The Shameful Science

The Q&A after a public lecture or reading is almost always fraught for me, because Q&A's always seem to bring out the crazy in people. Like this guy: you can always tell the nutjobs by the way they ramble on for a while before they get to the point, and his question finally winds around to the idea that, if everything is vibration, why can't people effect the weather by increasing their "good" vibrations?

Which is straight up nonsense, of course, but the scientist lecturing in the planetarium at the American Natural History Museum doesn't dismiss the wack-a-doo out of hand.

Now, I know there's a part of me that believes that New Age crap, and even as the vicarious embarrassment that comes from watching somebody make a fool of themselves in public rises in my chest like bad water welling up in a choked drainpipe, I find myself thinking, "Well, it's not true, exactly, but I get where that guy is coming from."

I'm Not Worthy

"I choose to see this award, not as a reward for past achievements," as usual after watching awards shows, I'm practicing my acceptance speech, "but as a goad and an obligation to even higher standards in the future."

The laundry still isn't put away, the catbox uncleaned, the bathroom, while not filthy, needs a good wipedown, and I'm about 4000 words into a new project that the muse has yet to visit.

I walk from room to room, tidying up, putting things away (doesn't have to be perfect, just has to be better than it was when I started), shutting cabinets, starting the dishwasher. I imagine a tux, the heft of a statue in my hand, accolades, cashed checks, artistic achievement before my peers, awards, silly things, and I know the only thing to do is to keep calling out my lesser desires, and keep trying to make it a little better, just a little, than when I started.

A Block is About 100 Steps

We manage to make it to the greemarket at Grand Army Plaza when it starts to pour. The sky opens up, and we run, making it to an awning, still soaked and laughing, as the gutters fill with brown, soupy water.

A little boy and his father are poised at the edge of the awning, bouncing in anticipation of making another run for it.

"It's only a hundred steps to home," the father says, and the little boy replies, "Let's go!"

Both Wrong

I'm at this reading, George Saunders (look him up if you don't know, short story writer) and Ben Stiller, whom I'm sure you know, and the packed, cold crowd is getting squirrelly. Some older Manhattanite ladies in bangled sweaters, an overly developed sense of self-importance, and a radically underdeveloped sense of proportion have taken it upon themselves to be the fire aisle patrol or something, and they take a woman to task for sitting in front of them.

Suddenly this guy with an accent I can't quite place (Nordic? French?) gets into the act, and in typical European fashion, defends the sitter's right to sit wherever she wants, nevermind the Manhattanites sense of fairness or the rules.

Even after the sitter leaves, wisely beating a retreat in the face of such controversy, the Manhattanites and the European bicker, and though I can't really side with the privileged ladies and their fussy ways, the European's arrogant attitude is so typical of the Europeans I've met that I can't really side with him either.

Think Skinny Thoughts

I sidle into the already packed train with a small, apologetic sound and grab the bar, trying not to smush the people in front of me while still keeping my ass inside the closing door.

There's that moment where everyone is packed into the car that the train approaches maximum density, but the doors are still open, and everyone sort of prays that nobody gets slappy and tries to shove on, but of course here comes that guy, saying, "Hey, can you move in a little?" and magically, he fits.

"Ask and ye shall receive," I say before I realize that I'm actually saying those words out loud, with my mouth.

"Never know unless you try," he replies jovially, and I wonder how much our fellow passengers hate us right now.

The Play IS the Thing

Katie told me a really great story, about how a stranger held the subway door for her at a really crucial moment this afternoon, and she thanked him and gave him a chocolate.  It was an awesome story, with lovely little moments and all these great details: the way the guy kicked back his leg to hold the door (and she kinda kicked back her own leg, demonstrating), and the way the guy's eyes lit up when she gave him the chocolate, and how he laughed, and his wonderful accent, and how he savored the chocolate while devouring it at the same time.

But it's her story, don't you see? I loved the way she told it, the animation of her face, her smile that was his smile, and though I sometimes steal her stories for my own, this time, all I want to do is show you her, telling her story, the little play she acted out for me, just for me, only for me.

Frost/bite

They've taken all the apples in from the outside stands at the bodega on 7th Avenue, but the tattered hand-lettered signs still remain, selling fall's last macouns and braeburns (more likely galas and mealy red "delicious"). In their place are a few paltry bundles of firewood, wrapped in stretchy yellow plastic stacked where fruit should go, tossed around and lonely.

The cold is all anybody talks about, because it's all one can think about when confronted with the sheer, overwhelming physical monstrosity of it, hunched over the city, fangs bared. I'm wrapped in layer upon layer (upon (layer)), and still I can feel tiny patches of exposed skin begin to crystallize and die in the short walk from the subway to the blessed warmth of home