As soon as I saw her, I looked the other way and wondered, Did she see me see her? Together, on opposing sides of the velour rope, we threaded the zigzag that led up to the airport x-rays, passing with two feet in between us again and again. I tried to casually look away each time I noticed her red sweater coming toward me, but the more we passed each other, the more forced I assumed I appeared. Then I thought about why I was avoiding her, and I realized that I had no reason at all. She's a few years younger than me, from my home town (is that a reason?), and she's always been very nice to me. I thought about a particular night a long time ago—at a sleep-over, the two of us laughing in our neighboring sleeping bags with stabs of pain in our sides until the room had quietly slid from dark to light. I don't remember what we were laughing about.
The last row before the x-rays, my last chance, I let my eyes meet hers and I acted surprised and I said hello. And it was nice.
I spent Christmas in North Carolina, far from the blizzard in NY. Moonlighting with family and friends, I saw him and her and him and him; friends visiting from Alaska, Portland, Chicago, and Mexico; grandparents visiting from West Virginia. By now, most of us have again dispersed, flying away from each other at enormous speeds.
I used to think he was cute. He's in his 70s, has a thick Polish accent, and he sloppily threads his belt loops, missing one here and there. It's his job to take out the trash that's piled up by the side door, to light pilot lights, to make sure various keys and outlets in the building are functioning properly. He goes by Super, and Steve. Sometimes I see him walking out of the liquor store, and we always say hello. Usually it stops there, though, as his English is almost as bad as my Polish. I never seem to see him when I need him.
My mail comes to a narrow silver compartment at the front of my building, just past the main door. For weeks now, the lock on my mailbox has been completely broken, as if someone has gone to the trouble of taking off the arm that holds the door closed, the arm that moves 90 degrees to the left when I turn my key. It's been easy for me to get my mail, to swing the door to the box open without having to take out my keys, but of course it's been easy for everyone in my building to do the same.
I asked Super Steve again last Saturday if he would repair the lock, since I was going out of town a few days later. In addition to leaving a carefully worded message on his machine, I wrote him a note and drew pictures: a row of mailboxes, a key, and a letter; a refrigerator and an outlet (for the blown fuse in my apartment); some arrows and circles with slashes.
The note brought him to my door. I let him in, and with my note in hand, he pointed to the kitchen sink, and asked, "Is this the problem?" Ten minutes go by; after listening to me explain and reword and repeat, he left, leaving me fairly sure we'd reached an agreement.
Tuesday. My mailbox was locked and closed, but my keys no longer worked. He answered the phone slurring and giggling. He stated, seriously, "I close your mailbox. Now what you want? Why you want it open now? You say 'close it,' I close it." When I'd try to explain the concept of locks, he'd start giggling again. Back and forth, laughing uncontrollably, then sounding annoyed. Finally, he snapped, "I come down in a moment."
An hour later I was sitting in his apartment, waiting, as he clutched a giant Budweiser in one hand and spoke his native language fluidly into a cordless phone he held in the other. He moved slowly around the house and pointed at things in his apartment for me to use as a key, including a horseshoe and a coat hanger, making the point that he didn't have a key either, and that one object was as good as another, since none of them would work anyway. His solution, he implied, was to do nothing, for my mailbox to ingest letters until it exploded.
I argued with him, eventually giving up and walking out the door. He followed close behind, carrying a screwdriver and yelling, "Okay, I do it now, I do it now!" I watched him wrench open the door to my mailbox and remove the lock completely, returning me to my original predicament, and making me feel that post-argument brand of exhausted and ridiculous.
I was surprised when I returned home today to a new lock and a new set of keys.
Today was domestic Sunday. In addition to scrubbing the bathroom floor and cooking dinner for myself (which involved my first shot at tofu), I baked cookies. Though I am no longer afraid of the kitchen, I expected something to go wrong, but nothing did, really. One cookie was impaled on the corner of the stove's burner, but there was no black oxidized matter to scrape off, no raw centers (as far as I can tell), no fires. They look pretty good, too, though I can't say first-hand. I ate way too much dough and can't imagine chasing it with a cookie.
***
Tonight I pulled out the box of cassette tapes that came with me to New York. They are mostly mixed tapes, full of handwriting and time and tiny, folded notes. I've been studying a few of them, sitting on the floor among them, listening to them, with notes like accordions sitting to my left and right. It surprises me when I hear a particular song and my heart pretends to stop for a moment, as if it wants to be quiet enough to absorb every note that it recalls. Especially true with the tapes made by people who currently feel remote. Sometimes I hate that the past is presented to my brain in servings of small moments, strung together like some sort of cheesy music video. It's as close as I can get, though, and it's better than not visiting at all.
