Nulla dies sine linea. Four sentences every day. About whatever happened that day. Most of it's even true. Written by Scott Lee Williams
Monday, March 8, 2021
Not Looking
Sunday, March 7, 2021
Flirting
"Where are you from?" she asks. presumably in response to some regionalism I dropped in my speech.
"Oh, I've been her since 1996," I reply airily.
"You look far too young for that!" her eyes widening in shock.
"If my wife were here, she might think you were flirting with me," I tease, and the laugh-lines around her eyes deepen with her smile.
Saturday, March 6, 2021
East Coast/West Coast
Friday, March 5, 2021
Truth By Default
"We've done both trainings," my co-worker tells our manager when she asks, as he gives me a significant look.
"Actually, I still need to do the first part," I say, and my co-worker rolls his eyes at my blowing his attempt to help me. There's no point in telling him that I'm not super great at lying, so I don't usually bother since it tends to be more trouble than it's worth, and easier to just do what I said I was gonna do.
"Sorry, I didn't know the play," I tell him later as a way to patch things up, but he doesn't seem to mind one way or the other, so it's fine.
Wednesday, March 3, 2021
He Suspects I'm Not Real
I've only got a few minutes before we have to leave to meet our friend, so I make my trip to the grocery store brief: a few frozen meals for lunches at work, a couple of energy bars, a quick self-checkout, and I'm on my way.
But here, at the exit, I am blocked. A tall, middle-aged, blond man stands outside in front of the automatic door, talking earnestly into his wrist, triggering the sensor so that the door will not open outward from my side and kill him, as I would so dearly like to do at this moment.
I tap sharply on the glass, and he startles, surprised at the presence of other human beings in his world, before he moves off to one side with a partly sheepish, partly annoyed expression so I can leave.
Tuesday, March 2, 2021
A Letter To An Occupant
"Mail for you," our roommate sings, tossing the envelopes on the table.
"For me?" I exclaim in mock-delight.
"Well, mostly for Katie."
"This one says 'New York Resident,' so that's me," picking up one of the envelopes and waving it at him.
How To Hang Out
Monday, March 1, 2021
Called Out
Sunday, February 28, 2021
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!
Friday, February 26, 2021
Shut Up, Brain
New Music In The Pandemic
Wednesday, February 24, 2021
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.
Tuesday, February 23, 2021
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
Monday, February 22, 2021
My Excessive Enthusiasm Occasionally Alienates
"Okay," I say to the increasingly uncomfortable man whose girlfriend told me she was having trouble convincing him to go to Disney World. "Are you a Star Wars fan?"
"I like Star Wars," he admits reluctantly, looking like he very much regrets his decision to accompany her into the store to buy shoes today.
"I'm not as big a fan as some people," I continue as my unintentional harangue really starts to hit its stride, "but when I saw the full-size Millennium Falcon, I cried a little."
Saturday, February 20, 2021
Being A Woman
“That’s pretty much how I handled manicures in college. You could really just dip your fingertips in nail polish, wait for them to dry, and then wash the nail polish off your skin, leaving your nails with a perfect manicure!”
She goes back to showering while I shake my head and laugh. “There’s so much I don’t understand about being a woman,” I say.
DO NOT EAT
The silica gel packets ("DO NOT EAT") in the shoe boxes, along with the seasonably chilly weather, seem to be drying my hands out quite badly this winter. No matter how much I slather them with lotion, my palms crack, and touching anything only serves to remind me how destroyed they are.
Katie's hands are often a similar wreck after months of making many thousands of her pieces, and I say, "My hands look like this," raising my work-roughened hands, "so hers can also look like this." We laugh.
Friday, February 19, 2021
Ice
Wednesday, February 17, 2021
The Use Of the Mute Function
Personal Space
Tuesday, February 16, 2021
What Did He See?
I round the corner, only to find the sidewalk, not exactly blocked, but certainly obstructed, by a pretty big dude. He's standing between a pile of snow that extends the length of the curb covering a wide strip of the sidewalk, and the wall of the building, the corner of which I have just rounded, and he is staring, loose-jawed and blank-eyed, at something disconcertingly over my shoulder.
