The More Things Change, Part 2

The F train passes high above Brooklyn at this point, on its way to the highest subway station in the world. In the west, traffic passes back and forth across the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, but somehow in the benevolent light of sunset, everything seems serene and unhurried, even the 18-wheelers and the junkers and the pickup trucks.

"Hey, I haven't been here since they refurbished this station," I say as the train pulls in and stops at the platform. 

Everything looks new and shiny, but the mosaics that they use to show the station name look crude and shabby, not at all like the elaborate, sophisticated ones they made back when the subways were new.

Apophenia

The "room of requirement," really just a spare room in our apartment where we keep a lot of inconvenient stuff that we don't really know what to do with, is not living up to its name today. We've torn it apart, and we still haven't found Katie's bike helmet. 

Irrationally, I decide that if she doesn't have a helmet, I won't wear one either (though looking back now I'm having a difficult time seeing how that would help either of us).

Still, it takes me miles before I'm hypnotized enough by the road to lose the creeping sense of dread that one or both of us is going to die today because we didn't recognize the universe hiding Katie's bike helmet as a sign that we shouldn't go out today.

The More Things Change

"That place used to be a French Roast," I say, pointing to a hideous new, faux-50's style diner complete with gaudy neon and chrome trimmed linoleum tables. "One night when I first moved here, I sat in there and ate a creme brûlée and watched it snow these beautiful, huge fuzzy flakes. New York is changing so much."

A few blocks further down we find the actual French Roast, still bustling and cute and very much a going concern.

A Good Idea

The urinals are too close together, with no dividing wall, so I duck into one of the stalls to pee. It's a long one (I drank a lot of yerba mate this morning), and the other guy, who's finished before me, is adjusting his suit and checking his face out in the mirror as I emerge.

I begin washing my hands, doing a thorough job of it, with soap and all (in my head I'm also reciting the alphabet song, which I'm told is an appropriate amount of time to wash in order to get all the germs off), and I see, out of the corner of my eye, the other guy notice me doing so.

He thinks for a moment, and then reaches down and begins washing his hands, too.

I Wish You Would Stay, 'cation.

Vacation's almost over. The air outside is warm and wet, the thickness of it barely mitigated by the occasional light breeze.

I walk down Fifth Avenue in the sunshine to the doctor's office yet again, where I've spent far too many days of this time off. To reward myself, I'll get a donut afterwards, and think about all the writing I got done, the World Cup games I watched, the days I got to sleep in and the nights I got to stay up talking to my wife.

Illness

I must have finally passed out on the couch, despite the hacking cough which is the reason I came out here to sleep in the first place.

When she realizes I'm not in bed she comes out to find me.

"Well," I say, "I knew you had to work tomorrow, so I figured you'd sleep better without me hacking away all night."

"Pookie, I don't care, just come to bed."

"Upside?"

After I get our bikes upstairs, I flop on the couch and check my phone. Sure enough, there's a message, and from less than 10 minutes ago, too.

"Scott, it's Doctor A calling you," he says, his rich, maybe Israeli(?) accent coming through the tiny phone speaker. "Your blood work is on the upside of normal, but your ultrasound has some benign issues, which I need to talk to you about when you call tomorrow."