Loisa? You may well ask, as I did the first time I heard this term. But for those in the know, Loisa is an affectionate abbreviation of “the Lower East Side”, that neighbourhood of Manhattan where I have been playing tennis most weeks with two other Australians and a guy whose New York accent masks completely the fact he’s originally from Manchester.

Due to camera problems I haven’t been able to photograph this stellar group at play. What I’m really keen to show you are the nets for the public-access courts we use: they are made of pure stainless steel mesh. Thus they never slump, never rust – unlike those who play there, sadly.

I’m told that Loisa is the next big thing in Manhattan; new restaurants are opening up every week, and property developers have been buying up buildings and sometimes entire blocks for years now. But I have to confess I think it’s grubby and smelly; I could never live there.

Maybe that’s what people said about SoHo twenty years ago too.

This is not a description of last night’s dinner, but the lead title of a news item describing Condoleeza Rice’s reaction to the now-infamous interview Bill Clinton gave the Fox News network a few days ago.

If you haven’t seen Clinton give as good as he gets from one of the current administration’s  smarmiest propagandists, it’s a pity. I was trying to create a link to the YouTube.com video but just discovered the Fox Network has demanded it be removed due to copright infringement. Evidently Condi wasn’t the only one who was ”steamed”.

Interesting work for me at the moment with Simi Linton on her applications for a Guggenheim Fellowship and a New York Foundation for the Arts grant. She is attempting to create a multi-media presentation to accompany/enhance her in-person readings of her  memoir, My Body Politic. These “performances” of her memoir have evolved over this year, in which she has been promoting the book. In live “performed readings”, she delivers an exciting and provocative discourse on disability and politics, book-ending her observations – as she does in the book – with the protests on the wars in Vietnam and Iraq and how those wars “manufacture” disability.

What we’re trying to do this week, in finalising our applications, is to produce a DVD (utilising professional services) that combines the archival material of photographs, videos, sound and text into a compelling four-minute argument for the potential of a longer multi-media work. It’s daunting and exciting and, as always, I love learning new things. Applications are due October 2. Wish us luck.

… The Harvard Club in midtown Manhattan, that is. A strange oasis of the “ye olde England” style of American decor (think Ralph Lauren’s Polo stores) for the weary, wealthy Harvard alumni.

And what on earth was I, interloper that I am, doing at the Harvard Club on Thursday last? Attending the awards lunch of the e-Philanthropy Foundation on behalf of my friend Rob DePinto, the CEO and founder of volunteerxchange.com, which was nominated for an award in the category of volunteering/capacity building.

I am not able to say exactly what happened at the lunch – yet – but suffice to say there will be more information, and hopefully a photograph or two, coming very soon to this website and possibly to others via press release.

A quick note to say that “the cable guy” turned up as scheduled and as a result I have internet access, cable tv, and a landline phone. Hallelujiah! For anyone who would like my new number, please send me an email.

By the way, I love receiving comments from people who visit this site. I’ve heard from a few of you, however, that you’re a little nervous about your words appearing live on the internet. I wanted to reassure you that when you send me a message (via the “comment” button) it goes into a sort of holding pen with any other comments received. I then access the holding pen, read the comments and then publish them or not. So feel free to drop me a line via this site, and just say you’d rather your comment not appear.

I recommend Chicago to anyone interested in visiting the US, especially if you’re into art, architecture and shopping. Although my actual shopping was limited to a few Christmas presents (always thinking ahead, you know me) at the fantastic Archicentre which runs all the skyscraper walking tours of the city, I did plenty of window shopping along the prestigious Michigan Avenue.

On the art and architecture front, above-left is evidence of my first experience of a Frank Gehry building in person. He designed the performance space and bridge approach that form the centrepiece of the stunning Millennium Park. The Park spans the area between Michigan Avenue’s skyscrapers and the magnificent lake they look onto. Having seen Sidney Pollack’s documentary of his friend Gehry at the Tribeca Film Festival in May, it was particularly enjoyable to be up close and personal with one of his distinctive works.

