Called Out

"Jammie, could you check on that document that Scott printed?" my manager says. As I move to the computer, I say, in what I think is a very polite tone, "Mind if I take a look?"

Apparently, I was not as mindful of my tone as I thought, because both of them start laughing, and Jammie says, "That means, 'Get the hell out of my way.'"

My manager, still laughing, agrees, "I try to tell him."

Worth It

After a fight on the subway between an unmasked idiot and an idiot wearing only a face-shield escalates into one of the idiots pulling the emergency brake not once, but twice....

And after I sprint to the other side of the Atlantic Avenue Station to try and catch a different train (since the one I was on was stuck in the station while the police came to investigate the maskless idiot fight), only to realize that I left my shoes for work back on the train I had originally been on....

And after walking all the way to the East River in Manhattan in the rain, waiting in three lines for a couple hours, and signing a ton of paperwork....

I finally got my first Covid-19 vaccination shot today!

Shut Up, Brain

I haul three full, heavy bags of trash and a big pallet of taped together cardboard boxes downstairs to the curb, all the while thinking too myself, “Yeah, I’m pretty strong, pretty in shape.” I imagine my muscles bulging beneath my t-shirt and figure I look pretty cool, maybe even sexy, especially for being, like, almost 50 years old.

And then I imagine my life force as a limited thing that might allow me to live to be very old, like my grandfather who lived to be 102. 

But, I then think, what if I used up a chunk of that vital life force, of which I have only a limited quantity, beating cancer, and now I’m only going to live to be, say, 80 or something, and right then my knee throbs and I realize I’m tired, and it’s time to go to bed.

New Music In The Pandemic

"So, since you're a music supervisor for a living, I have to ask: what have you been listening to?"

My customer pauses to think, then answers, "You know, I haven't been really able to listen to new music, except if it's to get a song for a show, but then it's....."

"It's work," I interject.

"Exactly, and everybody who's sort of in this business that I talk to has been saying the same thing - we keep going back to the old stuff, the comfort stuff, because we don't have the focus to listen to new music."

Almost Normal

A man sits on the base of a statue playing guitar, with a jar filled with dollar bills in front of him on the wet pavement. Listening in a half-circle around him are children and their mothers - the children playing with one another, the mothers chatting - while he plays and sings, mellow tunes on an unseasonably warm day.

Groups of people walk by, their boots muddy from the melting snow, and dogs on leashes, their bellies muddy too, kids on scooters and teenagers laughing, out enjoying an afternoon, and, aside from the masks, it could be any day in early spring.

“It almost feels normal,” I say to Katie, and she tilts her smiling face up into the sun.

Long Way To Go

"I just got my second dose of the vaccine," she says shyly. Her old, blind dog stares past me with milky blue eyes and dubiously sniffs my outstretched hand before finally commencing a tired but friendly wag and pressing the bony length of his body into my legs.

"That must make things so much better for you!" I exclaim as I scratch her dog's flat head.

"Yes, it's better," she says, looking around, "but everything is still the same."

Do What You're Good At

A fellow employee occasionally uses me to ring up purchases he makes for his wife, which often helps makes up for the days (like today) when the weather, or a still occasionally rampant pandemic, slows traffic into the store. When I thank him for it, he says, "Well, you're always pretty cheerful and optimistic, and I wanted to show appreciation for you."

"You know, I'd do that for free," I confide.

"We frequently do."