Politeness

Old man with a walker that doubles as a seat wheels onto the subway car, turns his walker around, and sits. His caretaker stoically follows behind, grabs a pole, and stands, staring at nothing.

A man on the bench, seeing them, stands and offers his seat, but the man sitting in his walker chair waves him off, and the man standing takes a moment to understand that he's being offered a place to sit before he shrugs and also declines.

A older, black man in a long, sharp, brown plaid coat with a fur collar watches all this, and after everyone is done being polite, he hustles over to grab the vacated seat, with an expression of, "Damn, well, if nobody's gonna take it...."
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One year ago today: Chopping Onions
Two years ago today: Magic Beans
Three years ago today: An Important Day in a Boy's Life
Six years ago today: 12/7/10 Armored

Psalm 121:1

It's dark by five in the evening when I get out of work, these days, and I am exhausted at the end of a long day. I walk out into the gloom, clouds gathering that will shortly rain down cold and sloppy wet on the city, though the streets are dry right now, and despite my weariness and discouragement, I look up.

It's that moment, right before the storm, when the air is extremely clear, and the tops of the buildings seem close enough to touch and each detail stands out like an archetype of itself, a platonic ideal come to this plane of existence, hard-edged and sharp and perfect: bricks and stone and steel and glass in precise and soaring visions of frozen physics.

I stop for just a moment, taking it all in, then allow myself to get swept along in the gust of pedestrians that tumbles me underground.
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One year ago today: First Rule
Three years ago today: Two Wrongs
Six years ago today:  12/6/10 The band is passive aggressive. We are not.

Secondhand Communion

I pause in the vestibule of my building before heading out into the night to push my earbuds into my ears and zip up my coat. The form-fitting plugs of the earbuds are as much to cancel out the noise of the subway station, the streets, New York, as they are for the music I thumb into life on the screen of my phone.

Down on the platform waiting to go home, as the music plays, I click on the lyrics to read along, and I'm reminded of how much I dislike lyrics websites. There was a time when I would pore over the lyrics sheets that came in the records I bought for a couple bucks apiece, looking for clues, obsessing over nuance, but now, with the lyrics typed up by somebody I don't even know, it's like there's a third party in the relationship, somebody interpolating themselves between us, instead of just me and the artist communing in the space between my ears, him whispering inside me through my headphones right into the center of my brain.
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One year ago today: Old Salt
Two years ago today: Lost Pen
Three years ago today: Rumors of the Real World
Six years ago today: 12/5/10 What more do you want from me? A cookie?

It's Beginning to Smell a Lot Like Christmas

The Christmas trees they're selling on the street next to the co-op smell heavenly, a lovely, citrusy pine smell that wafts across the pavement in pungent, delicious waves. We scrutinize the small handful they've got leaning on a wooden frame, but they're mostly too tall, and the shorter ones are too wide, even though they're all handsome and green, with strong needles that don't fall when you bounce the base of their trunks on the sidewalk.

Finally the woman running the place comes over and asks if we need anything, and after a little negotiation, we find the right tree: not too fat or skinny, good, tight branches, and just a little taller than me. We pay for it and I tuck it under my arm to haul it home, the dark, sticky pine sap staining my fingers to the point where I find myself sniffing my hands for the rest of the night, drinking in concentrated childhood longing.
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One year ago today: The Bright Side
Two years ago today: Cooking Together
Three years ago today: Who Cares What You Think?
Six years ago today: 12/4/10 Which is what we named the tree

Who Usually Takes Charge

"I don't really care where we eat," says Dan, hands above his head in a "don't shoot" posture. "You guys decide."

"Great," one of them says, and then the three women's heads dive into their phones to find us a spot while Dan and I watch, impressed.

"Lucky you just got kind of opted out, without having to abdicate like I did," he says, and I shrug happily.
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One year ago today: A Discourse on Unheimlich
Two years ago today: Matthew 25:40
Three years ago today: Unconscious

Testing

Something sparkles on the edge of sight, and without thinking I lean down and scoop it up - an amethyst, rough cut, about the size of an egg, shading from translucent white into purple at the tip. The tiny bronze-ish loop embedded at the base suggests it might have once been a pendant.

I hesitate for only a moment before deciding to go back out of the subway gates to give it to the subway attendant in her booth in case someone comes looking for it, but the entire time I'm wondering: is this a gift from the universe for me to keep, or a test of honesty I'm meant to pass?

After I drop it with the attendant, I ask to be let back into the subway, and she chides, "The next time you come out, make sure I see you, 'cause I don't know if you paid to go in or not."

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One year ago today: Lighten Up

Two years ago today: "Lights, Please?"

Three years ago today: Here, You Throw This Away

Six years ago today: 12/2/10 Angry God is Angry (and possibly made up)

Not His Night

After we figure out that the tickets for the show are for tomorrow night, not tonight, my friend and I head down to the subway back to Brooklyn.

Just as I'm through the gate, he says, "You know, I just used this -" meaning his MetroCard that allows him entrance into the subway station. "I hope it works," he finishes, and I'm on the other side.

But sure enough, it won't let him through (there's around a fifteen minute wait on the unlimited MetroCards before you can use them again), and he says through the bars with a rueful look, "You know, with the luck I'm having, you might just want to head home - get a little farther away from me."
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One year ago today: Sounds Pretty Good, Even to a Vegetarian
Two years ago today: Melancholia
Three years ago today: That's How I Got Over My Fear of Heights
Six years ago today: 12/1/10 So much for meditation