We Know Our Own

The woman in the hoodie with ears and a rainbow mane spots the woman in the fuchsia and black striped tights the same time I do. Striped tights is reading a comic book.

Rainbow mane hoodie walks by, slows down, peers over the shoulder of striped tights, curious to see what she's reading. I think of dogs passing each other on the street, friendly and curious by default, having recognized a kindred soul, sniffing to see what the other has found.

That's On Me

"Well, you stayed up a little later spreading butterflies, so we went to bed a little late," I say.

She straightens up from washing her face in the sink and looks at me skeptically in the mirror. "Sounds a little like you're blaming me," she says.

"No, I should've gotten my shit together," I say, sighing.

Back to the Grind

After a week off, it's only three hours or so in front of a computer before I feel stupid. I can't remember shit, and the piles of papers I left before Christmas now actively offend me, for some reason.

And now this column of numbers I'm trying to reconcile from a list of signatures is refusing to add up properly. I pause, breathe deeply while massaging my temples, and recount, somehow managing to get yet a third, entirely different number from the previous two I'd come up with.

An Ill(-ish) Wind, Part 2

I'm sitting at the flea market, minding Katie's booth and my own business, when out of nowhere, a wave of something like sadness wells right up from my feet and through my suddenly tender heart to my throat, where it catches on a lump. It's a sudden access of compassion and pity for the entire stupid human race, all of us striving and misunderstanding each other and trying as hard as we can to get love and fucking it up almost every time because we don't know how.

Not a second later, just a few feet away, a baby lets out a cry that quickly ratchets up a register into a wail as his mother leans over, desperate to discover the problem.

I wonder if it's like what happened the other week, only this time, instead of clumsiness, it's existential sorrow and sympathy.

If Someone Tells You They're Crazy, Believe Them

"I like your Looney Tunes shirt," I say. It's a plain white button-down, with the heads of Wile E. Coyote, Elmer Fudd, Bugs Bunny, Tweety, and Sylvester running down the front.

"Thanks, and proud of it," she answers.

"Just to be clear," I say as she continues to nod enthusiastically, "you're telling me you're Looney Tunes?"

The Holidays Bring Up Feelings

"Why you lookin' at me? Don't look at me like you know me!" he says threateningly to the guy who always begs for spare change outside my front door.

It seems to end there, with the angry guy going in the bodega across the street, leaving the beggar standing in the overcast morning starting at the ground with his head down.

But when I come back from taking the doge on her walk, the beggar seems to be gone, until I spot him on the other side of the street, hiding behind a tree.

What, 'Cause She's Black?

"Yeah, she's pretty old," I tell the kid hanging outside his apartment smoking. 

As the doge and I prepare to continue our walk the kid says, "Well, Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, you know."

"The dog probably celebrates Kwanzaa, right?" he adds as an afterthought.