Four Each Day

1/4/12 God helps fools and drunks, so don't expect a lot of sympathy

2012-01-04T10:36:00.004-05:00

The trains are inexplicably packed, this morning, and I have to remind myself to keep to my rule: no pushing anyone, bigger, smaller, or the same size as you.

Don't push bigger people because they can crush you, smaller people because it's just not nice, and people the same size because you never know who's carrying a knife.

The overcrowded train vomits its load of commuters into the scrum of the already at-capacity platform, and one man hollers to the rest of us, slurring his words, asking how to get to the E train.

When no one answers (mostly because a. he's drunk and b. the E train doesn't come to this station) he berates us, yelling, "Aw, nobody can help me?"

1/3/12 It's really cold, but only for some.

2012-01-03T23:17:00.003-05:00

The night descends and the wind blows stinging cold against my cheeks. A woman and her daughter, dressed for the cold in bubble jackets and boots, and their wolfish, proud-tailed dog wander down the sidewalk ahead of me, and I listen as they urge the animal on.

"Come on, Charlie," says the woman, tugging at the leash, "or she'll get cold and tired."

"I'm not cold!" says the girl, and then begins to sing happily, "I'm not cold cold cold cold, I could stay out here all night!"

1/2/12 Shopping with the Visigoths

2012-01-02T21:09:00.002-05:00

We took some stuff back to the stores today, going into Manhattan and braving the hordes that, contrary to our expectations, initially seemed to have stayed home. We only had a few things that didn't fit which we exchanged for the correct sizes at their respective stores, and we accomplished our early missions easily and quickly.

Until we arrived... at Macy's, where the hordes had been all along, tearing apart the displays of marked down shoes, and leaving the racks of discounted (up to 40%!) sweaters and ladies separates in tattered disarray.

When we left Brooklyn this morning, the sun was shining on a beautiful, crystal blue Monday, and by the time we got back home from our descent into the maelstrom, it was dark, and cold, and a desolate wind blew through our broken, disillusioned souls.

1/1/12 A new kind of new year

2012-01-01T17:06:00.003-05:00

Last night, after a lovely dinner with our friend Kevin, instead of going out to an overpriced, overcrowded party, Katie and I stayed home to drink strawberry champagne and watch the ball drop on television.

At midnight, we climbed to the roof with champagne flutes and listened to the city celebrate. We kissed in the mild night while fireworks exploded at all four points of the compass.

This morning, we woke, completely refreshed and un-hungover, without the regrets and sense of shame that accompanied New Year's Eves of the past.

11/28/11 new cat

2011-11-28T13:19:00.002-05:00

Is it too soon to be overjoyed? Katie says, her hand buried in a bellyful of the softest fur either of us has ever felt, "I feel like were dancing on Honey's grave."

Every time I believe I've reached my capacity, for love or happiness or whatever, I am blown wide open by yet another thing that proves to me I have no idea how much I can feel, love, enjoy, experience. A long haired calico cat with a white belly and sweet green eyes purrs between us as we lie on the bed, her back pushed up against my leg, one pink-padded paw draped over Katie's leg, and my heart feels fit to burst.

11/22/11 Rrrrargh

2011-11-22T16:23:00.002-05:00

Work has been brutal, the last week. The accumulated karma of 15 years of slacking coming home to roost.

It feels like something inside me has been beaten - not defeated, but actually beaten, tenderized. A part of me has given up, at least for now, but even so, I can feel it lurking, waiting to rise back up and assert its stupid, foolish dominance.

11/15/11 Allocating your time

2011-11-15T17:41:00.002-05:00

"I don't believe that you spend 7o% of your time on my work," I read in her email, and the anxiety which I'd been staving off for the past few hours comes crashing back. My head seems to swell up like a balloon full of blood and I wonder if this is what it feels like right before a person has a stroke.

This is what comes of working in industries where you have no native talent or interest, and a strange resolve kindles in me.

I am going to find a job in a place that roughly corresponds to what I actually care about.

11/13/11 I know how you feel, kid.

2011-11-13T18:17:00.005-05:00

The child walking behind us begins to snarl and howl. His mother gently encourages his displays of spookiness: "Oh, you're pretty scary."

I look up for the full moon that has been dogging me the past few days, but I can't seem to find it. The kid goes, "Ow-oooooooooooo!"

11/12/11 too soon?

2011-11-12T17:11:00.003-05:00

"Katie" is the name they give for the calico/Maine coon cat mix in the cage in front of us. Her eyes, the same color as my only-a-week-gone-kitteh, watch us with relaxed interest, and then close in satisfaction as we stroke her long, soft fur.

We talk ourselves into and out of taking her home four different times over the course of an hour, finally deciding that it wouldn't be fair to bring her home for a few months and then have us leave on vacation.

Of course, the real reason is that we still haven't completely gotten rid of all the cat hair, and toys, dishes, and pillows where she slept, that remind us of Honey.

11/11/11 Fall Fell

2011-11-11T18:22:00.002-05:00

Overnight, the city has gone from the shabby end of summer to full blown fall. The ginko trees shed golden leaves in sheets as cold wind gusts down Brooklyn streets.

Katie and I walk west with clouds scudding overhead, past trees with brick-toned leaves. "Are they the same color as my hair?" she asks, knowing that, even in the fleeting sun, they couldn't possibly shine as bright as that.

11/9/11 Waking Up is Hard to Do

2011-11-09T10:03:00.004-05:00

Katie's new job has us waking at the same time, and both of our alarms go off simultaneously, making a quiet digital racket in our bedroom.

She and I have completely different morning styles, given that she would like to murder all goodness in her rage at being awake anytime before nine A.M., and I am cheerful, instantly awake, and full of energy.

Last night I commented on us being up at the same time, and how did she like it? "You're so cute in the morning I want to smother you with a pillow," she said.

11/8/11 Sick Holiday

2011-11-09T09:58:00.004-05:00

Home from work on election day, as my company takes the day off for some reason. I probably would have and should have taken the day off anyway, as the head cold I've been nursing for the past few weeks has kicked in with a vengeance.

I decide to take advantage of the free day to stay inside and write, but the words are coming hard today. Some days I get to my 500 words and I fall away from the keyboard feeling like I've been wrestling with something large, wild, and completely out of my control.

11/7/11 Instigator

2011-11-07T11:07:00.002-05:00

"Any room for a little person?" I hear the cracked voice of an older woman ask, mock plaintively. The train is packed and she cackles as the grumbling commuters crammed around the door grudgingly make way. She then proceeds, in sotto voce that carries above the rattle of the tracks, to urge the people around her to punch each other in the face.

As I step off the train, she stands by the door watching all of us disembark, a brightly colored, iridescent feather on her black cap, a satisfied smirk on her face.

11/5/11 Remember, remember

2011-11-06T10:05:00.002-05:00

The vet leaves the room for a minute to "give us some time." The first injection was administered without much fuss, and after a moment of the kitty thinking that she might go take a walk on the floor, she lays down on my lap, completely relaxed and breathing slow and easy.

We stroke her fur, pet her head, play with her paws and tail, all in the ways that she would never let us do before now, when she was conscious and able to object. Her paws twitch, as do her ears, as if she is dreaming of walking away from us, and I tell Katie I hope it's a good dream.

