STRIKE DAY ONE. I'm off work this week, so I am not feeling the strike much, though I expect to try hoofing into Manhattan tomorrow.

The 1980 strike was easy on me: I walked from East 11th to East 59th Street every working day. That's right, back then low-life bums like me could easily afford Manhattan apartments.

But those days are gone. The City reports that "To find affordable, high-quality housing, workers are moving further from their jobs. As a result, commute times in the New York region are the longest in the nation. The average commute time into Manhattan is 48 minutes." Another commutation study finds "that people appear to be commuting longer distances [in 27 counties near New York City]. Between 1980 and 2000, the proportion of jobs filled by residents of the same county declined in every county except Manhattan (Figure 2)."

So more of us are coming into Manhattan from farther away. The last strike was in April -- a very warm April as I recall.

Well, my share of the suckage is reduced by fortune, but we'll see what we see tomorrow.