2-Stars, Would Not Ride Again

The driver made a crucial error in where he's placed his GPS, because now, every time he drives right into the red outline indicating traffic jams, we can see the route he should have taken. 

Beside me, Katie's fuming is threatening to burst into flame.

The increasingly erratic driver, in a move that baffles us, turns down a seemingly random Chinatown side street, and suddenly we are careening down a narrow alley lined with spherical, brightly colored paper lanterns and signs covered in flame-like letters we cannot read.

My mounting frustration is forgotten in the novelty of the view, until we end up at Canal Street, arguably the worst street to be on during rush hour traffic, and I can almost hear, from across the back seat, the sound of Katie grinding her teeth to powder.

Works On People Too

The Bernese Mountain Dog splayed across the floor gazes up with soulful eyes as I approach his owners.

"Sorry, ma'am, I think you spilled your dog," I joke, and the mountain of fur and love leaps to his feet and begins rubbing the entirety of his body on me, wriggling and whining with joy.

"My wife says that if I'm ever feeling bad, I should just find a dog and tell him that he's a good boy, so, 'You're such a good boy!'" I tell them as the dog continues to shove me around the room. "Because then, you make the dog's day better, and you make your day better too."

Let 'Em Look

I stand at the sink in my underwear and fill up my and Katie's water bottles for the night, like I do every night. Turning my head, I look out the kitchen window into the darkness of the backyard, and at the glowing lights of the apartment building that looms over one side of it. 

I read somewhere that if you don't have a naked neighbor, you probably ARE the naked neighbor. I turn the water off, screw the bottles tight so they don't spill in the night, and go to bed.

New York Is Context

The cold air of an autumn's night claps me on the back like an old friend as I climb out of the earth from the subway. 

As I'm about to round the corner, a flash of color and movement catches my eye from the street, and I turn to see a man, a Jewish man from his black orthodox-approved hat, to his white shirt, to the tzitzis hanging out over his black pants, riding on an electric scooter, much like the one I own. Strapped to the front of his scooter is a flag pole, and from this flag pole, streaming out behind him like he's going into battle, is a giant yellow flag, at least six feet long and four feet high, covered by a picture of crown surmounted by the word "MOSIACH" in all-caps.

He weaves in and out of traffic, nonchalant and triumphant, until he disappears up Flatbush and into the night.

Uncouth

I come out of the daze of my phone screen to find a woman staring at me from across the train aisle. I’ve done nothing I’m aware of that might elicit enmity, so I put my phone away and look around the car.

She relaxes, leans back, and puts her foot up on the pole directly in front of her seat. This seems a bit uncouth, but nothing I haven’t seen before, so I continue looking around, while the man next to me, seeing the sole of her foot towards him, sighs and rolls his eyes.

Times I Went Outside Today: 2

At the bottom of the stairs, I shoulder the enormous bag of laundry and trudge down to the corner. I think of peasants carrying enormous bags of sticks, like on that Led Zeppelin album cover. 

At the laundromat, I drop it off after receiving assurances that I can pick it up, clean and dry and folded, before the end of the day, a privilege for which I will pay dearly, and then head back home. The cloudy sky that has been threatening rain all morning begins to pour in earnest, and I wrap my flannel around me and run across the street, my size 12 Converse flapping on the rapidly wetting asphalt until I'm safely under the awning of the real estate office around the corner from my apartment, and I walk under that until I'm safely home.

Sources Of Light

Sunset reflecting off the metal subway car wall bright as a burning filament above a woman bent over her phone. The phone is a weaker light, but she can barely look away to acknowledge the enormous ball of nuclear fire sinking into the west over New Jersey. She looks up and squints into the real as it bands across her eyes.

I pull out my phone to type this, despite the notebook and pen in my bag.