11/4/11 That'll work

2011-11-04T21:11:00.003-04:00

"So Jonathan," I said, "you're similar to my wife in your rage and your restlessness and intolerance for boredom. What do you suggest for activities when we're low on funds?"

He thought for a moment. "Booze and Wii," he said.

11/3/11 The March of Sickness

2011-11-03T11:19:00.003-04:00

I knew, as I went to bed last night, that this morning I would have a cold. All the usual suspects showed - the heavy dryness in my sinuses, the stinging, swollen throat, the shaky exhaustion - and made my dreams (once I was finally able to sleep) strange and unsettling.

On waking, however, I found myself still only in the initial stages, waiting on the further indignities to come. I ate handfuls of Tylenol, sucked down spicy and bitter herbal elixirs, gargled desperately with warm water into which I'd dissolved crushed aspirin and salt, but nothing seemed to arrest the inevitable march of sickness through my body.

11/2/11 She who is not busy eating 9-Lives is busy dying.

2011-11-02T14:08:00.000-04:00

My cat meows plaintively at the door outside our bedroom where Katie and I lay asleep. It is four in the morning, and like the elderly of any species, she has trouble sleeping through the night. Since the majority of her time that is not spent sleeping is now spent eating, any time she is awake she has decided that she must be hungry, and she therefore demands to be fed.

I am a light sleeper, unlike my slumbering wife who manages to sleep right through the cat's complaints, and so I struggle out of bed to feed the beast, who circles my feet, still yelling, until I plop the food onto her plate with a wet splat to place it gently before her, and stumble in darkness back to bed.

11/1/11 - another morning

2011-11-01T13:13:00.004-04:00

My high school band teacher, Mr. McEnaney, drilled into our heads that, when exiting a bus, it is always polite to thank the bus driver. Today, while getting off the B67, which I only take in direst of need when I hope to catch the earlier train into work by lopping off the few blocks between the 7th Avenue Q Train station and my house, every single person thanked the bus driver as we exited. It was very satisfying.

In the station, a man, presumably homeless, lay sleeping in one of the giant, three-wheeled baby carriages that jogging parents use to take their offspring with them on their daily run, and it seemed to fit him quite well.

10/31/11

2011-10-31T10:03:00.001-04:00

This summer I spent a night with a group of about 500 people in the main branch of the New York Library as part of a game that ended with all of us collaboratively writing and publishing a book by the end of the night. I went in there hoping that it would be like Book Church, which it sort of was, but in the end all the relics and the cavernous spaces and the hallowed halls feel to the place really left me sad and cold, more like spending the night in a museum, or a mausoleum.

Across the street from the vast, intimidating marble facade sits the more humble lending library, with its irregular shelves filled with plain, ordinary books that have been read and loved and abused and opened and closed hundreds of times. It is unoffensively bland and shabby and not at all grand, and it is here, not in the grand, palatial monument across the street, that I feel at home.

10/30/11

2011-10-31T00:36:00.001-04:00

We walk down the center of Ocean Parkway, a street designed by Olmstead and Vaux, in Gravesend. I'm doing research for the book I'm writing, part of which takes place right nearby here.

Katie and I try to process the monstrous houses that line the street, all of them fairly new, and wonder if the walking tour this book has sent us on is maybe a little too sanitized for my purposes. After yet another McMansion looms over our pathway, we agree they're a bit boring, and content ourselves with the glorious, perfect blue sky fall day we've been given in the wake of yesterday's bizarre snow.

10/29/11 In October?

2011-10-29T13:20:00.003-04:00

We lie in bed and watch the news while the blond anchor with the bad hair smiles and tells us about the snow coming our way. It's almost eleven, and we have no real motivation to get up.

I only half-believe the blond anchor until I'm sitting down in the front of the house to do yoga, and it starts to come down. Katie runs up to the window in her PJ's and yells at the descending snow, "What the hell, nature?"

10/28/11 - What's the worst that could happen?

2011-10-28T10:00:00.004-04:00

The bus driver dropped me off right by the subway stop with the friendly suggestion that I enjoy my weekend, and I stepped off the bus with a little spring in my step.

I patted my left front pocket with my habitual gesture, checking to make sure I had my usual implements, phone, wallet, and felt a sudden shock of cold panic as I realized I did not have my phone. The bus still stood at the curb, waiting for the light to change, and I briefly considered running back to search where I had been sitting, only to remember I'd been checking the weather right before I left home this morning to go to work, and that it was probably sitting lonely on the coffee table, offering up time and temperature to an empty room.

"Well," I thought, "I probably don't need a phone today anyway," wondering as I walked to the train if I had inadvertently doomed New York to a day filled with disasters, train delays, missed connections, and terrorist attacks.

10-27-11 safe

2011-10-27T12:09:00.005-04:00

I come up the stairs from the subway, mashed in the commuter crowd as we slowly trundle up from the platform. At the top, to each side of the corridor leading out to Grand Central Terminal, stand two cops in full military regalia: bullet-proof vests, helmets, automatic weapons, gloves, a whole Batman utility belt thing with all kinds of implements and gadgets I don't recognize and would need explained to me by an adult.

As I walk past, one of them breaks my stride as he crosses in front of me to speak to a woman who is leaning against the opposite wall, texting away. "Everything okay?" he asks her, as she looks up guiltily.

3/25/11 White Light in action

2011-03-25T16:17:00.003-04:00

"And when they asked me why I was leaving... I told them!" Even through the phone, she sounds vaguely surprised at her candor, and I laugh.

"And then that other place, Fortuna? Forino? whatever, yeah she called me up today and asked me to come in for an interview," she says.

Smiling, I say, "Of course they did."

3/24/11 - then who CAN you tell?

2011-03-24T10:40:00.002-04:00

Woke up early to do yoga because I won't be able to do it tonight, as I have rehearsal. Katie is despondent over her job, not because it's particularly hard (though it is) as much as it violates her intense sense of justice and fairness. Apparently some people are slacking but get better tables and more money while she busts her ass and gets less.

When I go to sleep, I need darkness and quiet, while she prefers sound and light.

3/21/11 - Nothing can be OK, too

2011-03-22T11:55:00.002-04:00

Katie's not feeling well, but she still has to go to work today, thankfully not a double shift. She and I will be home tonight, and we will eat ice cream (after I do yoga and sit - I believe I am at 13 consecutive days, which is only 23 days off my goal for lent!) and watch Battlestar Galactica.

We sat in silence for a while last night, and then she apologized for not having anything interesting to say. I told her, "We've got a million months to go, and chances are we won't always have something to say."

2/22/11 Barbaric Meo-awp

2011-02-22T14:22:00.004-05:00

The cat screams for a half-hour, starting around 5:30, and waking me up from a rather disturbing dream that involved scary noises (a long time nightmare maker for me) and Battlestar Galactica.

She then quiets down and settles in, and I fall back asleep. I wake at 7:00 (my now usual time after changing my sleep schedule to better hang out with Katie, since she's more of a night person) and do my morning ablutions.

