May 7, Newburgh. We drive back to Manhattan just so we can take the scooters to the Baylander tonight, our first evening after the start of the season.

May 6. Concert of several species: Einojuhani Rautavaara, Cantus Arcticus. The orchestra comes full circle to the birds’ voices, the birds are more confident in themselves.

May 5. What I like most about the scooter is definitely how nimble it is and that I can get around without any muscle power at all. I don’t need the health benefits of a bike, I already get those elsewhere. The training effect of a ride to work is minimal compared to a run of seven or ten miles. The bicycle is considered rational and healthy, which the scooter subverts naughtily.

May 4. Genetic test yesterday. The doctor and her assistant make concerned faces and lecture me extensively. They emphasize their caring by handing me a printout of the first Google match for my disease. Result in six weeks.

May 3. Night at the Hilton Midtown, where the city cannot get any larger. Vertical facades cross-hatched with windows stretch out in every direction. Actually a stroke of genius to reduce companies, which are above all symbols, to anonymous floors, illuminated at night following unfathomable schedules. And wherever the eye looks, the floors stand empty: raw walls, construction site lights, inviting post-industrially-sparsely designed startups that never materialize. J thinks it likely that the offices will be converted into urban living space on a grand scale because everyone still wants to live in Manhattan, but I wonder: really? Without the economic constraint of concentrated mega offices that no one needs anymore?

May 2. J is in Midtown at her offsite, I am at home. I will probably go there to spend the nights with her at the hotel. There are two ways to get to 50th street on the subway. Either express 96 → 72, then local 72 → 66 → 59 → 50. Or local right away: 96 → 86 → 79 → 72 → 66 → 59 → 50. I used to think about it for a long time and came to the conclusion: Only if the express train comes first, is it worth taking it. Otherwise, just go local all the way. Correspondingly, the way back: Only if the express train is already waiting when you arrive at 72nd, is it worth changing trains, thus skipping 79th and 86th. This is all assuming that those one or two minutes are worth optimizing. The whole route is more fun with the scooter.

Completely at a loss how to read Kevin Kelly’s new book. I could highlight everything, without exception. I will therefore have to read the book again and again, like an album, and memorize it eventually.

May 1. Took the scooter along the river In the evening, just because I could. The air is still cold, but the green is already everywhere, only its density changes with each day now. More and more often my eyes are putting together a three-dimensional picture again.

I’ve learned that bicycle locks come in two grades, one for-New-York and one not-for-New-York, and they differ in how many seconds it takes with an angle grinder to cut through them. With good locks, it takes two cuts, not one, which again gives valuable seconds. I also bought handlebar bags for J and me that can stow our heavy U-locks and have Ninja Turtles on them.

Link has inflammations in his jaw and needs to have several teeth extracted. J. can’t bring herself to euthanize him now, too.

April 30. Concert last night. The flute: how the reflections of the hall light wander along it with every movement. It’s also not clear what actually creates the sound. In this respect, magical.

April 29, Newburgh. Rain. Slept many hours, at night, during the day. In the diner, where the line of waiting people extends into the second vestibule – which is actually not a problem, because new seats become available almost every minute – a couple gets in the line ahead of us. I say: excuse me, the end of the line is here, whereupon the man takes an irritated, almost threatening look at me and says okay, relax, before he and his wife get in line behind us. J says that I sounded extremely German, that is, harsh and aggressive, which in turn made the man aggressive. However, she says that he did come into the room with an unmistakable alpha gesture.

April 28. Genetic test next Wednesday. The assistant takes my medical history and that of all family members over the phone, and I explain for what seems like the umpteenth time that I’m not interested in the usual genes, but only the mutations responsible for my vascular structures in the brain, which were discovered from 2010 onwards. I google the research on this and send her the links, hoping it is detailed enough so that the genetic test can be focused on it.

It is strange, after all, that I am fully alive, with a complex consciousness, that can yet be snapped out of existence from one moment to the next. It seems mean that losing consciousness is so easy, but regaining it impossible.

Twice this week I took the scooter to Union Square and back again. J and I disagree about bike helmets. She says, yes, I’m an adult, but points out that delivery cyclists all wear helmets. No, I count them: Less than half do. And I’ve done a back-of-the-envelope: the probability of having a fatal bicycle accident in Manhattan is less than 0.1% per year. At this level, I don’t negotiate with fate.