Decisive Avoidance
He was trying to decide between the train and the bus or the renting of a car. He wasn't sure exactly what time his meeting would be over or whether or not it would snow, which as he saw it were two important factors in determining his mode of travel. If he got out of the meeting early enough to beat or be on the easy side of rush hour it might be preferable to drive as it allowed the most autonomy, albeit at the expense of having to be awake and in charge of his destiny, where to turn, how fast to go, what to look at, when to pass and when to sit back, and which radio station to listen to. Under ideal conditions and with aggressive driving style it was possible to make the trip between Philly and New York in an hour and a half. There were any number of people he could talk to at the business meeting who could make the quick drive claim, some shaving off enough minutes to imply that under their suits they wore another suit emblazoned with the letter S. If he didn't pull away at times to go to the bathroom or make a phone call or pretend he was doing one or the other, he could be stuck listening to a preposterous geometric progression of braggadocio that led to any variety of grotesque and vainglorious chest puffing behavior, all of it eventually ending with a group of, mostly men, staring blankly forward, at walls or each other, realizing that again they have gone too far too fast. Excuse me I need to take this call, and retreat. The drive could also under not ideal conditions take four hours or more.
If it snowed, well then, the only thing he could think to say about that was crapshit. Onto every life a little snow must fall, sure, but man, crapshit and holy hell, why me, why now, why oh why Lord does it all have to happen to me? He found sometimes that a short bout of controlled histrionics helped him to calm down and think straight if not fly right. In this case however he felt every bit as confused after the histrionics as before and so moved directly to plan B which not to oversimplify included the aggressive handling of a matter by putting it out of your mind.
You could then jump ahead two or more steps and be at the conclusion or on the other side of whatever pesky problem lay in front of you. In this case he saw himself already flown from Chicago to the Philadelphia meeting and surviving that somehow transported to Manhattan where he sat now inside at an establishment of haute gastronomy imagining not only what he would order and drink and how much but what he would say. Hey, (and here he winked across the table at his old college buddy even though winking was not something he was especially trained at) is it haute enough for you? he might say before staring down protectively at his silverware to avoid getting in his eyes the ensuing laughter fueled projectile spew of alcohol and ice. The college buddy's girlfriend would think him charming and would engage him in all manner of interesting conversation to further distract him from the possible catastrophic consequences inherent to his skipping through time without a hall pass. But so far this skipping of the precursory was ok, just being forward in time and avoiding all the necessary preparations, it could work. And in this world which did not yet but very well may exist he could find little to complain about excepting perhaps not so much the size of the portions but that his college buddy would not share his glycerin injected rabbit jowl mousse fricassee. Though, this too was fine, in this world or another, as long as the buddy and the girlfriend laughed at his moose fricassee jokes, of which he had plenty.
...more recent posts
Untimely Cat Scratch
Is that the best snow you got? I will say the shaded reading glasses are somewhat of an improvement over the glare of this screen. They won't really help me to say anything but...is that serendipity or just run of the mill coincidence when you are writing about your reading glasses and Bernadette calls out from the bed a question about these very type of reading glasses? No matter. It's not serendipity though. I looked it up, I don't know why I said serendipity unless it was just something I felt like saying. I know one thing, I will think twice before I say it again.
It is a swirling snow day with emphasis on the swirling and not so much the snow because there isn't that much of it.
The exercise would be to just click out those words without so much concern for what you are actually saying, more just to get the words and the fingers working in concert. Haven't been to a concert since the Neko Case at the Beacon back in November 09.
Virginia the cat is sitting in my other chair in this here my cave, jokingly referred to as the man cave, jokingly not because there is any doubt about my 100 per cent bona fide manliness but just because what kind of schlep calls his work space a man cave? What was I saying about Virginia, it was that she is in my other chair, the one I mostly read in and she is coating it with hair. Walter Pagent has offered to come over and clip her nails for me while I hold her screaming and clawing in a towel but every time he calls I think of a good reason not to call him back, for example number one on the list is I am scared to join in the procedure of cat claw trimming.
Maybe there is a full body suit we could wear like a scuba divers suit that would protect us from the certainty that she is going to score with one of her claws an impressive scratch possibly one requiring stitches and medication against cat scratch fever. I don't want to get the cat scratch fever. More than that I really don't know what to say.