Lying in the kitchen, almost dead, legs slowly kicking, first one then another in dying regularity, is a fairly giant roach, which presumably the cat almost killed and over which I'm guessing she stood earlier to give her triumphant, house-waking screech.

2/16/11 bathroom humor

2011-02-16T14:01:00.004-05:00

I come back from the bathroom after a particularly difficult session. I'm shaking a little, a little nauseated, chills.

"Well, that sucked," I say, attempting to be discreet.

She looks at me in horror.

"Why would you *tell* me that?" she yells.

2/14/11 no good reason

2011-02-14T14:05:00.002-05:00

wake up, the alarm sounds like church bells, with none of the gravitas.

I woke up 2 hours before, so this is what a full night's sleep feels like.

Emotionally fraught for no good goddamn reason, except maybe too much wine last night.

My beautiful wife sleeps next to me and immediately takes over the bed as soon as I leave.

2/4/11 The smell test

2011-02-04T08:55:00.002-05:00

Lying in bed after a long day, she buries her face in my chest and inhales deeply, then sits up with a suspicious look on her face.

"You don't smell like you," she says studying my face, leans in, sniffs my neck, my armpit, then sits back again, with a comical look of disappointment on her face.

When she comes back from long trips, or if I've been away for a few days, this happens, and admittedly, we have been ships passing in the night, with her working doubles and me rehearsing.

But I think it might be something else: "Well, I did eat a lot of garlic tonight...."

2/3/11 what goes around comes around

2011-02-03T14:48:00.004-05:00

Kid, wearing headphones, bumps me pretty hard as the crowd surges forward in the tunnel between the trains. There's plenty of room around me, but he keeps on trucking, eyes forward, no expression.

I don't break stride, and I don't stretch; I just keep my exact same pace and see where exactly my foot fits right in front of his next step, and sure enough he trips over my foot, not enough to fall, just enough to put a hitch in his getalong.

After the glow of triumph fades and I'm waiting on the subway platform for my train to arrive (after studiously avoiding getting in at the same door as my victim) I feel a twinge of regret, because, after all, how can I expect kindness and forgiveness from others if I can't give it myself?

1/20/11 The prisoner

2011-01-20T10:55:00.003-05:00

Living with an old cat is very much what I imagine living with an old woman in the house would be like. She is picky, irritable, constantly uncomfortable, and very vocal in expressing her displeasure.

This morning's infraction involved a large plastic cup from which she drinks by sticking her head in almost past the ears (Katie says it's because the sides of the cup "tickle the cat's whiskers" which seems as plausible as any other explanation). It was empty, never mind that there was a perfectly functional (and full) water dish in the kitchen, no, THIS was her water receptacle of choice, and by God she would wake up the entire building at five in the morning if she had to until someone filled the goddamned cup full of water, NOW dammit NOW!

1/14/10 Things we say in the dark

2011-01-14T10:15:00.002-05:00

She's a little cold, less snuggly than usual, but it takes her longer to recover from fights than I do. We lay in the dark and chat, about the day, things we read, the cat.

It's not healed, not completely, but it's less sore, less raw.

I turn on my side, she scoots herself into place behind me, her arm draped over my side, and I slide into sleep almost immediately.

1/12/11 anatomy of a fight

2011-01-13T11:38:00.001-05:00

We lie in bed in the dark. She's mad, I'm mad.

She sits up, and I ask, "Well, what are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking irrationally right now."

1/11/11 bad mood meanderings

2011-01-11T15:07:00.002-05:00

It comes on like this: a black mood, a hollow in the chest, a sense of "why bother?" Sometimes life is just one goddamn thing after the other, with no purpose or meaning.

I think that's really the question - reading Paul Tillich right now and one of the things he talks about is religion being whatever it is that is the "ultimate concern" of your life, which could be anything, really, hence the danger of idolatry.

Faith requires courage, and I think I may be a coward.

1/6/11 this story is missing some crucial element, but I can't remember what it is.

2011-01-07T11:19:00.004-05:00

Ray tends to be rather florid in his descriptions of the altered states of consciousness he enters when he plays guitar, but today he is uncharacteristically succinct. "Well, I can't say I was exactly a witness to what happened," he says, after a particularly "out" performance of one of our songs that we are tearing apart and putting back together.

Later, he comments that he didn't feel like he did as well on a different song, and asks if we had any hints for him.

"Well," says Gerry, "I can't say I was exactly a witness...."

1/5/11 A Little Not Music

2011-01-06T09:03:00.003-05:00

Elaine Stritch is KILLING this show. Going up on lines, mugging, back phrasing so hard she might as well be on a 5 minute delay (when she remembers the lyrics) and then making up lyrics wholesale when she doesn't recall them, forcing the actors around her to improvise around crucial plot points to make up for the fact that she has no idea what comes next - it was brutal, and every time she got up on stage, I had to cover my eyes.

We walk out into the bright lit night of Broadway, Katie in a long, elegant mink coat she inherited from her Grandma, me in my long jacket from Italy, looking quite the couple as we swim up stream through Times Square to the subway, fuming at producers who would put an obviously unwell old women up on the stage and expect her to do eight a week.

Katie is livid: "If I had paid full price for those tickets, I would have been PISSED."

1/4/10 cold to warm

2011-01-04T23:03:00.003-05:00

I walk out of Ray's room to retrieve my sweater, our evening's output blaring over the speakers while we pack up our gear for the night, and find Liz standing in the kitchen. She looks displeased to see me, though not just me, necessarily, just anyone, but she manages a wan smile and a hello, and even an impersonal hug. I leave unsettled by her chilly reception, trying not to take it personally.

Back in Brooklyn, Tame Impala comes on the headphones: "Everyday/back and forth/what's it for?/Desire be, desire go"; I realize it's got nothing to do with me, I say a silent little wish for her happiness, and continue upstairs to my home.

1/3/11 Ascension Day

2011-01-03T22:13:00.003-05:00

Yesterday's fog lifts, and after a day at my job, I feel more like myself than I have in several days. I like the routine, having somewhere to go and useful work to do there.

The sun is setting as I come up from my train in Brooklyn, and as I walk down Seventh Avenue, listening to Talk Talk, wrapped in a warm coat, on my way home, I relax back into my skin. The sky darkens, the lights come up along my street as we dodge the snow drifts, my chest relaxes like someone's snipped the rubber bands that were holding me in - I'm back.

1/2/11 You ever get the feeling you've been cheated?

2011-01-02T19:31:00.003-05:00

I walk through the aisles of Duane Reade (soon to be Walgreens or Rite Aid or some conglomerate or other) searching for 1) facial cleanser, 2) airborne, 3) something sweet to make me feel better about this ridiculous sinus infection when I recognize a tune over the speakers. They are playing Summertime Clothes by Animal Collective on the PA in a drugstore in the dead of the winter, with the snow of last week's blizzard laying like a filthy corpse on the street.

The sheer effrontery of it, the bizzare non-sequitur-ness of this beautiful music singing of summer joys while I contemplate suicide next to the toiletries, is the topper on the day.

I have no plans, the new year is waiting to jump out at me while I try to figure out why I'm on the planet, and the flourescent lights are killing me slowly, which is to say, I'll get back to you when I'm feeling less sorry for myself.

