Stuff

Two days ago my coworker came into the office all upset. He had been stuck on the number 6 train (Lexington Avenue line) and had witnessed a horrific accident. A young child, (or so he thought), had somehow fallen in front of the oncoming train as it approached the 77th Street Station, and got hit and killed by the train because it couldn't stop in time. She was decapitated. As it turned out, this was actually a 48 year old woman who had dropped her gym bag onto the tracks and jumped down to get it. The train then approached the station as frightened onlookers, failing to pull her up, kept yelling for her to get into the middle of the tracks where there is a gap that she could lie down in and the train would pass over her. Instead, she tried to go under the platform area between the train and the platform, but there wasn't enough room. She died instantly. In her gym bag were her gym shorts, towel, and a cell phone. She died for her stuff. How crazy have we become to risk it all for nothing important.

Daylight Savings Time

Life is short but this Sunday we lose another hour thanks to Daylight Savings Time. In spite of that, and the fact that I don't have as many hours remaining on my "clock," I happen to love the fact that it's still light out by the time I walk up those subway stairs, arthritic knees throbbing like Tito Puente used them as vibes at the Blue Note, and the sun is still out. Soon it will be warm and eventually hot. In fact, sooner than later it will be a freaking oven in New York, and those morons who thought that global warming was a myth, (simply because it snowed like crazy this winter--due to global warming there was an increase in water vapor in the atmosphere), will change their tune. What are you hoping for this summer? Me, I'm hoping for a reduction in my weight, a reduction in the deficit, a reduction in the number of suicide bombers killing for their deluded ideas, and an increase in my writing output. I have more than enough to be happy for--the best wife, daughter, friends, and a Kindle.

I was like yo

I was like on the F train and like this bunch of guys in like down-below-the-butt jeans, know what I'm sayin' gets on and like look around at all us passengers with a look like they was up to no good and I was like yo. Sup with that? I mean like whatever, you know what I'm sayin'? And I'm thinking forgetaboutit, yo, like, whatever.

Thursday

So there's this guy with the biggest damned ten dollar watch I've ever seen and I'm ready to say to him, "Hey, dude, why not get a small watch that doesn't scream out, 'cheap, cheap, cheap' like some ghetto bird?" But I say nothing because preserving one's life is more important than making one's point. I watch my fellow transit riders, my commuter buddies, and observe the guy taking up two seats, sleeping like a baby, albeit an odiferous baby, with shoes that could make a potent tea, and a hat that had seen better Yankee days. But across from me is this older man, perhaps even older than me, who sits and sleeps, perchance to dream, perchance to pretend he's asleep to avoid the money beggars. The pretenders who say they would accept food, but really want money, because they can get food at their SRO--single room occupancy facilities that provides not only shelter, but three squares, heat, hot water, and another reason to be angry about "the system." Oh well, it's just our tax dollars hard at work.

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day. You may ask yourself, just who the hell was Saint Valentine? Why do we give chocolate to our loved ones? Why do we think today is the ultimate time to score, as it were? Well let's talk about scoring since I have no clue as to the other stuff.
As I write this, the United States of America has scored five Olympic medals in the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver. We are number one, so far, in the medal category, which means we are better than the rest of the world when it comes to sliding on blades across slippery ice, or wearing boards on our feet and allowing gravity to inexorably pull us down hills, fly through the air, ass-over-teakettle, land on these wooden boards and continue sliding down hills, or lie on our back on a luge, and go as fast as possible, limited only by our form, gravity, and our unanticipated screwups like trying to see where the hell we're going at 90 freaking miles an hour, which causes the air to slow us down. That said, "WE'RE NUMBER ONE!!! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!!!" But is it really about American pride that makes us cheer, or is it really about our human need for competition as a way of measuring our intrinsic worth? When we pull for the home team, it isn't "US" who won--it's a group of people who practices endlessly day-after-day, year-after-year, to be faster at, stronger in events that we have invented as a way of measuring this intrinsic stuff.
I believe we are all Number One. We are all worthy simply as humans. We don't need to slide, fly, or glide faster to prove anything.
But I enjoy the games.

snow job

I love snowy days and hiding under the covers knowing the alarm clock is not going to awaken me. Instead, the kid upstairs, the kid with a shrill scream like a banchee, like the god Pan, like a horror movie queen, awakened me. "I wanna go out!" I heard her screetch. "I wanna I wanna!" Thasneem slept through it because Thasneem comes from India, a country where drivers blow their horns to indicate their intentions, and they always have some intention for something. So I'm awake and it's a freaking winter wonderland out there in Brooklyn, Faggedabowdit. My mind reaches back to my childhood, when I'd play all morning in the snow, my feet would get wet and all itchy, and I'd come in from the cold and Daddy would rub Noxema on them and make the itch go away. I miss those days and I miss Daddy even more. Life is so short and then there you go.

Mom

January 29th would have been Mom's 91st birthday, but it was a year to the day since she died. I miss her. I miss her simple philosophy of life--a don't make any waves approach to people. My mom was benign, and I mean that in a good way. She was like her father, I think. My grandfather was a quiet man who didn't make trouble for anyone. Mom learned how to get along with people from him. I find myself waxing nostalgic a lot more lately because I'm getting older. When your mother would be 91 means you're pretty old yourself. I don't believe we go anywhere once we die, but I still feel badly that she's under the cold cold earth. Does that make any sense?