***
Babes in Toyland might be the worst movie I've ever seen.
When I buy a soda from a street vendor, in addition to an aluminum can, I receive a sheet of wax paper (as if I were being handed a doughnut), a stack of dispenser-style napkins, a straw, and a brown paper bag. If I buy a banana, it's served to me in a plastic bag with napkins and a set of plastic silverware wrapped in a clear plastic sleeve with salt and pepper. If I buy a roll and a banana, the roll gets shoved in its own brown bag, while the banana floats around in the larger plastic bag (with the brown bag and the napkins and plastic-ware and packets of butter).
I try to stop them before they robotically toss the plastic presents in my bag like torpedoes, but usually they're too fast for me. I open my mouth to say something just as the things are raining in, but I stop myself. I think it might upset them at that point.
I've decided that it's somewhat of a game, something like pinball. The plastic-ware pack and napkins (etc.) are the ball that try to sneak past me into the hole, and I have to catch it before it's too late, slamming it back with a forceful flipper. Forceful, because the clerks are insistent, even after I've declined. They're trying to be accommodating and friendly, unaware of the guarding flippers. It goes more smoothly if I'm carrying my own bag, because then they ask for permission, by silently holding up the white torpedo and making eye contact with me.
The correlation between the cold and the number of homeless people sleeping on the subway is predictable, but easy to forget until you see them, immodestly sprawled on benches, with necks hung forward or necks snapping back, mouths open. Tonight there were two in the car I took to get home; there was no transit strike today, which meant for them a warm, if noisy, place to sleep. It only took a few seconds after stepping inside the train before I noticed the smell. You could watch it hit other people as they stepped on the train; you could see exactly when they made the connection. Most of them responded by quietly stepping through the door and into the next car.
I counted four holes in the left dirty white sock, and two in the right, slightly cleaner white sock. They were pointed toward me, at the end of a lump of jeans and flannel curled up in the fetal position. I couldn't see his head and didn't know whether it was a man or a woman, until he sleepily moved his arm over his hip, exposing his stretched out knuckles and thick fingers. His hands reminded me of my uncle's hands—big and thick, with fingernails outlined in black. There was a man beside the curled-up man, only he was sitting upright and was sleeping with his chin touching his chest, a position that promised neck pain when he awoke.
I was coming home later than usual, since Tripti and I stayed in the city to watch The Trials of Henry Kissinger, a documentary about the man thought by many to be a war criminal. Lots of grainy political footage; creepy, really, especially knowing that there's no happy ending, that those sinister plans really do result in mass death and terror. The film was good, albeit depressing, and I certainly learned something, but I couldn't help but feeling that there are people who need to see that film more than I do, people who never will.
On a happier note, I think I have found a solution for the homeless cats that hang out at the store on the corner of my block. I will keep you updated, if there's anything to tell.
At about 8:30 Saturday night, my head was resting on a red velour pillow somewhere toward the bottom of a sloping set of risers, in an old warehouse in Brooklyn, just by the Manhattan Bridge. The risers were sloped toward a stage and a giant window, through which you could see a sample of the Brooklyn skyline, the yellow rectangles of burning lights in nearby buildings. On the stage were two men, one molesting a shiny, metal guitar, and the other producing impossible noises on a harmonica. He wore a belt full of them, wrapped around him like weapons that he could draw in an emergency.
On his right hip, he wore a white metal coffee cup that was attached by a retractable leash. He'd pull it up to the harmonica he was playing, catching the notes in the cup and releasing them to the microphone, and then he'd let the cup drop and snap back into place. He sang, sometimes quietly into a megaphone that was pointed at a microphone, making his voice sound distant and produced. He made sounds by hitting his tensed mouth with his hand, Native American style, but voiceless. He played a washboard that was rigged with a small cymbal and a horn, and a rope that allowed him to hang it around his neck. He played the kazoo. He waved his arms around dramatically to illustrate the sounds he was producing, making the audience laugh.
It was amazing to watch; even better that I had my head on a pillow, and that I had a collection of things at my hip, including brie and crackers and a bottle of beer. I wish that you could've been in that small space to watch it with me, because describing feels flat and inanimate.
Later, a college-y party and a punk party, and a long wait in an empty subway tunnel.
The news here is dominated by the talk of a transit strike, scheduled for Monday. I will probably be one of the least inconvenienced, if it happens, as my bike and I have a relatively short commute. It's hard for me to imagine the migration of people leaving the land masses surrounding Manhattan on foot, crossing bridges in thick coats and tennis shoes, and flocking back eight hours later. I wasn't here for last year's exodus.