1/1/11 We ended up straightening up a little

2011-01-01T18:40:00.003-05:00

"Pooks, I'm starting to feel like I'm wasting my life," I told Katie, as we sat watching "Sister Wives" while sitting around without pants on and trying to recover from the previous night.

"Well, do you want to try cleaning this place up a little?" She gestured to the piles of stuff, reminders of our guests from the past week, and of the blizzard that still clogs the streets.

When I demure at the immensity of the job, she says, "Well, it's not like we can really clean up, since Bloomberg won't let us throw out our garbage."

12/21/10 Cold winter's night that was so deep

2010-12-21T09:27:00.003-05:00

The moon turns coppery red as the last sliver of light slips off the edge into darkness. Katie pulls the blanket she's wearing tighter around her and hides behind me as a freezing wind blasts across the roof, making the bare winter trees creak and moan.

"I feel like this is the end of a lot of things, like this season is the beginning of something new, and I really want to stay to see the moon come out again," I say, staring up at the distant smudge that was once a full moon.

She looks up at it for a few minutes, shivering, until she finally says, plaintively, "Do you mind if I go inside?"

12/20/10 Save all Your Love

2010-12-20T09:35:00.004-05:00

The tunnel between the Q train and the 4/5/6 in Union Square is a press of humanity, more than usual even, and I weave between the green metal I-beams that serve as pillars here while trying to side-step the masses blindly hurtling through their day.

"Save all your love," sings Jon Anderson, "to be a better child, to be a better child," and I see these faces, some blank, some sad, some just tired or resigned, and I realize they all were once children.

Christmas insists that God was a child, just like you were a child, like I was a child. I try not to romanticize (an unfortunate tendency of mine), but tears of love well up, and I wipe them away so no one thinks I'm crazy.

12/17/10 supplemental Wonderful Life

2010-12-18T01:26:00.003-05:00

We sit in the dark theater, watching George Bailey's actually kinda tragic life as it collapses around him, until he stands, bereft of hope, looking down into the dark swirling waters beneath the bridge.

Just as he's about to end it all, the angel Clarence jumps into the water, appealing to George's naturally helpful nature. George immediately dives into the water that would have drowned him, and pulls the angel out, unwittingly saving himself in the process.

I lean over to Katie and whisper, "That's a good life lesson: if you just fall in, it's suicide, but if you dive, it's heroism."

12/17/10 Did you forget?

2010-12-17T08:47:00.004-05:00

The sign in the jewelry shop in the tunnel leading out of the subway reads, "Did you forget a gift for yourself?" I imagine the person reading that who thinks to themselves about all the gifts they didn't receive, all the times they were disappointed, thinking in their walk, "Yes, I need to get my own gift, since no one will get it for me," even though what they're really wanting is someone who knows them so well, has listened to them over the past year so closely that the gift is an expression of that love.

Later, at the deli, the man behind the counter sharply taps his knife blade on the cutting board every time before slicing a sandwich in half, and this delights me. The music on the radio sings, "All I want for Christmas is you," and I know that gift is the one thing we can't buy for ourselves - the unique expression of another human life as it intertwines with our own.

12/15/10 Straight to Hell

2010-12-15T23:36:00.004-05:00

After three D trains roll by (and Katie has threatened to throw herself in front of the next D that passes), our B train finally arrives, packed with disgruntled commuters.

"Well, some of them have to be getting off," I say, trying to think optimistically.

No one gets off.

We push in, crushed before us by dull-eyed passengers already on the train, from behind by commuting zombies on the platform trying to get on, and Katie says, "Nope, looks like everybody's riding this B train straight to hell!"

12/13/10 Passing time

2010-12-14T09:57:00.004-05:00

She sits on the couch and tells me about her day.

"By the way - by the way, I cannot believe I haven't told you about this yet. The Mexicans in the kitchen play prison games where they bet five dollars a pop on whether a coin comes up heads or tails. You can hear the coins clinking on the floor of the kitchen while I'm telling my tables the specials. I'm all, 'Yes, the kitchen staff are picking money up off the floor with their bare hands before they make your food, but I'm sure your grilled salmon with a white wine reduction sauce and fingerling potatoes will be just fine.'"

12/12/10 God doesn't mind if you have a good time

2010-12-13T09:54:00.005-05:00

The spattering rain is gusting sideways at us as we walk to church, late (as usual), and a little hungover. The party went very late last night, but was one of those perfect parties where you recognize the joy of hanging out past the lightweights to connect with the few folks left over afterwards in a mildly worn out, pleasurable lassitude.

Now we're stumbling through a downpour to go to a later service, and I notice one of the joys of Catholicism is, contrary to my expectations, there's no indication of guilt for any supposed sin I might have committed just by having a good time last night.

Katie's bright yellow raincoat and orange parasol are no match for the deluge, and we slosh into mass, the choir singing, both of us soaked to the knees, and Katie leans over and whispers, "Let's sit close to the front."

12/11/10 a conversation at a party - 2:30 AM

2010-12-13T09:50:00.002-05:00

She leans up against the wall, "Yeah, skiing is a lot easier than snowboarding, really. The way they make skis these days, you practically don't have to do anything."

Her eyes look far away as she remembers, "When you get back to the lodge, and you're all cold, and your cheeks are all rosy, and you grab your hot cocoa and put your gloves down to dry by the fire...." And she smiles, as if she were there right now, and wanted nothing better.

12/10/10 Sometimes I get carried away

2010-12-11T10:23:00.003-05:00

"No, but really, it's like, every single artist worth anything has a connection to spirituality, whether they mean it in a religious sense or not," I say, gesturing drunkenly and toweling off.

From behind the shower curtain, she says, "Well, OK, like who?"

Now I'm really getting warmed up, and begin ticking them off on my fingers: "Well, Prince, obviously, and Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, Jim Morrison...."

She shuts off the water, and sighs in exasperation, "I can't even talk to you when you're like this."

12/9/10 late nights in the slope

2010-12-10T14:56:00.003-05:00

The sidewalks of Park Slope roll up at about 11:30, so I walk down to the subway station to pick up Katie after her shift ends. Normally we hold hands, but the cold has us both shoving our hands in our pockets and striding along, hurrying to escape the freezing cold, chatting and laughing even as we keep it moving.

Finally inside the warm apartment building, standing outside our apartment door, I can hear the cat inside yowling in displeasure at our continued insistence on leaving the house instead of sitting on the couch where she can ignore us properly. I'm pretty sure she's going to wake up the entire building.

12/7/10 armored

2010-12-09T00:15:00.003-05:00

Two hoodies, one over the other, and then a baseball cap, all covered by a leather jacket with intricate stitching. In his hand is a cell phone, from which streams the sputtering clicks, pips, and shouts of mp3's of hip-hop, surrounding him with a haze of aggression. The entire train hears his music, and even I can hear him through my headphones, and feel the irritation of the rest of the car beaming their bad vibes at him.

Obviously he feels it too, and he fishes into his pockets and pulls out headphones which he proceeds to untangle, plug in, and fit into his ears, but then he begins chanting along with his music - putting up his wall of phony rage to keep the judgement away.

