Thursday, 20 February 2003 | Countertops

Like almost everyone else that I know, I initially didn't want a cell phone but I eventually gave in, and now (roughly one-and-a-half years later) I find myself ridiculously attached to it, since I rely on it to make plans and long distance calls and to get unlost. So on Monday, when my phone temporarily died, I suspected I would feel exaggerated-ly disconnected, but instead I feel a little bit free and elusive, kind of like the time I moved to Scotland and didn't tell anyone for a few days. Not that I'm not ready for it come back to life.

...

So today the weather was in the 40s, maybe it was 50, even; the sun was out, and people were gracefully moving around the sidewalk snow-mountains as if they were a normal fixture, an expected something that needs to be side-stepped, like a telephone pole or a mailbox. Everyone had also wised up to the death puddles, the ones that look deceptively shallow (thanks to the crumbs of snow skating on the surface), and chose to avoid them by employing the surrounding snow-mountains as staircases.

New York seemed to be in an unusually good mood today. When I ran an errand at lunch, I saw (and became part of) strangers exchanging jokes and greetings and held doors. In the drug store, I heard an 80s song I haven't heard in years—one of those lite FM songs that I like only because I thought it was good when I was 7. From the middle of the store, I heard the pharmacist immodestly singing along in the back, and in the front, I passed another guy who was whistling along. The choreographed dance on the countertops must have happened after I walked out the door.