1/2/12 Shopping with the Visigoths

We took some stuff back to the stores today, going into Manhattan and braving the hordes that, contrary to our expectations, initially seemed to have stayed home. We only had a few things that didn't fit which we exchanged for the correct sizes at their respective stores, and we accomplished our early missions easily and quickly.

Until we arrived... at Macy's, where the hordes had been all along, tearing apart the displays of marked down shoes, and leaving the racks of discounted (up to 40%!) sweaters and ladies separates in tattered disarray.

When we left Brooklyn this morning, the sun was shining on a beautiful, crystal blue Monday, and by the time we got back home from our descent into the maelstrom, it was dark, and cold, and a desolate wind blew through our broken, disillusioned souls.

10/28/11 - What's the worst that could happen?

The bus driver dropped me off right by the subway stop with the friendly suggestion that I enjoy my weekend, and I stepped off the bus with a little spring in my step.

I patted my left front pocket with my habitual gesture, checking to make sure I had my usual implements, phone, wallet, and felt a sudden shock of cold panic as I realized I did not have my phone. The bus still stood at the curb, waiting for the light to change, and I briefly considered running back to search where I had been sitting, only to remember I'd been checking the weather right before I left home this morning to go to work, and that it was probably sitting lonely on the coffee table, offering up time and temperature to an empty room.

"Well," I thought, "I probably don't need a phone today anyway," wondering as I walked to the train if I had inadvertently doomed New York to a day filled with disasters, train delays, missed connections, and terrorist attacks.

11/22/10 snapshots of a commute

A guy in a wide brimmed hat stands up on the train, says, "Excuse me," to me before we reach the stop, and I tell him I'm getting out too, just so he'll relax a little. When we get West Fourth, however, I realize it's not my stop, and I pretend I'm getting out after him, only to get back on to continue my ride to work.

Walking down the tunnel, a man reading a paper steps in a pink and white splatter of vomit, but he doesn't notice and continues on his way, trailing wet footprints on the stones.

In Grand Central, a traditional Peruvian band plays "The Old Rugged Cross" on the pan flutes, and I emerge into the grey New York morning, giggling to myself.

11/21/10 A little forceful

Kevin and I stand outside the movie theater in Union Square while Kev rolls a cigarette and Katie finishes a phone call with her father. A stumbling, slurring bald black man in sweats rolls up to us and asks for change? a smoke? something unintelligible through a haze of alcohol that I can smell from 3 feet away. I put up my hand, look him in the eye, say, "Sorry, man" and return to my conversation, and Kevin apologizes for not having anything to give to him.

The man's eyes widen in surprise, and as he staggers away I hear him say, "Man, I wouldn't a minded you didn't have nothing, but that guy [indicating me] was serious!"

9/18/09 - Get the Cool Shoeshine

The latina woman who shines shoes in the shop in the breezeway tunnel below Grand Central is asleep curled up in her chair with one cheek resting on her fist when I walk into the shop. The neon sign on the window says "Keys Made Shoe Repair" in glowing red, and a paper sign below that says "Holiday Special $2 Shine".

She awakens without embarrassment and motions me into the chair where she proceeds to enact a very practical ritual with a minimum of wasted motion - brushing and wiping and spraying and shining and spraying and buffing and snapping the cloth and buffing some more until the shoe glows blackly beneath the greenish flourescent lights.

I ascend the stairs and walk into the sunlit day beneath a blue sky, and my shoes feel like magic on my feet - cooler, better fitting, dancing their way down the street with me in them, pulling me along the sidewalk through the day.

7/15/09 - Nice try, asshole

The big, black guy with the narrow head and the crazy eyes turns, just as I walk past, making sure to smack my hand with his hand, and I hear something fall to the ground a second later.

"Hey," he calls to me, showing me the glasses that barely fit his head and the obviously old, sharp crack right in the center of one lens. Looking as mean as he can, he says, "Can you do something to fix this?"

"Sorry, man, I don't have any money." I say, walking away.

7/12/09 - on returning

We return to New York mid-day to find glorious weather, a perfect reminder of why we love this city, but New York is also instantly one of the most annoying cities in the world, with its ridiculous traffic and price-gouging cabbies and crowded sidewalks where no one seems to know how to walk without knocking somebody down.

We take a walk to enjoy the Brooklyn late-afternoon sunshine after we've had some dinner and a couple of drinks. On the corner, a man rummages in a garbage can singing quietly to himself, "If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere...."

Katie says, "Sir, might I suggest you try your luck elsewhere."

6/27/09 - Blessings

The Highline Park is packed on this mostly-sunny, unsettled day, and we are surrounded by hundreds of people, but no one seems to notice as I get on one knee and open the box with the ring to ask the question I've been waiting to ask. After the obligatory calls to the parents there's pictures on cell phones sent to friends without explanation in hopes of blowing their minds.

As we run to the subway, the clouds that have been gathering over Jersey finally begin their assault on Manhattan, but when we come above ground in Brooklyn, the sun shines bright through the pouring rain. I look East, following the path of the storm, to see a rainbow bending across the sky, and I get the feeling that we have been blessed.

