1/4/10 cold to warm

I walk out of Ray's room to retrieve my sweater, our evening's output blaring over the speakers while we pack up our gear for the night, and find Liz standing in the kitchen. She looks displeased to see me, though not just me, necessarily, just anyone, but she manages a wan smile and a hello, and even an impersonal hug. I leave unsettled by her chilly reception, trying not to take it personally.

Back in Brooklyn, Tame Impala comes on the headphones: "Everyday/back and forth/what's it for?/Desire be, desire go"; I realize it's got nothing to do with me, I say a silent little wish for her happiness, and continue upstairs to my home.

1/3/11 Ascension Day

Yesterday's fog lifts, and after a day at my job, I feel more like myself than I have in several days. I like the routine, having somewhere to go and useful work to do there.

The sun is setting as I come up from my train in Brooklyn, and as I walk down Seventh Avenue, listening to Talk Talk, wrapped in a warm coat, on my way home, I relax back into my skin. The sky darkens, the lights come up along my street as we dodge the snow drifts, my chest relaxes like someone's snipped the rubber bands that were holding me in - I'm back.

11/25/10 everyone

He stands in front of the bank, shifting from foot to foot, his face a mask of pitiful hope, while his eyes calculate every passerby. I'm trying not to ignore things, but I know if I make eye contact, I'll raise his expectations, so I walk toward the curb and let him accost another pedestrian with his "Happy Thanksgiving" that sounds like a curse.

As I cross the street, a little boy on the other side of the street scoots up to the crosswalk. "Candy for everyone!" he shouts, his arm sweeping to include me, the beggar in front of the bank, the gray November afternoon, Brooklyn, the world.

11/10/10 Contrasts

I sit on the mat in the half-light before the sun comes up, and breathe deeply. My mat faces roughly east, as it has in almost every apartment I've ever lived that suited me at all, and I can see out the windows on the front of our building clouds lit from below by the rising sun shading from a vivid pink to a brilliant gold against a gray sky.

My wedding ring clicks on the wood floor as I shift to a new position in my routine. I never take it off.

3-4-10 - late edition.

Last night, as I walked along Union Street, a dormer window high above the street was lit, and silhouetted in the bottom frame was a large dog. He was lit just enough by the street lamps and the ambient light of Brooklyn to see that he was white, and fluffy, with large, intelligent ears that turned before his head did while he watched the passers-by on the street below. I tried to take his picture, but the phone on my camera was insufficient to capture his curiosity, and since I was across the street, he was too far away anyway.

My mom called this assessment of the view out a window by animals "reading the newspaper" and that phrase always tickled me; just a big, white dog, reading the newspaper - late edition.

11/11/09 - Nicholson Baker's "Box of Matches" inspired me

Bicycling through Prospect Park on a mildly chilly Fall day, the leaves spin lazy whorls through the gray air like they just don't care. I taste that sour-spicy smell of decaying leaves, cold, and soil that is specifically fall, and nostalgia hits me so hard I almost start crying. So many good things that I had to destroy, so many things that I thought I could never have again, all coming back to me, and I am so grateful.

"I'm here," I say out loud, to remind myself that I am, and I put nostalgia aside for a minute so I don't miss a second, push the pedals again, watch the leaves gather into drifts on the side of the road.

7/19/09 - C.H.U.D.

The subway tunnel we stood in was walled up at either end, and the tracks were long gone beneath 150 years of dirt and neglect. The air was cold and clammy, and Katie shivered a little as the group we were touring the long lost "Oldest Subway Tunnel in the World" with played their flashlights up and down the whitewashed bricks that arched above us, and down the half a mile of dark tunnel punctuated by the occasional bare lightbulb.

The overweight, greasy, pallid man who guided the tour would sit down every hundred yards or so to tell us stories about the history of the tunnel in a rushed, out of breath voice that seemed to me to indicate that he'd simply like to get us out of here as quickly as possible, perhaps so he could go back to gnawing on the bones of unwary tourists who'd fallen behind. Things decay so quickly in the damp and cold, and, as long as you didn't know where to look, there would be lots of places to put the remains.