12/6/10 The band is passive aggressive. We are not.

2010-12-07T00:17:00.002-05:00

The dude standing in front of my five foot three inch wife moves back and forth to the music. He knows he's in front of her (we've made it abundantly clear that he is blocking her view of the band), there is no place for her to move to, and every half-assed dance move he busts blocks her view further, and frustrates both of us even more.

Neko Case apparently couldn't be bothered to do her hair for the show tonight, or even put on an outfit that wasn't sweats, and she launches into a rather pathetic diatribe midway through the set about the horrible things that life has foisted upon her in the months since her 40th birthday, a diatribe that A.C. tries to defuse mostly through a sort of low key snarky-ness.

I tap the guy standing in front of Katie on the shoulder, hoping to get him to move before Katie, or I, or both of us, do something rash, saying, "Hey, man, could you please move a little off to the right so she can see?"

12/5/10 What more do you want from me? A cookie?

2010-12-05T22:24:00.003-05:00

I followed the recipe on the yellow package, as aspiring bakers all over the country have for generations of Christmases. They turned out perfect, brown and chocolatey and delicious.

Then we watched walking dead and went to bed.

Sometimes, I don't feel like being all creative.

12/4/10 Which is what we named the tree

2010-12-05T22:15:00.006-05:00

The courtyard of the church smells of pine and the cold stone walls. We excitedly debate the merits of each tree: height, fullness of branches, hardiness of needles, looking for the perfect one, the one meant for us, the tree for our first Christmas together, until the gentleman in glasses and orange latex gloves streaked black with pitch saunters over and asks if he can help.

"Sure," I say, putting out my hand out, introducing myself and asking his name.

He looks bewildered for a moment, as if no one today (or maybe ever, in the history of tree selling) has asked him that, then shakes my hand, laughing, and says, "I'm Todd."

12/2/10 Angry God is Angry (and possibly made up)

2010-12-03T00:13:00.003-05:00

He gets on the subway, middle of the car, a tall man, close shaven head gleaming under the flourescent lights. He begins preaching in a hectoring, strident voice that penetrates even through my headphones, his every word a bullet.

"I'm here to talk to you about the gifts of the father, who gave his son, his only son, to make you turn from your sin," he says, in clipped, bitter tones.

At that very moment, the song in my headphones changes, and Bjork begins to sweetly sing a lullaby reminding me of another way, another vision, another God.

12/1/10 So much for meditation

2010-12-01T23:24:00.002-05:00

I close the door and face the chair east, set the timer and close my eyes. I begin to repeat the word on the in-breath and out-breath, hoping to clear my mind and let in whatever grace might be granted someone like me.

There's a settling as the unconscious tensions I've been carrying in my muscles relax and unwind, and I find myself sinking into the chair, less rigid, more fluid, my whole body filling up with wet sand.

I'm asleep in under a minute.

11/29/10 Supplemental - eat what's in front of you

2010-11-30T14:43:00.004-05:00

After my bragging about vegetarianism in my previous post, it seems only fitting that I would manage to slip up.

In my hurry and slightly sleepy state while preparing to leave for work in the morning, I picked up the wrong gravy to go with my leftover tofurky. I was only alerted to my mistake after tasting the crunch of peppercorns (which I didn't add to my non-organ meat, vegetarian gravy).

I looked down at the brown sauce, which entirely covered my fake meat lunch, and thought for about five seconds before tucking back in. It was delicious, and frankly, it's not like I had a second lunch sitting around somewhere for me to eat if this one didn't work out.

11/30/10 Wound up

2010-11-30T11:44:00.004-05:00

About 2 years ago, the writer of a show I was in handed me a copy of Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and told me it was his favorite book. He and I had been getting to know each other, had discovered some common love of weirdness and artiness, and I believe this book was both a gesture of potential friendship, and a test, which I failed miserably.

I found I couldn't get through it, mostly because I kept waiting for something to happen, and it never really did. If anybody feels like commenting, could you please tell me why you think I should give this book another chance, or if I was right in my initial assessment?

11/29/10 Even kids aren't really that much of an accomplishment

2010-11-30T00:02:00.003-05:00

After a long conversation with a friend about the relatively small amount I've accomplished in my life, I'm melancholy. I lay in bed with my wife, and wonder if there's anything lasting I've made in my life, and think about all the projects I've abandoned.

Katie shows me a picture of a kid looking at a Christmas tree, explaining, "Babies and Christmas."

She adds, "Kid's not even that cute when he turns around."

11/28/10 Falling

2010-11-29T08:51:00.004-05:00

This side street of Park Slope goes quiet. The holiday weekend, the sheer Sunday-ness of it all, it all boils down to this stillness, broken only by the sound of my shoes tapping on the sidewalk as I make my way to a friend's house for birthday brunch and sweet, sweet mimosas.

My vision, my ability to see, seems to expand until I feel like I can take in everything in front of me: the almost-bare trees, the washed-out-blue, cloud-chased sky, the crazy tilted sidewalk, the cars lining the street, the space all of these things fill, the ground of their being.

Above me in an apartment, someone begins to play an inexpert, but heartfelt "Rhapsody in Blue" on their piano, and the notes drift down from the open window, swirling around me like falling leaves.

11/27/10 We tend to do better at parallel play

2010-11-27T23:41:00.004-05:00

After my fourth continue, I finally throw the controller down in disgust. "Listen," I say, "just try to get through the boss by yourself. It'll be more fun for you."

Katie battles on against one of Bowser's minions for a while longer before she gives up, but she really wanted to try to work with me on this, and I silently vow to polish up my Mario skills to make game night more successful in the future.

11/26/10 It was delicious (they tell me)

2010-11-26T11:31:00.006-05:00

Though I have claimed vegetarianism for upwards of 15 years now (I can count on one hand the number of times I've eaten meat since 1994), today my hands still smell of roasted bird from the turkey I helped prepare yesterday.

It's a very strange situation, being married to a confirmed, enthusiastic, and unrepentant carnivore. The constant confrontation with your own values that occurs when you are around those that don't share them requires both a flexibility (in order to not judge or feel superior), and a sense of humor, because you will be made fun of and intentionally, humorously provoked.

Plus, I like to cook, so I have learned the finer points of meat preparation for a woman whose favorite meals include, quote, "the tears of the innocent," while never tasting the things I help make.

11/25/10 everyone

2010-11-26T00:53:00.004-05:00

He stands in front of the bank, shifting from foot to foot, his face a mask of pitiful hope, while his eyes calculate every passerby. I'm trying not to ignore things, but I know if I make eye contact, I'll raise his expectations, so I walk toward the curb and let him accost another pedestrian with his "Happy Thanksgiving" that sounds like a curse.

As I cross the street, a little boy on the other side of the street scoots up to the crosswalk. "Candy for everyone!" he shouts, his arm sweeping to include me, the beggar in front of the bank, the gray November afternoon, Brooklyn, the world.

11/24/10 Who really runs this joint.

2010-11-24T10:56:00.003-05:00

The cat wanders the rooms of our (to her) incomprehensibly huge apartment, yowling in her wailing-baby voice. When I finally make my way into the room where she normally sleeps, I discover the window has been left open, and a chill breeze blows over the perch where she keeps a bored eye on the street below.