***
Every year around this time I am aware that Christmas is approaching, and I dutifully make plans and make gifts and buy things and go to theme parties. And it's nice, most of it. But if I weren't reminded by the advertisements and the ornaments and flags dripping off the lampposts, it might slip past me unnoticed. Tomorrow evening I'm going the first Christmas party, the office party.
***
On Tuesday, there was a club in the west village where people who dressed like 80s rock stars congregated beneath TVs that looped 80s videos, next to a stage where some of those people stood and belted out lyrics above synthesizers and guitars. I enjoyed the videos and the DJ that seeped in between songs more than I did the live music. It was fun being there, standing in the middle of it, but it made me wonder whether I'm an introvert or an extrovert. Which is nothing new.
At night, when I'm lying in bed next to a gray cat and underneath my alarm clock which sits on a rudimentary shelf that Ingo helped me build, I listen to the music coming from the apartment above me. I come inches from cursing it, because it keeps me awake, but really I am anxious to hear what song my neighbor will play next. S/he seems to own my CD collection's twin, but a twin who is more obese and richer and a little evasive. Sometimes I want to run up there and ask who the artist is that's currently being played, or admit to my neighbor how I often turn off my own music so I can listen to his/hers.
It can be aggravatingly quiet; just loud enough for me to identify it, but not quite loud enough to be satisfying. Like when my dad would ride in my car and turn the music down—not off—but down to the point that it was barely audible so that talking would be possible, in case one wanted to. So that the music was in limbo, eternally struggling for its life like an upside-down insect.
You can engage in silly behavior on the sidewalk, and no one seems to take notice. You can pass a vintage store near your house and be invited to a private party where you meet a bunch of people who happen to be from Memphis. You can have nothing to do but decide to go out anyway, and end up spending a few hours trading stories with the trumpet player in Sting's band. You can walk a few feet up one of the cables on the Brooklyn Bridge, and no one tells you to get down. You can walk into a bar you've never been in before and discover that the bartender is from North Carolina and knows several of your friends from Raleigh. You can decide you want to buy a pair of earmuffs, and, within two minutes, walk past a vendor selling earmuffs. You can go to a different part of the city every day, and, still, the portion you know is only a fraction of the portion you don't. You can take the subway at midnight on a Sunday night and have lots of company from all over the world.
At work, there's a giant window about ten feet behind me. Normally I don't look out of it very often, but today the snow kept getting my attention. It fell steadily all day, and in the draft between my building and the next, the snow didn't always fall down, but also left and right and even up. People kept stopping by my desk, mentioning the bizarro world snow and standing there, just watching it. People in the building next door took turns walking out onto their fire escape (which is almost even with my window) to smoke cigarettes or get silently pelted or collect and throw a snowball at the nothing ten floors below. Ian told me when he was walking through Union Square today, he saw some adults in the midst of a spontaneous snowball fight.
The snowfall was somewhat eclipsed by the simultaneous ice storm in North Carolina; I didn't have a power outage or driving problems, I just had to pay attention to each step on matted snow. I fell once, on the way to work, and was immediately (and unnecessarily) helped up by a kind New Yorker who warned me that my fall was likely the first of many today. Good he was wrong.
***
While I was in Raleigh, there were a lot of people I didn't have a chance to see, and there were a lot of things left to do, but. I did play my first successful game with my two-year-old niece: I put the plastic figurine on top of the castle, and she tirelessly shoved him or her down the trap door, in an unbreakable cycle. If I deviated from that pattern, I was treated to a "no!" and a nasty look. I wasn't about to betray our first connection; I kept feeding her figurines, until some outside force (I don't remember what) finally put an end to it.
And I walked in the woods and I saw more than five stars, more like five hundred, and I went to a party where there was a lake and a fire pit in the backyard, and a DJ inside. And dogs. And I dyed my hair, watched Baraka with one of my parents (while the other quietly slept in a recliner with a cat on his lap), played pool, finished making this website, and I took a few pictures. I went to my first cat show, walked around the flea market, and drove my old car, full of deer and cop paranoia, but fast anyway.
I thought it would feel stranger than it did to be there; actually, it felt natural, sometimes as if I hadn't left at all.
I hadn't expected to have space issues, though; to notice a surplus of room in the apartments and houses I visited, in the fields on the way to my parents' house, on the bench next to the pool table where I was playing, my stuff sprawled out over three feet. It was hard not to feel like I was taking someone else's space by having some for myself.
I slept on the plane this morning, which only sped up the strange transition and draped a hazy curtain over my brain for the entire day.
