Four Buildings

1. The peak of the roof, a false fourth floor on an otherwise unremarkable red brick building, festooned with what looks like flowered terracotta tiles, reads "1886", which I can only assume is the year of construction, but the the thing looks so humble, ordinary, nondescript, that I can't believe it dates from before Brooklyn was even a part of New York City.

2. Yellow breeze block, industrial squat and businesslike, but framed above in blue sky and scudding clouds, with a sluggish green river below, all viewed through a lattice of scaffold.

3. Swimming with hard-hatted workers, swathed in funereal gray netting, like mirrors shrouded for a shiva house mourning the death of the old West Side.

4. There's a crack that runs from the street, through the sidewalk, and up the front of my building, and at least once a year I think about what it will be like when the earth opens up and swallows my home.

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One year ago: The Question

Two years ago: Our New Friend

Three years ago: The Evening Commute - 2 (Disappearer)

Four years ago: True Story

Leather Shoes

When I describe the butterfly sculptures Katie makes, there's always one person who takes the side of the bugs, and today, it's this lady.

"But isn't it sad that the butterflies died?" she says, her face twisting up in a show of pity.

"It's funny, isn't it," I say, as if I'm musing about something altogether unrelated to her question, "that the people who say that are often wearing leather belts, or shoes, or carrying around leather bags."

"That's true," she says, nodding in agreement, and I get to watch with great satisfaction the realization slowly dawn across her face as she figures out to whom I'm referring.

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One year ago: Speaking Too Soon

Two years ago: I Feel The Jerk

Three years ago: The Evening Commute - One

Four years ago: I Mean, We Can't Just Leave Them For The Eagles

Four Subways

1. The doors shut with him on the wrong side, and he smiles a forced grin, teeth bared, as if he'd like to bite something.

2. Pressed up against the door, peering deep into her phone, long straight hair shrouding her bored expression.

3. If the C comes then I'll take that to Hoyt and transfer to the G to 7th Avenue and walk down to the donut shop but then the A comes and so it's that to West 4th to transfer to the F to 7th Avenue and I still get donuts.

4. The descent from the highest train station in New York City (in the world!) sends us soaring over apartment buildings and shops below, and for just a second, we're above it all, but the woman sitting next to me grooves to the music in her headphones, oblivious to the gorgeous view, happy anyway.
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One year ago: Work It Out
Three years ago: Dolly Zoom
Four years ago: Cat People vs. Dog People

Stress Shed

The dog, demented old thing that she is, stands at the door and barks at the nothing with hysterical ferocity.

Our admonitions and attempts to reassure her help not at all, so finally I just scoop her up and start carrying her around with me (her thick floofy weight against my chest, her tongue lolling out of her crooked head), which seems to calm her some until we finally settle on the couch to watch TV.

She's alright for a while, still keeping a watchful eye on the door for whatever her calcifying brain thinks is coming, but eventually her vigilance turns to agitation, and she's squirming on my lap, twisting and whining.

When I finally let her down I am covered in a thin scum of gray fur, and she staggers back to the door to confront her incorporeal pursuer again.
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One year ago: I'm An Object Lesson
Two years ago: Final Push
Three years ago:"We Haven't Had That Spirit Here Since 1969"
Four years ago: That's Not What I Asked

Four Men

1. Bald on top, a ring of bushy hair over the ears and wrapping around the back of the head, heavy set in an ill-fitting gray suit with red sports backpack, hunched over, asleep like a child sleeps, unselfconscious and innocent.

2. Coughing, but in Russian.

3. Suspicious, as if I might be eyeing the woman he so clearly believes he possesses.

4. Black doo rag and a thick frayed nylon belt the same shade, itching a pencil-thin mustache with his index finger wrapped in a bandage tinted pink with what might be blood.
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One year ago: Perfectly Decent
Two years ago: Performance Anxiety
Four years ago: What's Her Story

Four Women

1. With an expression that confronts everything she sees as a mildly unpleasant surprise.

2. Working out her own grimoire in tattoos on bruised skin.

3. Can't operate the camera on her iPhone.

4. The metallic screech of the subway on the walls of the tunnel makes her cover her eyes with weary hands.
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One year ago: His Life Matters
Two years ago: Holey Soles
Three years ago: So Close, Yet So Far
Four years ago: All Us Babies

Do You Even Lift?

I'm double parked in the Uhaul outside Katie's office while she runs upstairs, and the traffic is backed up all along the block.

A tan, good-looking dude-bro in a baseball cap leans out of the cab stopped next to me with his hand up, shouting, "High five, dude!"

Sure, why not, so I lean out and give him his high-five, noticing as I do how thick and strong his hand is, but smooth, soft, and uncalloused, as if he's never worked a day in his life.

As the light changes, his very attractive girlfriend leans across the seat and says earnestly, "Good luck with your move."
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One year ago: They Don't Make Me Money
Two years ago: Dog v. God
Three years ago: Ice Cream Sutra
Four years ago: Snapshots of Prospect Park