitting here twiddling my thumbs in our fabulous forty-seventh floor office in a monstrously huge building near Times Square. In a couple of weeks, I'm likely to get started for real, at which time I'll start working from our customer's office, which is an equally impressive monolith almost in Times Square proper. Meanwhile, I'm burning through the company's money in both rent for my apartment and daily living expenses. Oh well.

Since I'll be here for so long, I'd thought I'd have tons of time to make new friends, explore parts of New York City I've never seen before, and reacquaint myself with my favorite East Coast destinations such as Boston, upstate New York and DC. But if this week is anything to go by, I may return to San Francisco in the Fall thinking, jeez, where did all the time go? With work, the gym, and running (twice so far, in beautiful, lush green Central Park, birds singing everywhere), then dinner, my weekdays have left little time for anything else. And the next three weekends are spoken for already. Over this weekend, I have a rafter of brunch and coffee dates lined up. The following weekend, I'm entertaining the sweet young guy I met in Philadelphia on my recent trip there. Then, for the July 4th weekend, I'm returning to San Francisco for my first trip home.

I'm realizing now that I've been in a minor depression for the last few weeks. It's a cyclical thing, and this is the first long-term depression I've had since last year. I'm learning to keep it at bay, for the most part, but it's a constant presence - a kind of physical darkness lingering behind my eyes - that colors everything. I fend it off by keeping busy, forcing myself not to succumb to despondency, and engaging myself in comfortable routines such as reading a good book, listening to my favorite music with a glass of wine, and smiling at myself in the mirror to remind myself who I am.

Last night, I had dinner with the Venezuelan guy I met when I was here in New York over Memorial Day weekend. It was a fairly balmy evening, comfortably warm enough to enjoy sitting outside at a restaurant in Chelsea. It's one of the things that is most lacking in San Francisco's considerable roster of charms, since it's rarely warm enough, in the city by the Bay, to enjoy the evenings outside lightly dressed. We shared some great conversation - my dinner companion was a sparkling, outgoing yet sensitive guy, and, for the first time, I started to feel truly at home in New York as we sat there.