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I had a great time with my friend Rich on Saturday. Dinner at La Cocina, which is probably my favorite restaurant in the whole city. It's laid back; nice but not fancy, active but not noisy. The margaritas are great and the food is even better. After dinner we had a couple of beers nearby, right on my old block. My other work friends didn't come out, which I mostly expected because my whole trip was on pretty short notice.

I stayed at my ex's apartment, on the fold-out couch. I was a little nervous about that; I didn't want to spend the whole weekend feeling awkward, waiting for her to blow up at me or something. But it went much better than that. It seemed like we're mostly free of the old behavior patterns we used to have with each other. We both realize it's over, and consider that to be a good thing, so there's no point rehashing anything.

So, bureaucrats willing, I'll have a divorce judgment in a few weeks. I submitted the final papers on Tuesday, after ( a pretty anticlimactic Monday. ) The notarization went much faster the second time around, and most of the papers were in order already, so I finished at the courthouse by around 2:00.

From there I walked over to World Trade. ( Hmm. ) I was feeling pretty sad when I got to my favorite pizza place in the city: Famous Bari, the address is 2 Rector Street but it's on Greenwich. (No, not Original Ray's—please—this is a completely different caliber.) I was in there at least two weekdays out of five when I worked down there. Their crust is to die for. I got a slice of chicken and tomato, and a slice of white. The place hasn't changed much, and that was kind of comforting. By the time I finished lunch, I felt much better.

I'm driving up to New York on Saturday, and barring any hairpin turns of fortune, I'll be able to file my final divorce papers at the courthouse on Monday. Other than the fact that it could have been finished much sooner, I think it's ending in the best possible way. My ex and I are still on friendly terms, and I don't think either of us has any hard feelings.

I'll get to see some of my old work friends, too, over the weekend. I miss those guys. When I was working with them, I felt a real sense of belonging and cooperation; we really believed in the product and the company, and each other. Plus I miss the Half-Life fragfests. :)

I also plan to visit Ground Zero this trip. I haven't been since September 7, 2001, when I grabbed a slice of pizza on Liberty Place before spending my last weekend as a quasi- New Yorker. I don't quite know why I want to see it; normally you revisit a place and it reminds you of the past, but the absence of World Trade can't bolster my memory, they're in conflict. Maybe there's still some small part of me that doesn't really believe it's gone. Maybe on some level I think it'll provide some answer or explanation, just because there don't seem to be any anywhere else. Maybe I'm just curious. Or maybe it's just nostalgia digging its heels against the push of time.