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.

6-23-08 Central Park, hot as balls

A hot day, and Central Park has a green, growing smell that takes me back ten years to the first month I was in New York. Having spent most of my life in the desert, I was amazed at this smell, the moisture in the air, the different quality of life, everything.

Right now, I'm wandering through the park, looking for the area where I'll be rehearsing a Shakespeare Play I'm writing the music for, sweating balls and carrying my guitar around. I finally get tired of looking and sit down on a rock, reading the novel I'm also carrying around like a brick in my back pack, while the mosquitoes feast on my flesh.

6-17-08 The Party Boat

The company I work for rents a boat to take the employees out for a night. The food is decent, the company pleasant, the drinks free, and the music a (very small) step above a wedding DJ.

A full moon rises above the city, one of the greatest cities in the world. We pass beneath Brooklyn Bridge and I stand on the top deck, watching it all pass by, the city and the bridge and all of it glittering in the sunset while a huge orange moon slowly lifts into the sky, and I think, "I am so lucky to live here, so lucky to see this all right here and now."

3-12-08 fragments

I receive an email from Katie today and it says, "The Wiener Mobile parks backwards in Times Square." As cryptic as that sounds, it turns out that every word of that sentence is true.

Played saxophone for the first time in ages tonight. Doesn't take much to remember that a) I always feel good after I play and b) I kinda like playing when I'm playing, but don't when I'm not, which is probably a function (as are most things that I'm a bit neurotic about) of the fact that my parents always made me practice, even when I didn't want to.

2-11-08 Never Complain, Never Explain

On Saturday, we went down to Chinatown on a whim, not thinking of the thousands who might be joining us, what with it being Chinese New Year and all.

It wasn't nearly as crowded as you might expect, and we got to see the shortest celebratory puppet dragon ever (two guys beneath the puppet, followed by two more rather older-looking gentlemen, one playing a drum, the other clapping cymbals together in a relatively stirring fashion as they wound their way over the crowded sidewalks), as well as a man at a market serving a durian fruit. He sliced open the thick, thorny rind and scooped out the vaugely fetal looking sections of pulp while we stood around and gaped like the psuedo-tourists we were.

Then we went to a Malaysian restaurant where I could eat exactly 2 things on the menu (the rest of the menu was populated with oddities like duck's web, squid ink, frogs, jelly fish, and the like), and so I ordered the vegetable curry, the leftovers which I ate today for lunch, sweetened with a little coconut milk to alleviate the killing heat that brutalized me on Saturday.

1-22-08 Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again

A brief gale of depression and ennui derailed me from my goal, but I return, humbled, and requesting your indulgence.

I turn on the Weather Channel in the morning as I eat breakfast, and the music they play over the highs and lows for cities across the U.S. is soothing and innocuous, like elevator music. It is practically void of emotional or intellectual content, like a government report or the whirring of a ceiling fan.

A fight seems to break out on the platform as I ride the train to work, a scuffling of feet and angry voices, but as the train pulls away, the two men are walking along, smiling, shoulder to shoulder as they walk, talking like New Yorkers often talk, i.e. loudly and aggressively.

1-11-08 A New York Moment

A man crossing the street in front of us is cut off in the crosswalk by a cab turning left. He says something to the cabbie (presumably about driving etiquette, though it may have been about his parentage, this being New York and all) and the cabbie begins to curse at him. So now the cab is blocking the whole crosswalk, and the cabbie is arguing with this pedestrian about how he's in the right.

"If you're in such a hurry, keep driving!" I shout, and the cabbie looks startled for a second, as if he's never thought of it, and then drives on.

1-8-08 open heart surgery

I get out of work and head toward the subway to go home, but something inside, some ache, like a voice that wants to sing, says "Take a walk, man," and so I walk, without plan or direction.

The sun sets, and I reach a set of stairs that lead up to an overpass that looks out across the East River, where I stand watching the fireflies of the skyline of Queens and Brooklyn come to themselves after the long stupor of day. I see down to the cabs sweeping by on the streets below and my chest breaks open, and a burning hand reaches in and touches my heart, and I am suddenly blazing with love for everything I can see: the river, the sky, the cabs, the Chrysler Building shining like a hood ornament, the dirty sidewalks, my foolish hands on the railing, the bus gliding by on its way back to noplace in particular.

Other people can see it, too, I think, and more than one person locks eyes with me and smiles as I walk the busy streets around Grand Central Terminal at rush hour, beaming like a crazy person, glorying in how beautiful, beautiful, beautiful this city, this world, has suddenly become, for no good reason, no reason at all.

12-30-07 - She'll be coming round the mountain

Katie came back from North Carolina last night. She has a tough time kissing me or, for the first few minutes, even looking at me, when she first sees me after a long absence. Whenever it's been a while since she's seen me, she always claims I "look different", which makes a certain amount of sense, given how much my appearence changes as my hair grows, or as I gain or lose weight.

It's none the less annoying for being true, however.