7/18/09 - Joy at watching a friend succeed

The heat began to depart, chased by a cool breeze, as Abena got up on the stage at Prospect Park bandshell to play her set for Africa Day. She was so beautiful in her colorful clothes, and I was shocked at how the year since I'd seen her perform had changed her. Friends that I also hadn't seen in ages stood up and began to dance while this powerful, commanding stage presence took control of the crowd and rocked the party quite capably.

Later, eating carrots and hummus up on the hill above the rows of chairs that led to the stage, I embraced a friend I hadn't really spoke to in years, tears in my eyes, and told her how much I had missed her, missed all of them, missed a bit of myself, even in spite of my need to be alone, sometimes.

6/10/09 - Exemplary Moments in Racial Harmony

I'm taking the garbage out before riding my bike over to see Katie tonight when, from behind me, a smoky voice says menacingly, "I got you now."

I spin around, heart pounding, but it's only Mary, the lady who lives upstairs from me.

Seeing my terrified expression, she laughs, a throaty, raspy chuckle, that almost turns into a cough.

Without thinking, I blurt out, "Oh my God, Mary, you really spooked me!"

5/23/09 - Wycoff when you can sneeze?

The Wycoff Farmhouse was built in the 1600's, and is one of the oldest (if not THE oldest) structures in New York. It lies in a non-descript block in Brooklyn, surrounded by a small plot of green grass and what looks like a raised garden (heavy with flowers after this wet spring), all of which is in turn surrounded by a high wrought iron fence. When I rode to see it yesterday, I rolled right past, as it was so out of context with the rest of the block (a garage on one side, a ConEd substation across the street). I almost couldn't reconcile it with the garbage, the traffic, the two guys getting under a car with a jack, and if I hadn't known it was there, I might have missed it.

6-22-08 Seriously, is it just me?

I'm walking out of the bodega with my laundry over my shoulder as someone is trying to come in. I don't want to accidentally bump into him, and so I say, preemptively, "Pardon me."

Dude turns around and follows me out the store and a few feet down the street before stopping and watching me walk away. I make it about half-way down the block before turning around, and he is on the phone, occasionally looking my way as I continue to my apartment building.

6-21-08 That's Mer-MAN!

Went to the mermaid day parade - my first ever, and maybe the last ever, too. Watched the cars and various freaks walking by in their self-involved finery, until about three-quarters of the way through, we got bored and decided to go on rides.

The Cyclone Rollercoaster is (still) a rattling, rust-bucket death-trap, but the Wonder Wheel may be one of my favorite rides ever. The height, the perspective, the swinging cars that give small, occasional thrills instead of the overstimulation of the Neck-Breaker or whatever the hell that ride was I went on that almost made me throw up (it was the Breakdancer).

6-15-08 Well, thank god I got THAT over with

I could see them coming over a block away - three guys, one crosses the street, the other two come on. "Here we go," I think to myself.

Hoods up, they're within striking distance, I try to go around, the one blocks my way, the other saying, "Gimmie your money."

They leave with 20 bucks and a couple of bruises, while I leave exhilerated and furious, but otherwise unharmed (details will be found here when I get around to writing, but suffice to say, I'm fine, and feel that I acquitted myself rather well).

6-14-08 Cyberdyne and Swedish Decor

Katie and I ride our bikes out to Red Hook, looking for a farmer's market we've read about. After a brief incident with another popped tire, we find the farm, but no market.

Across the street from the farm (Red Hook seems like the edge of the world, no tall buildings, just waterfront, then water, and then what feels like next stop Europe) is the new Ikea, its hulking and monstrous bulk disguised in primary blue and yellow paint in much the same way that one would attempt to disguise a rhino by dressing it in a party hat.

Katie stares up at its sprawl and vast, lunatic cheerfulness for a few seconds before saying, in a terrified voice, "on August 4, it becomes self-aware!"

6-11-08 It couldn't be more perfect

Riding my bicycle to see Katie, it feels like a burden I've been carrying is lifting from my shoulders. The air is cool, the sun setting as the sky fades to pink, it's my favorite time of day, and riding is one of my favorite things to do - I'm completely happy in an uncomplicated way.