Let talk about potted plants. I have a container of catnip and several pots full of aloe vera. I split up the aloe vera awhile back and it is still crowded in some of the pots. I had two pots when I came here and now there are five. I have two of them in the sink right now because I watered them. I am going to get up now and retrieve them from the sink and put them back on the windowsill, the windowsill that looks out into the shaft between this building and the sister building next door. They are called sister buildings because they look exactly alike on the outside. Which one of the sisters you might prefer to date I cannot say for sure. I mean what if one of the sisters had an elevator, would you be more tempted to date her just because of it? Maybe you would.
Now on to unidentifiable objects, like that thing in front of me, concentric rings of black iron, one bigger than the other and not rings so much as diamonds. Is that a holder for a candle there at the bottom or what? I can't really answer that or if I do I will have to take it off the list of unidentifiable objects.
That receptacle over there is one plug shy of a pair. That will be the opening lyric to my new hit song. Please buy my musical product on sale at your nearest retailer.
Hey where are you going I call out to the cat. She is going in there to see just what the hell is going on in the bathroom and I can't really blame her that. She is back now, obviously that thing about death by curiosity is a myth, although if she sneaks up and attacks my bare foot again I would not rule out for her the possibility of untimely death.
Is that the best snow you got? I will say the shaded reading glasses are somewhat of an improvement over the glare of this screen. They won't really help me to say anything but...is that serendipity or just run of the mill coincidence when you are writing about your reading glasses and Bernadette calls out from the bed a question about these very type of reading glasses? No matter. It's not serendipity though. I looked it up, I don't know why I said serendipity unless it was just something I felt like saying. I know one thing, I will think twice before I say it again.
It is a swirling snow day with emphasis on the swirling and not so much the snow because there isn't that much of it.
The exercise would be to just click out those words without so much concern for what you are actually saying, more just to get the words and the fingers working in concert. Haven't been to a concert since the Neko Case at the Beacon back in November 09.
Virginia the cat is sitting in my other chair in this here my cave, jokingly referred to as the man cave, jokingly not because there is any doubt about my 100 per cent bona fide manliness but just because what kind of schlep calls his work space a man cave? What was I saying about Virginia, it was that she is in my other chair, the one I mostly read in and she is coating it with hair. Walter Pagent has offered to come over and clip her nails for me while I hold her screaming and clawing in a towel but every time he calls I think of a good reason not to call him back, for example number one on the list is I am scared to join in the procedure of cat claw trimming.
Maybe there is a full body suit we could wear like a scuba divers suit that would protect us from the certainty that she is going to score with one of her claws an impressive scratch possibly one requiring stitches and medication against cat scratch fever. I don't want to get the cat scratch fever. More than that I really don't know what to say.
Let talk about potted plants. I have a container of catnip and several pots full of aloe vera. I split up the aloe vera awhile back and it is still crowded in some of the pots. I had two pots when I came here and now there are five. I have two of them in the sink right now because I watered them. I am going to get up now and retrieve them from the sink and put them back on the windowsill, the windowsill that looks out into the shaft between this building and the sister building next door. They are called sister buildings because they look exactly alike on the outside. Which one of the sisters you might prefer to date I cannot say for sure. I mean what if one of the sisters had an elevator, would you be more tempted to date her just because of it? Maybe you would.
Now on to unidentifiable objects, like that thing in front of me, concentric rings of black iron, one bigger than the other and not rings so much as diamonds. Is that a holder for a candle there at the bottom or what? I can't really answer that or if I do I will have to take it off the list of unidentifiable objects.
That receptacle over there is one plug shy of a pair. That will be the opening lyric to my new hit song. Please buy my musical product on sale at your nearest retailer.
Hey where are you going I call out to the cat. She is going in there to see just what the hell is going on in the bathroom and I can't really blame her that. She is back now, obviously that thing about death by curiosity is a myth, although if she sneaks up and attacks my bare foot again I would not rule out for her the possibility of untimely death.