She watches me reproachfully, legs curled up beneath her, from underneath the table, as I stumble over to the window and close it after only three attempts.

Her wishes granted, she stands, arches her back, and trots to the litter box, claws clicking contempt on the wood floor, to let me know exactly what she thinks of my shoddy management of the home where she is, obviously, an unwilling prisoner.

11/23/10 crossing paths

2010-11-23T13:20:00.004-05:00

She stands at the crosswalk, a little ways out into traffic: slim, fashionably dressed in all black without ostentation, long, fine straight black hair, pretty face, light brown skin, middle-eastern of some sort.

He runs from down the street, obviously on his way from somewhere to somewhere else: black baseball cap at a rakish angle, open, honest face, also in all black, also light brown skin.

He pauses in his run, touches her on the shoulder, looks sincerely into her eyes, says, "Hey, I really like your hair." and then continues running past us up the street without looking back.

"Thanks," she says lightly, without seeming to be fazed at all (do men do this all the time? do they know each other?), the light turns green, we all cross the street, different directions away from this moment.

11/22/10 snapshots of a commute

2010-11-22T09:15:00.002-05:00

A guy in a wide brimmed hat stands up on the train, says, "Excuse me," to me before we reach the stop, and I tell him I'm getting out too, just so he'll relax a little. When we get West Fourth, however, I realize it's not my stop, and I pretend I'm getting out after him, only to get back on to continue my ride to work.

Walking down the tunnel, a man reading a paper steps in a pink and white splatter of vomit, but he doesn't notice and continues on his way, trailing wet footprints on the stones.

In Grand Central, a traditional Peruvian band plays "The Old Rugged Cross" on the pan flutes, and I emerge into the grey New York morning, giggling to myself.

11/21/10 A little forceful

2010-11-22T09:08:00.004-05:00

Kevin and I stand outside the movie theater in Union Square while Kev rolls a cigarette and Katie finishes a phone call with her father. A stumbling, slurring bald black man in sweats rolls up to us and asks for change? a smoke? something unintelligible through a haze of alcohol that I can smell from 3 feet away. I put up my hand, look him in the eye, say, "Sorry, man" and return to my conversation, and Kevin apologizes for not having anything to give to him.

The man's eyes widen in surprise, and as he staggers away I hear him say, "Man, I wouldn't a minded you didn't have nothing, but that guy [indicating me] was serious!"

11/20/10 The very nice doctor is not a dentist

2010-11-21T00:10:00.003-05:00

"Well, when I got out of the shower," the doctor says, finishing his story, "the ants had covered the sandwich! The hotel got me an upgrade, told me they'd never had anything like this before."

He smiles shyly as we laugh with him, and he writes out our prescriptions. He has a small, black something-or-other caught in his teeth, but before I can mention it to him, he's left the examining room to talk to another patient who is wandering the hall of the office.

11/19/10 late edition

2010-11-20T00:07:00.002-05:00

I wander up and down Fulton Mall until I find the place to drop off the package. My cough has gotten increasingly heavy, and my boss has said that after I drop this off, I can head home for the day.

I make it home, hungry and worn out from walking, but I still manage to walk down to get a Vietnamese sandwich, all the while trying to fight off the depression that inevitably hits when I'm sick, tired, and hungry. I realize that I can't kill myself, because it would be like leaving Katie, and that's never going to happen.

11/18/10 a dream in which I am, perhaps, a secret agent

2010-11-18T17:49:00.003-05:00

I skimmed the roofs of the buildings until I came to the end of the row and found myself unable to go further. Stuck, I decided to try to exit through the building I was on by climbing down, only to find that the building was the Latvian embassy, in which a lavish party was beginning, complete with sashed and monocled diplomats and ladies in elaborate, architectural dresses gliding elegantly along marble floors amid gilt ornaments and enormous oil paintings of indeterminate ancestors.

I found my way out into the garden, past the catering tables and onto a manicured lawn, which opened out onto a university campus (which university?) where I started wandering home (which home?) only to realize then that I had no idea where home was.

Two kind people fell in step with me, and, on seeing my distress, asked me, "Don't you have an iPhone with GPS?"; which, it turned out, I did.

11/17/10 But I have to stand somewhere too

2010-11-17T10:13:00.003-05:00

The redheaded dude comes into my car (crossing from another car in the train while it's in motion! such a rebel) and passes behind me. The car isn't crowded, but I move my bag out of his way anyway, and he passes by with a determined look on his face without even a glance in my direction. Being a large person, and somewhat timid growing up, makes me extra-self-conscious of the space I take up.

Tonight, when I go to see a rock concert, I'll be worried about standing in front of people, worried that these short people whom I'll never see again will hate me for blocking their view, and they will take my awkwardness and low-self-esteem for politeness.

11/16/10 shoulda stayed home and played Zelda one more day

2010-11-16T11:00:00.003-05:00

There's a law of diminishing returns that hits hard when you come into work when you're still kind of sick if you don't wait long enough. What happens is, the work that you couldn't do when you were away is still there to do, because you haven't been away for long enough for the crises engendered by your absence to pass, plus, they put off putting a few things on your desk (sending that email, scheduling that meeting) knowing you'd be back, not to mention the day-to-day drama that is still ongoing.

So really, you're dealing with yesterday's shit, the shit that might have been done yesterday but now HAS to be done today, plus today's shit, all in one day. And you feel like there's a heavy stone on your chest and all the Mucinex(tm) in the world can't lift it.

11/15/10 ...and now I've got it too

2010-11-15T09:49:00.002-05:00

Go to bed after a very satisfying episode of The Walking Dead (suck it, haters - the acting's great, the story is interesting, and there's a constant sense of creeping dread that's my favorite thing about zombie movies), and immediately feel some strange unrest in my chest. I can breathe and yet I still feel like I'm drowning.

Maybe not drowning exactly, but that low grade ache and anxiety, like I'm still not getting enough oxygen, no matter how deep I breathe.

This morning it sounds like a soup can full of mud and rocks in my chest, and I guiltily call up work, saying "Well, I've got the chest cold Katie had, and I don't want to give it to everybody else."

11/14/10 She's had a Cold

2010-11-14T16:10:00.004-05:00

We walk down Union from the library on a beautiful fall day. The air smells of spice and woodsmoke, and the light is golden beneath a blue sky wisped with high, thin clouds.

I inhale deeply, and say to Katie, "Man, smell that?"

She shakes her head sadly, saying, "All I've been able to smell for the past week is too much Murphy's Oil Soap and the liquor on my maitre d's breath."

11/12/10 Close Enough

2010-11-12T09:19:00.002-05:00

A few days of yoga every day and my mood begins to lift, and I feel myself waking up from the weird limbo I've been in.

Reading a review of the new Cee-Lo Green in L Magazine on the B train coming in this morning, I come across the following line: "It might be interesting in theory to hear his take on a different era in pop/R&B, but the neon glaze and MJ basslines of "Bright Lights Bigger City" somehow don't add up to an 80s-worship homerun."