I turn to look at whatever has arrested his attention, but the only thing I see is a delivery guy on a moped, adjusting his helmet in the intersection.
I hug the wall and sidle past this behemoth, my nervous heart going a little faster, but he doesn't even move, or indeed even seem to notice me at all, and I continue on my way with him still staring at that intersection, even after the guy on the moped has ridden away.
Monday, February 15, 2021
Changing The Subject
Sunday, February 14, 2021
Overshare
Friday, February 12, 2021
Scritches Induced Narcolepsy
Thursday, February 11, 2021
Media Vita in Morte Sumus
Ecclesiastes 9:11
We spot each other at about the same time: both of us carrying packages, both of us heading in the same direction towards the post office about forty-five minutes before closing.
We both know the long lines that typically occur around this time at our local post office, so when she quickens her pace as we cross the street about a block from our destination, I do too. We're roughly parallel to one another, but my legs are longer, and as we stride between a couple of socially-distanced people having a conversation she clearly panics and, abandoning all semblance of decorum or dignity, begins to run.
I start laughing, because I know exactly why she's running, but when she arrives (only a few steps ahead of me), she sees the extensive length of the line, her shoulders slump in defeat, and she turns around and walks away, while I, still laughing, get in line, dead last, and wait my turn.
Wednesday, February 10, 2021
Missed Connections
Monday, February 8, 2021
Third Times A Charm
"Can you give me two dollars?" the guy without a mask asks me for the second time. The entire train car has already turned him down once, but I guess he's figuring that another pass through might change his luck.
Now he's standing at the door, shaking his head incredulously as I watch him out of the corner of my eye. "It's not working!" he says to himself in disbelief before coming down the train yet a third time to see if the first two times were a mistake.
Sunday, February 7, 2021
Putting On The Ritz
Saturday, February 6, 2021
I Know Why The Caged Bird Tweets
Nothing Is Forever
The graffiti on the subway door, written in small letters at a little over head height, reads “Trump forever.”
On seeing it, I bark a single, sardonic laugh, and then look around guiltily to see if anybody heard me, because laughing in public for no apparent reason, especially laughing like that, is sort of creepy. Afterwards, I sit staring at the offending graffiti, fantasizing about writing “sucks” between the first and second word, like I’m a child, only to decide that doing so would only add more nonsense for somebody to have to clean up.
A large black man gets up and stands in front of the door, waiting for the train to pull into the next station, and I watch him carefully, to observe his reaction to such obvious fuckery, but he doesn’t even appear to see it, and the doors slide open, disappearing the words, so he can get off the train and go about his totally normal day.
Thursday, February 4, 2021
The Real B-Word
Oldies
The grocery store is playing the usual medley of "oldies" over the sound system, and tonight, that means songs from more than twenty years ago, otherwise known as the greatest hits of the nineties.
An earnest young man from the increasingly distant past sings about rain falling angry on the tin roof, and I find myself thinking about recording a cover of the song at the request of my sister as a gift, and I sing along walking down the produce aisle.
A guy looking about my age is stocking the end cap with bags of Tostitos tortilla chips, and he's singing along too, which makes me smile.
About midway down the juice aisle, another guy with a little gray at the temples pushes a cart past bottles of apple and prune juice, and he's humming along to the chorus, and my smile grows a little rueful, knowing us all as I do.
Wednesday, February 3, 2021
Slush
The old man with the cane is avoiding the dangers of the only partially cleared sidewalks by walking in the streets, and the cars are just sort of going around him as he shuffles along.
Finally, though, he seems to need to get up off the street, and so he makes his way to a crosswalk to get on a corner.
"Careful, it's really deep right there," I point out as he's about to surmount a small snowbank down to a deep slush-puddle.
But apparently he doesn't hear me, because his next step dunks his canvas-sneaker-covered feet into icy curb slush, and he makes a small noise of distress before pulling himself out and moving on.
