Since I last blogged seventeen days ago, I had to significantly ramp up the pace of my apartment cleaning because of some construction that will be suddenly done in the building where I live. Understatement of the year: it has been very taxing, as well as dusty...

I don't really want to write about it, but just get it all done...I hope to completely finish the apartment cleaning by the time when my sister Jenny from Chicago is coming to visit New York with her family, in the middle of the summer...

As my longtime readers will recall, Jenny had a battle with cancer, but she has been doing much better (knock wood).

By "apartment cleaning" I mean organizing my stuff, putting it in boxes, and bringing a lot of it to storage. And keeping the stuff I can't bear to part with at home.

Ah, life in the cramped quarters of New York...

However, I wonder if the pace of the cleaning (nine hour sessions of it, one day after the next) is aging me prematurely. I went out to McDonald's for breakfast and Wendy's for lunch today, and received senior discounts without asking for them. The counter girls assumed I was over sixty-two...

Who am I to argue with a discount, even if at fifty-six I still don't actually qualify?

As I ate my spicy chicken sandwich from Wendy's Value Menu, I read a 1953 noir novel by Charles Williams called "Nothing in Her Way," about a female con artist. I came across a description of this dame by the admiring narrator: "I watched her across the lobby, conscious she was still one of the most beautiful girls I'd ever seen and thinking it was a shame more of them didn't learn to walk." I immediately knew what the narrator was saying; too many women never learn that beautiful manner of walking that they are capable of, and that makes them special in a way men can never be.

Then, as I was walking home, I saw a girl crossing sunny Eighth Avenue that perfectly fit Williams' description. She was dark blonde, with a long pony tail, curvy and busty in a tight red top and gray pedal pushers and strappy backless heels that showed off very well-arched feet that I estimated were probably size five. She had a big colorful purse under her right arm that to my mind symbolically suggested a vagina that could provide sustenance for the whole world of men. And yep, she had that walk. Lana Turner had it too. That straight-shouldered but slightly saucy stride, utterly confident on those heels. Boy, I wish I deserved a woman like that, but she was out of my league. Couldn't get close to anyone like her without paying for it in the coin of the realm.

Anyway, this passing vision revived my faith in the women of New York, most of whom hardly stimulate or excite me at all any more. I've been worried about my libido, but maybe it's not me after all--maybe it is most of the young women. They basically dress and move like young men, and being an old movie and pinup buff, I know the feminine potential of women--and find it sorely missing on the streets of contemporary Gotham. It's not enough to wear high heels, girls. But this chick had the stuff. The walk. Glad I got an eyeful.