At that exact moment, I catch the strains of a Michael Jackson song leaking out from a nearby woman's headphones. I laugh and smile at the coincidence until I listen for a few more minutes to realize it's "Upside Down" by Diana Ross.

11/10/10 Contrasts

2010-11-10T08:44:00.007-05:00

I sit on the mat in the half-light before the sun comes up, and breathe deeply. My mat faces roughly east, as it has in almost every apartment I've ever lived that suited me at all, and I can see out the windows on the front of our building clouds lit from below by the rising sun shading from a vivid pink to a brilliant gold against a gray sky.

My wedding ring clicks on the wood floor as I shift to a new position in my routine. I never take it off.

11-9-10 Pie is too nice to be bad for you.

2010-11-09T10:27:00.003-05:00

Coring an apple requires a little bit of muscle, a little bit of guessing. Stab straight down and twist, gutting the pulp of the stringy bits and the little black seeds, hand it over to Katie, who then proceeds to peel it in a long, continuous ribbon of red (a skill I've yet to get the hang of).

The Cuisinart spins the halves into perfect slices in seconds, and as watch them pile up, I see a single black seed that I missed. Will it kill us if I don't fish it out?

11-8-10 my mini spooner

2010-11-08T11:38:00.004-05:00

The new bowls we got for our wedding are primary colors of yellow and blue - deep, deep cobalt blue, and a cheerful, sunny yellow. I often find myself picking one or the other based on the food that I'm serving, or on the mood I'd like to create in myself with the plate.

"Frosted Mini-spoons" is the best that Malt-o-Meal could come up with for their "Frosted Mini-wheats" rip-off cereal, and while it's not that bad, there's something in the Kellogg's version that has a little more substantial-ness when it comes to milk. The best part was pouring them into a sunny yellow bowl (her favorite color) and thinking about Katie asleep in bed, and the perfect applicability of the term "mini spoons" to her.

11-5-10 Happy drums

2010-11-05T10:53:00.004-04:00

After a particularly good rehearsal from which I leave buzzing lightly and newly optimistic about our prospects, Ray and I ride the subways downtown from his place in Harlem. At one stop, two drummers heave into the car, hoisting conga drums and foldable chairs behind them, which they set up in the pseudo-vestibule before beginning their patter.

"Keep the energy up and full of love," says the one in the skullcap with the star of David dangling down onto his forehead while the other adjusts his drums and smiles widely, "because it comes back down to you amplified."

They beat their drums in a groove reminiscent of "Oye Como Va" and I give them a dollar as they leave.

11-4-10 Even in Park Slope? Really?

2010-11-04T13:16:00.004-04:00

She left work at one in the morning, after serving at a private late-night party where Patti Lupone "hugged [her] like [she] was her long lost daughter." I've been up all night watching movies, playing video games, and editing a backing track for a song my band will be playing once we book a gig.

I've been feeling a lot less stressed lately, but as the hour rolls toward 2:00 AM, I start to get paranoid. I lace up my shoes, throw on a jacket, and slip a large pocket knife into my back pocket, and step out into the wet, empty street to go pick her up at the subway station.

11-3-10 Wake up in the morning feeling like P-diddy

2010-11-03T11:04:00.002-04:00

I've gradually set my alarm 5 minutes earlier each week, over the last few weeks, in an attempt to get back into doing a full session of yoga in the morning. This is probably the worst time to do this, since the mornings are getting darker and darker as we edge closer to winter.

This morning I wake up in the darkness, sit up, and Katie rolls over and asks me if I had weird dreams.

I tell her I think I did and wonder out loud why she asks, to which she replies, "Because you talked a lot!"

11-2-10 Acting out (staying in)

2010-11-03T10:59:00.003-04:00

When I get home, she's sprawled, half in, half out of the papasan with the Wii remote in her lap. The screen is blank except for the tell-tale cauldron floating in the corner, telling me that she's been playing Lego Harry Potter most of the night.

I know she was upset that I had rehearsal tonight, and when I left she was a little depressed, but she's still depressed, and I'm not sure what to do.

I kiss her on the forehead as she looks up at me with that slightly dazed look that comes from too much gaming, and I say, "Hey baby, how was your night?"

11-1-10 Sous chef rhapsody

2010-11-01T09:59:00.003-04:00

She chops the veggies, stirs the cheese and the rice together. I open cans, suggest seasonings, wash the dishes and utensils as she finishes with them.

The kitchen is clean and well lit, warm and bustling as we make dinner. Once again, something I have dreamed of since I was a kid has come true, and the home I have always wanted is that much closer to being real.

10-29-10 Some things you have to pay for after you've already used them

2010-10-29T12:24:00.005-04:00

"Come on," she says, this strange girl whose constant, scattershot flirtation is starting to get me down. "You don't like to smoke?"

What do I say, that I really DO like to smoke, but that it inevitably leaves me feeling worse than before, lost and anxious, like I've got a bucket over my head and a hole in my chest?

"No, I like it, but it costs too much," I say, and leave it at that.

10-28-10 reminds me of the day I proposed

2010-10-28T09:30:00.003-04:00

The stumps of downed trees still line the streets like broken teeth, reminders of the plagues God has visited on our borough this year (the hail that recently fell, while leaving no visible scars the way the tornado did, lingers more in the mind for me, as I was underground when the tornado struck).

I came up above ground from the subway yesterday only to find the remnants of a flood moving off east. One of the brightest rainbows I've ever seen shone strong and wide across a slate gray sky as the storm trundled off.

Traffic stopped, people stared, cameraphones cradled in their hands, smiles wide, and I said to my neighbor, "Looks like God won't flood us today."

10-27-10 let's pretend

2010-10-27T08:52:00.004-04:00

Last night, my good friend JT reminded me how much I enjoy playing "let's pretend" by letting me take part in a reading of his new play. I got to act like a 70 year old abbot of a monastery who tries and convicts one of his charges of (spoiler alert) homosexual conduct with a being who may or may not be some kind of angel.

As JT's words worked through my body, I found my posture hunching, my hands snarling into the arthritic claws characteristic of my grandfather, passions and sorrows that were not mine, but were familiar to me, spilling into the light. An old man lived in my skin for an hour or so, and I walked away feeling... good, like I'd just built a table with my hands, when all I had done was let another part of humanity have a voice for a little while.

10-26-10 (though I could still use the money)

2010-10-26T11:23:00.004-04:00

The issue is not with life - life is entirely blameless.

The issue is expectations. When I was a boy, I wanted fame, and money, and ease, and I now realize these desires were rather ill formed, and not particularly worthwhile.

Realizing this, and not having anything to replace the discarded goals with, I find myself at loose ends.

10-25-10 - the hutch

2010-10-25T00:36:00.002-04:00

The white haired gentleman chats with Kevin and me while Katie goes to the bank to get the cash to pay for the hutch we've decided to buy from him for the kitchen.

"You never know what your life is gonna bring. My son died five years ago from cancer, and then my wife died a year ago from cancer."

I think about what I would do if Katie died, how lonely I would be, and all I can say is, "I'm sorry, man."