Suddenly there's a sound like a snake has climbed onto my bike, and the front tire goes rapidly flat. A shard of glass, almost 3/8's of an inch long has punctured my front tire in a way that I couldn't have planned if I'd wanted it.

6-1-08 There, but for the grace of God...

Walking home from the subway after my show opened, a long walk straight down Classon Street from the G Train through Fort Greene, and it’s mostly a pretty nice neighborhood, but I have trouble letting go of my fear (is this group of people walking toward me going to hurt me? will that guy try to mug me? will I have to fight? will I have to run?). A beautiful tortoise-shell cat with a white face and green eyes walks around a tree in my path, and I make my usual “tsk-tsk-tsk” noise to get its attention, expecting it to run off, as strays usually do.

Instead it begins following me, meowing, almost running to keep up, plaintively looking up into my face to beg (something, what?) of me, and I begin to be a little worried about this very friendly cat – I mean, I can’t take it home with me because of my cat, what do I do? – until it stops in front of a door on the street and begins rubbing on the wall beside it, obviously comfortable and at home.

My heart breaks for a little cat that doesn’t know how to open a door when it wants to go inside, but I see the homeless guy on the street and I think, “ah, he probably did something to fuck up his life,” and there’s not really a difference – both are confused, lacking certain skills to be able to help themselves, maybe made a bad decision, went outside once too often and forgot how to get back in.

5-31-08 Camels of the Heights of Guam

Katie and I stopped by a historic site in Park Slope called the Old Stone House. The informational placard on the outside relates that the house was built in the 1600's on the hills of what is now Park Slope which at the time was called "The Heights of Guam" back when Brooklyn was run by the Dutch and spelled Breuklen.

The humid day wrapped around us with slightly cold clammy hands, and we walked around Park Slope saying "Breuklen" over and over, in faux-Dutch accents.

Katie then stopped into a store a bought a shirt with camels on it, and by the time we got out, a breeze had blown the humidity away.

5-30-08 Jesus Loves Me (but you may still be crazy)

As I'm walking to work through my neighborhood, a black man on a bike with a leopard print cane stops me. "'Scuse me, but why would you want to live here?" He asks.

We talk about some things, my money situation, my girlfriend, where I used to live, and he offers me advice on not getting mugged ("Don't let anybody take advantage of you," he says, and it takes me a minute to recognize what he's talking about), before telling me about how he and his wife go around talking to people about God.

Just then, a white woman with sad, pious, watery eyes rides up on another bike, and she proceeds to rattle off a string of almost unintelligible blessings: "Maythelordorallcreationbleesyouandwatchoveryouandgrantyouallspiritualandmaterialblessingsandmayyoubewashedinthebloodofthelamb. Do you love Jesus?"

"Of course!" I say, and shake both their hands before walking away into a sunny morning full of light.

5-28-08 And they Struck the Motherlode

Rehearsed at a loft in Williamsburg, and it was full of funky, interesting people doing their various artistic things. Knick-knacks and bricolage art all over the walls, multi-colored paintings of bulls and people, black and white photographs of cats and slightly out-of-focus women looking longingly into the distance, a chess set with shot glasses for pieces, crates and crates and crates full of old records, men and women walking the corridors in various states of dishevelment, old, enormous rusted tools laid out attractively on ramshackle wooden shelves, unmatched but beautiful old furniture placed all over: all indicators of the certain type of young, artistic, person who would naturally gravitate to Williamsburg in the early years of the 21st century.

We were given the tour of the (surprisingly large) space that had been subdivided into individual rooms, and came upon the (again, surprisingly large) kitchen area, the cavernous nature and wooden floors of which caused one of our number to remark, "It reminds me of a mining colony."

"Yeah," I replied, "a colony where they mine for cool."

5-27-08 Storm's coming

The sky glowers with heavy dark gray clouds, thick with rain and bruised-looking. The wind sifts through the leaves and bends the trees with heavy, fat fingers, and pushes bags full of garbage rolling along the street. I lean into the wind as I walk home from the subway, all thoughts of crime and the depression of my neighborhood blown away in the weather, happy with the feeling of being very small on a very big planet. Big weather reminds me that everything placed here by human hands, all this city and industry that we are so proud of, can be shaken off and reduced to rubble by the earth so much as twitching it's skin.