Someone Great

The video store in my neighborhood is closing.  I was just perusing the shelves in Evergreen Video when I overhead a stream of well-wishers coming into to express their regret and condolences to the staff.  This is a real blow, not just because it is one more example of the constant onslaught of hyper-gentrification in Manhattan, but because

Scat

It was incredibly beautiful weather today - - 70 degrees, mostly clear sky, no wind.  I walked to work, which took me a delighftul hour (I haven’t done that since the transit strike over a year ago), and wondered why I don’t do it every day.  Then I realized that every day isn’t flawless, that so many days in New York it’s a little too breezy, or a little too cold, or a little too hot and sweaty.  Like those days when you’re walking past an overfilled trash can on a Monday, and the swirl of odors baked in the humid sun smells like somebody took sin and turned it into a cheese. 

It’s like one of those bobblehead dolls

Sometimes I’m walking down the street in less than snug pants and I detect a certain wobbliness in my rear nether regions.  I could chalk it up to aging but, I don’t think that’s it.  It is true enough that in the last couple years I’ve tried to be more or less in shape,  out of a general  sense of health and well-being (”God made me fast, you see, and when I run, I feel his pleasure,” or something), coupled with specifically wanting to be foxy for C, but, despite my recent efforts, I’ve never actually had what could be termed an admirable rear end anyway.  Nonetheless I’m

My Jerry Seinfeld moment

The train I ride to work is usually crowded and gets packed to capacity at 34th Street when all the commuters coming in to Penn Station from Long Island and New Jersey cram themselves in on the way to their i-banking, consulting, and lawyer jobs over in the east 50s.  The other day I was pleasantly seated — since I am lucky enough to get on at a stop early enough in the E train’s route that even at peak rush hour it invariably still has room – listening to my iPod, when this typical middle-age, windbreaker-with-some-kind-of-corporate-logo-wearing, probably financial consultant type guy got on and took a place standing right in front of me.  It took me about five seconds to realize that 

Trains to Brazil

After the last three years, I’ve got my commute down to a science: I want to get in the last car of the E train (which will be closest to the exit I need at my stop for work), and I know precisely the place to stand so that the door will open right in front of me and I will be virtually guaranteed a place to sit for the duration of my ride.  Last week I was standing on the subway platform on my way to work when the good old E train pulled up.  I was positioning myself to get on the very last car of the train when it registered that–very unusually for the last car, since everyone else wants it for the same reason I do–there were no people in it.  Not only were there no people in that car, but there were several unattended luggage bags laying on the seats.   For anyone who regularly uses public transportation in New York, the suspicious package alerts

The Greatest Generation

I got a haircut tonight.  Ever since I was younger I’ve kind of had a penchant for indulging in expensive haircuts, as my mom always took me to get my hair done at the same salon she went to.  It’s a practice I’ve pretty much maintained throughout my adult life, save for: a brief period in college when I would give my friend Kurt $5 to do it, occasional visits to a good old-fashioned barber with my dad sprinkled throughout childhood (although he went to the salon a few times himself too), and an ill-advised loyalty to a certain Supercuts in Lincoln Park when I lived in Chicago after college (ill-advised because it’s not like I kept going there because there was some attractive girl who worked there or something–that would have at least justified the early-stage chia thing I had going on for those months).  So tonight I went to the downtown salon

Couch development

You know that Madonna song “This used to be my playground”?  Well, this used to be our futon:

 That futon is now happily gracing the studio share of some burlesque dancer from Nebraska.  She gave us $100 for it, and I felt kind of bad, because I had taken the thing apart ahead of time before she came to pick it up, and had long since lost the instruction booklet, so she had to rely on my typically convoluted explanation for how to reassemble it.  So I gave her C’s lime-green yoga mat for free (not a completely unauthorized act, but perhaps a hasty one in retrospect).  Get a load of our couch now, though–tell me we aren’t rapidly careering toward our 30s: 

Competition for dignity

On Sunday morning, April 29, 2007, I am going to beat my friend Will Smallman in a race.  Will invited me to join him in a 4-mile run through Central Park put on by NY Roadrunners, which is designed, like so many races, in opposition to some social ill; in this case, it’s lung cancer against which we’re hurling all of our athletic umbrage.  My ambitions for this race won’t be satiated with just defeating cancer, though.  I want Will’s dignity as my spoils.  And his $20, which was how much we bet each other over who would finish the race against cancer first.   I want him to know that if he doesn’t beat me I’m going to take his money and

Let’s be careful out there

Sometimes I think that my lunch break at work could be devoted to more worthy pursuits.  I started to think this when this afternoon I noticed that the following URL appears in the drop-down for my Internet Explorer address bar: 

http://youtube.com/results?search_query=cop+rock

Obrigado Saudade

The other day at work I went to this presentation that went through dinnertime, so they provided food, including a lovely-looking cucumber salad that looked so summery and fresh it could have been a Massengill ad.  I eagerly reached for the tongs to get some.  Immediately after emptying the first scoop next to the giant pink hunk of salmon on my plate, I noticed something dreadful on the tongs - - a long, clearly human, strand of hair, already well-bathed in the salad’s goop.  I stared at it just long enough to confirm it wasn’t some extremely tiny slice of cucumber or anything like that.  I couldn’t take any more, and while I ended up eating the salad that was already on my plate, my appetite was compromised.    

This was not unlike something else that C and I witnessed this past Saturday night.