10-22-10 Fall arrives - we fight off the chill

2010-10-22T15:09:00.003-04:00

We come home late from our respective outings, she from work, and me from rehearsal, to find the kitchen a disaster and the sink stacked with dishes, courtesy our soon-to-move-back-to-where-he's-from roommate, but we still manage to find a clean cocktail glass for Katie and a beer for me. An amaretto sour and a hefeweizen later, and we're almost ready to go to bed, dishes be damned.

Fall creeps in around the corners of the windows and beneath the doors, his cold breath chilling us, and Katie, always more susceptible to the cold than I, hugs herself for a moment before proposing the perfect solution to the quandary of undressing for bed in our chilled room. "Want to fool around?" she asks innocently.

10-21-10 The days are long, but the years are short

2010-10-21T13:56:00.004-04:00

I wake up from a cold, dark dream of a run down home which bears a striking resemblance to my time in Queens, and I realize that today, despite all the good that has occurred, all the joy I have had in the past few months, that I am still myself.

This has a bad side, and a good side. I am still directionless, wandering my days, wondering how I can possibly achieve anything in this life where I have wasted so much time.

On the good side, I still wake up next to a beautiful woman I adore, who rolls over as I get out of bed in the darkness to begin my morning, and sleepily says, every morning without fail for the last year we've lived together, "I love you."

10-8-10 a few words on the meta-narrative

2010-10-08T08:50:00.004-04:00

This was one of the things that really got me about the concept for this blog (sidebar: if electrons shape words, but no one reads them, do they retain the information after the computer is off?): do I write the morning after about the previous day, but date the entry for the previous day? The deal is, I write, work, think, and am more motivated to do all of those things, in the morning, but nothing's really happened so far that day. At night, I'm ready to lie down, talk with my wife (!!!), watch some TV or read something, and drift off to sleep (it's those darn morning pages I wrote all those years ago that got me in the habit, I imagine). Writing in the morning about things that have happened that day per se leads to lots of posts about commuting, which has its place, I suppose, but is not what this blog is supposed to really be about.

10-5-10 Many changes make for renewal

2010-10-05T11:03:00.002-04:00

I haven't written in ages, mostly out of a sense of "why bother?" But since I've effectively eliminated most of my readership through neglect, I'm now utterly free. I don't have to do this because I feel obligated, or because there's something "important" for me to say. I can simply write, because I like to write, because it's fun to write, and because it makes me happy.

3-4-10 - late edition.

2010-03-04T10:38:00.004-05:00

Last night, as I walked along Union Street, a dormer window high above the street was lit, and silhouetted in the bottom frame was a large dog. He was lit just enough by the street lamps and the ambient light of Brooklyn to see that he was white, and fluffy, with large, intelligent ears that turned before his head did while he watched the passers-by on the street below. I tried to take his picture, but the phone on my camera was insufficient to capture his curiosity, and since I was across the street, he was too far away anyway.

My mom called this assessment of the view out a window by animals "reading the newspaper" and that phrase always tickled me; just a big, white dog, reading the newspaper - late edition.

11/12/09 - Really, it's tougher on the people around me than on me

2009-11-13T10:12:00.002-05:00

I sit down on the floor. The song isn't right - it isn't right, and I'm not sure how to fix it, which makes it even more of a drag. I lay my guitar aside and and try to explain to Ray why, making more and more of a hash of it, and getting more upset and despairing until finally I realize the problem: I'm hungry.

The despair vanishes, and I put my guitar away, since I've killed the vibe, but at least I know why I feel crazy.

11/11/09 - Nicholson Baker's "Box of Matches" inspired me

2009-11-11T13:53:00.003-05:00

Bicycling through Prospect Park on a mildly chilly Fall day, the leaves spin lazy whorls through the gray air like they just don't care. I taste that sour-spicy smell of decaying leaves, cold, and soil that is specifically fall, and nostalgia hits me so hard I almost start crying. So many good things that I had to destroy, so many things that I thought I could never have again, all coming back to me, and I am so grateful.

"I'm here," I say out loud, to remind myself that I am, and I put nostalgia aside for a minute so I don't miss a second, push the pedals again, watch the leaves gather into drifts on the side of the road.

9/18/09 - Get the Cool Shoeshine

2009-09-19T12:25:00.003-04:00

The latina woman who shines shoes in the shop in the breezeway tunnel below Grand Central is asleep curled up in her chair with one cheek resting on her fist when I walk into the shop. The neon sign on the window says "Keys Made Shoe Repair" in glowing red, and a paper sign below that says "Holiday Special $2 Shine".

She awakens without embarrassment and motions me into the chair where she proceeds to enact a very practical ritual with a minimum of wasted motion - brushing and wiping and spraying and shining and spraying and buffing and snapping the cloth and buffing some more until the shoe glows blackly beneath the greenish flourescent lights.

I ascend the stairs and walk into the sunlit day beneath a blue sky, and my shoes feel like magic on my feet - cooler, better fitting, dancing their way down the street with me in them, pulling me along the sidewalk through the day.

9/17/09 - Because I promised

2009-09-18T11:45:00.003-04:00

We return from the Aretha Franklin show at Radio City Music Hall weary, exasperated, underwhelmed with the performance. My body still buzzes with adrenenline from the end of the show where Katie, in contrast to her usual modus operandi, actually stopped a fight between two assholes sitting near us in our mezzanine seats.

There's a moment or two of bickering as we pack for tomorrow's journey to Connecticut for her cousin's wedding (do I have any clean clothes? Can I pull off stripes with pinstripes? Will you just answer the question?) until Katie, seeing that I am using the ironing board, throws down her unironed shirt on the couch with a sigh and goes to take a shower.

I pick up the shirt and, despite its being a girl's shirt and therefore constructed like the proverbial Chinese Algebra problem, I attempt to iron it, hoping that with this small act I can smoothe both her ruffled fur, and mine.

7/31/09 - too hot, too humid, too crowded

2009-07-31T13:25:00.003-04:00

Even the massive bulk of the trains hurtling by the platform can't stir the thick, tepid air. Sweat hangs on every passing face like a soaked veil.

The girl sitting next to me on the bench as we wait for the next Q to whisk us away to air-conditioned (albeit standing, crowded) nirvana arranges herself just so to avoid touching me accidentally, and I do likewise. We sit, simmering in the wet air, watching the trains come and go on the other, Brooklyn-bound platform, and pretending we don't notice each other at all.

7/30/09 - Connect the Dots: Bald, Crazy Fucker Edition

2009-07-30T23:20:00.004-04:00

I play a game sometimes, hearing a song or watching a movie, that, until recently, I wasn't even aware I was playing. A sample game goes something like this: listening to my iPod, I hear a song called "Gunning for the Buddha" by Shriekback, which made me think of Grant Morrison, who wrote a chapter of his comic book The Invisibles called "Oh Buddha, Up Yours", which included the character King Mob, who looks a lot like a buffer, slightly more violent Spider Jerusalem.

Katie, of course, was long familiar with this (pointless) game by the time I figured out that it was "something I do," which you can imagine was pretty disconcerting. There is a whole world out there that sees you and forms opinions of you and notices patterns in the things you do, and even makes decisions about you and predictions about what it thinks you'll do next, even if you don't know yourself; and sometimes, they'll be right.