Above-right is me outside the Art Institute of Chicago, replete with early-Spring flower boxes (foreground) and anti-war demonstrators (background). Daniela and I trailed along beside a tour guide for a “Museum Highlights” tour, as we were running out of time. He was the most introverted art lover you could imagine – avoiding eye contact as much as possible while sharing the most interesting details of works I would otherwise have walked straight past.

Here’s me in tourist mode last weekend, enjoying the plush neighbourhood of Oak Park in Chicago (half an hour from downtown by train), where architect Frank Lloyd Wright lived and worked for 20 years.

The dedicated volunteers who maintain the Wright legacy – and impressive gift shop – supply iPods with informative soundtracks for the likes of me to wander round the streets of the area, now an official historic district, to gawk at the houses Frank Lloyd Wright built for clients when he was in his junior years as a genius architect.

Daniela, my friend who organised the trip to Chicago (thank you!), took this photo. We had perfectly sunny clear weather while in Chicago. Perfect timing, as it turned chilly as soon as we left, and the bright warm days returned to New York with us.

In New York, we have “the L” – that most subterranean of subway lines that links Union Square (14th St) with the ultra-hip Brooklyn neighbourhood of Williamsburg, and beyond. In Chicago, they have “the El” – short for elevated railway – and a most unusual experience for someone used to rattling round underground in a train. Daniela (my travelling companion pictured above) and I felt like we were on a ride at an amusement park, the way the train twists and wobbles as it completes “the Loop” or central downtown area series of stops.

I’m on my employer’s time right now so will post and run, so to speak. I was just so guilty at not being able to keep my blog up to date recently. Readers, I am back online this weekend, pending Friday’s visit from “the cable guy”. I’ve missed you.

Dear friends, a quick note to let you know briefly what I’m up to, before I’m able to get back into a regular “posting” habit when I get my own internet access in my new home (not till Friday of next week, AAAGH!) – and apologies for slow (or no) response to emails this week.

My dear old friend Daniela is visiting at the moment. We’re each sleeping on an air mattress and have neither a table or a desk. But there’s one very comfy chair now, at least, so we’ve been taking turns. The TV works, but I can’t seem to do anything about the content. Thank goodness for the BBC News, which I can see every night on the “public” channel 21 (remember, over here “public” doesn’t mean government-subsidised – every time the news runs we have to hear an announcement of every single private foundation that has helped fund the program).

We’re off to Chicago early tomorrow for a few nights. More cultural infusion, this time with a brand new Steppenwolf Theatre production Friday night, a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s own home at some stage, and an entire day spent happily lost inside the Art Institute of Chicago. Gee, if anybody didn’t recognise me already as one of our venerable PM’s “latte drinking cultural elites” there’s little doubt about it now.

This is the delightful Mr Bob Obembe, who helped me find the Brooklyn apartment I have called home since Monday. Given the accommodation crisis I was in at the time, I am thrilled that in the early days of my residency here I am relishing the leafy streets and the most ethnically diverse neighbourhood I have ever lived in. As a place to live, it’s much more interesting than many areas of Manhattan, methinks.

I aim to continue to see theatre, hear music, and discover as much of Manhattan as I can (afford), but take comfort in the fact that there’s plenty of interesting people, places and discoveries to be made in my new “borough” of Brooklyn.

And I’m looking for as many “cheap” thrills as I can, since handing over to Bob the standard “broker’s fee” for the service of linking landlord with tenant – a figure that represents 12 per cent of my total rent over the next 12 months. Ouch!

By my previous few posts you would think I’ve spiralled into new-apartment myopia – and to an extent you’d be right. But just because I’m forced to concentrate on filling yet another new space with “stuff” doesn’t mean I’m thrilled to be doing so. However, needs must …

But in the hours I’m not setting up house or trawling through Target, I’m really enjoying working with Simi Linton on establishing her website (not live yet) and applying for a variety of grants from US philanthropic institutions.