Monday, February 1, 2021
Sisyphean Snowstorm
Sunday, January 31, 2021
Snowy Night
In Disguise
Saturday, January 30, 2021
Sarcasm
Thursday, January 28, 2021
Legalize It
Wednesday, January 27, 2021
Getting a (Relaxed) Grip
The electric scooter is buzzing along, and I am having a great time, dropping down into the center of gravity that allows me to thumb the accelerator all the way down and swing my hips to weave through traffic.
Until I hit the long downhill stretch at the bottom of the park, and as I accelerate suddenly I find myself tightening up, gripping the handlebars too hard, trying to slow down, wobbling as my momentum fades, losing all my mojo. I'm reminded of when I was learning how to ski, the panic that sucked the life out of me, and how old I felt as agoraphobia gripped me and I imagined myself falling forever up into the sky.
I consciously slow my breathing, bend my knees, relax my hands, look down at the speedometer for a second to realize I'm not going much faster than a brisk walk, and then hit the accelerator and speed myself down the road.
Tuesday, January 26, 2021
Revelation
"You know how they say pepper is black?" I ask Katie as I storm into the bedroom from the kitchen. "But when it's ground up it's actually black and white!"
While I stand there, rapturous in the light of my revelation, Katie says, "Well, when pepper is whole it's black, which is probably where it comes from. Are you going to be okay today?" she adds.
Monday, January 25, 2021
New Words
Love Language
Saturday, January 23, 2021
Not What I Meant
Friday, January 22, 2021
A Problem With Lottery Tickets
By That Much
Wednesday, January 20, 2021
Tip Your Delivery Guy
Yeah, I Knew That
Tuesday, January 19, 2021
Birds Of A Different Feather
A red light and a couple of passing cars prevent me from crossing the intersection, but it's my lifelong tendency toward distraction that has me staring up into the sky when I see them: two enormous pigeons wheeling and soaring in the pale January sky above the brownstones.
But they're far too large to be pigeons; as my brain, which expects to see pigeons, starts to take in what's actually in the sky, I realize that one, with the muscular body and white underwings, is one of the hawks who lives over in Prospect Park a few blocks away, and the other, jet black with extended pinions like fingers grabbing the air, is a raven or a crow.
Almost as soon as I am able to process this, I lose sight of them behind the rooftops, the light changes to green, and I am tempted to wait there on the corner, mouth agape, staring at the sky to see if they come back.
I do not wait, but I am late for my train, regardless.
Sunday, January 17, 2021
Morning
The sun streaming through the front window refracts into multicolored light through the bottles on the bar cart. I write at my computer while the cat sleeps in her perch.
Outside, a baby screams its displeasure all the way down our block. The cat meows in irritation at the noise, stretches out a single paw that ends in vicious claws, then settles back into her slumber, tail wrapped around her nose.
What Did The Fist Say To The Face?
Saturday, January 16, 2021
Missed Connections
Friday, January 15, 2021
Herding
The small brown dog looks up expectantly at the young girl. Her attention is elsewhere, but his is entirely on her.
She gestures using her hat which she has been holding in one hand on this particularly mild evening, and the dog attempts to grab it with his mouth. Failing this, he circles her twice, then, when she moves on, he follows her, head high, happy to know he did his part to keep the pack intact.
Thursday, January 14, 2021
Concentration vs. Tension
Wednesday, January 13, 2021
The Things We Do For Love
Tuesday, January 12, 2021
On A Mission
Monday, January 11, 2021
Forgot
Sunday, January 10, 2021
New Band Name
Saturday, January 9, 2021
Don't Overthink
Thursday, January 7, 2021
Everywhere Signs
Wednesday, January 6, 2021
Epiphany
An Agent Of Small Chaos
Tuesday, January 5, 2021
Not Mad
Sunday, January 3, 2021
Separate But The Same
Saturday, January 2, 2021
Keep It To Myself
“What’s its name?” I ask the owner of the severe underbite attached to the face of a chunky English Bulldog in a baby carriage.
“His name is Juno,” she says proudly.
“Juno?” I ask, making sure I heard correctly.
She affirms that the dog is named Juno, which is a female goddess’s name, but I decide not to point that out, because Juno seems happy, and the owner is happy, and what the hell do I care?