It’s a very sophisticated form of begging for money, bureaucratised to within an inch of its generous life, but a great experience for me. Last night Simi and I attended an information session for two grant programs from a prospective funder. We’ll be busy this month writing and submitting proposals. As an instructor on proposal writing said to the class I attended earlier this week at the Foundation Center, you can’t call yourself a grant writer until you’ve actually received a grant. Fair enough.

I’ve discovered where all the college boys and girls are – in the “domestics” department of Target at Atlantic Avenue in Brookly. Tensions between friends who’ve decided to “room together” as they embark on a college education are already emerging: this afternoon, while desperately trying to find an air mattress for my friend Daniela to sleep on when she arrives in two days’ time, I overheard an exchange in which one young lady accused another of being “just too fussy” in her taste.

And here I am, back on my cushion, piggy-backing someone else’s wireless internet connection in order to bring you life-changing news items such as this. Another interesting point of difference between Australian and American dinner sets – we have cups and saucers; the ‘Merkins have mugs. Very much a caffeine-dominated society. And, tellingly, my classy 30-piece plastic kitchen set includes a pizza cutter but no vegetable peeler. 

But I did feel much better about my new neighbourhood today. One staff member helped me find a taxi outside the Target, and the taxi driver very sweetly welcomed me to Brooklyn and said he hoped I would enjoy my new neighbourhood. By the time I got upstairs with all my bags – including said air mattress – I was pooped but happy. Only then did I realise that I’d walked into a cozy arrangement between the Target worker and the driver, as it was a “gypsy” or unauthorised cab. But much more comfortable than the standard yellow-issue taxi.

You know how a Japanese haiku poem is made up only of 19 syllables in total? That makes for a very sparse poem. I thought of the haiku just now as a rather apt comparison for the way in which  my one-bedroom apartment is currently furnished.

Let me paint you a picture of the circumstances in which I’m writing this post: I’m sitting on a $6 fold-out chair from Target that is basically a bent cushion so I don’t have to sit directly on the hardwood floor; a borrowed plate sits on my lap (and a slice of dreadful pizza upon it); in front of my lap my laptop is perched on the empty box my new toaster was packaged in. Apart from that, there is nothing else on the floor besides papers and a single bed-sized air mattress (borrowed from the same friend who owns the plate).

Just think of the anecdotes, think of the anecdotes, I keep telling myself …

Hi everyone, a quick message to let you know that I don’t have an internet connection – yet – in my new Brooklyn pad, so I’m hastily penning this while at my workplace. So much to tell you, so little access.

Thanks for your patience!

…unless you don’t have one to sit on. I moved today into my one-bedder in Brooklyn, an experience that took one ride in a taxi with a few plastic bags. (Three suitcases full of winter clothes, my beloved mohair blanket and books are still to come.)

I was hugely relieved when entering the place for the first time after my hasty – let’s face it, desperate – viewing a week earlier, to find that it was actually better than I had remembered it. Which is not to say it’s something out of Vogue Living, or even an Ikea catalogue, but there are nice wooden floors, a big kitchen with lots of cupboards (and a fridge, thank god), and a nice white (not salmon pink!) bathroom.

As that great sage Burt Bacharach says, “a house is not a home”. Give me a few weeks and I’ll see what I can do. But boy, do I miss my home in Sydney!

Hmm. I’ve just taken a break from watching Andre Agassi’s match against Thingamy Baghdatis at the US Open. I feel sorry for Baghdatis. The crowd is on its feet every time he hits the ball into the net or out of play. Andre can do no wrong.

I’m thinking about many things – the fact John and I were here together at exactly this time three years ago; that my mum and I were en route to London this time twelve months ago; and the fact that Andre Agassi and I are exactly the same age.

I love that he’s treated as the “grand old man” of tennis at the evidently musty age of 36. If only I had the option of retiring on the cumulative earnings of multi-million dollar sponsorship agreements and tournament successes. I should never have given up those tennis lessons.