To Yourself Please
Today I ate in a restaurant. To begin with I had only set out to find a place to shelter me from the cold, but the library by the park had proved unacceptable and so I kept walking, west, with a wool cap pulled over my ears and my hands warm inside the pockets of my down-filled vest. The wind would kick up now and again and when it did I could almost immediately feel a throbbing in the exposed tips of my ear lobes. And without warning my eyes would tear up and I would turn my head so fellow pedestrians would not see me as someone who cried at the least little thing. Sure, as if they give a damn, but how do you not see yourself as a public figure when out in public? We are not invisible are we? Are not our fellow pedestrians hungry for diversion? Interested in anything that allows them brief respite from their own routine?
Overall though, despite my occasionally teary appearance, I was in a good mood and felt especially happy when the tall buildings would allow passage of a sunny ray onto the sidewalk or the building fronts. The cruddy sidewalks, recording as they do, and sometimes in graphic fashion, our tendency to expel what we no longer need or want, are easier to forgive when bathed in golden sunlight, and as I crossed from the shaded gray of tainted paths into the diagonal bands of bright light, and back again, I could feel my mood lighten or darken accordingly. Also a good hard snow, fresh and without footprint beyond your own, could make the forgetting easier, or at least the details (where God may or may not reside) less noticeable--the etched pentagrams, the bittersweet fact that Roy once loved Lilly, that gum turns black when spit out and stepped on and allowed to absorb everything else that exists, that spit, big giant gobs of it or tiny flecks of it is really simply disgusting, and as this appears to be something of a list I would in fact be remiss for not mentioning the vomit and the dog shit, which if you are lucky you can avoid its conjoining with your shoe bottom, but only if you are not one of those types with your head in the clouds, dreaming some happy blissful dream, and unaware of what actually surrounds you. I will spare a person my inner self when I can. As example I will not lay before you the suggestion of vomit on the sidewalk being like an ill-conceived omelet, or I mean, at least I won't go on and on about it, expanding on the theme with details riffing one into the other, until it is the only omelet you will ever think of. The ill-conceived vomit omelet is the specialty at Ralph's. And in any case, we must be stronger than that, not allowing the glancing thought to take root and rule the day. We must move on and be happy. Think of all the good things you find on a sidewalk. But to yourself please, not out loud.
Then I'm in the restaurant, across from the park, where I eat occasionally because despite ownership and menu changes and some expansion, it is still there under the same name and it reminds me, for better or worse, of thirty years ago when I would visit the city and was seeking out those places that laid out large plates of food for little money. Sometimes for me it is comforting just to think that there is even such a thing as thirty years ago. Or if I'm looking for a pep talk that can be contained in a single thought I might look back 45 years and be comforted by the image of all us kids doing that duck and cover drill at school, which was intended to save us from nuclear attack. I mean really, all that is implied in the duck and cover maneuver, that's the kind of blind optimism you need to survive in this world.
I ordered the meatloaf which comes in at just under ten dollars and includes more meat than you really need and mashed potatoes made from real potatoes and a salad and a soup. And I had a coke, which I really only drink at restaurants. I tried to read some, a lesbian romance, by Patricia Highsmith, on one of those electronic devices, and had some success with it which is remarkable for me because I am usually highly distracted by the sound and subject matter of people talking around me, like against all evidence to the contrary, hundreds and hundreds of hours of it, I think I am going to hear something that is going to change my life, make all the eavesdropping worthwhile.
I haven't been in this restaurant but twice since moving here in November so I am not all that in tune with what may be the restaurant's protocol regarding panhandling inside the establishment. If I was a proprietor I think I would generally discourage it. You see it occasionally in the city and someone on staff usually deals with it very politely, telling the panhandler that it is better to conduct his or her affairs on the public sidewalk. So when this guy comes in and stands mostly right in front of me but to play for better odds addresses pretty much everyone in the section, I wait for a waiter, or the manager to deal with it. When no such action is forthcoming I say what the hell and begin reaching into my front pocket. The crazy thing is I had before leaving the house actually removed from the substantial weight of my change cup a dozen quarters, thinking I would be prepared for a soul in need (I carry a wallet and don't feel right taking it out on the street and rifling through twenties in search of a single, and if that is the only option most often I will not give.) But when the guys sees me going into my front pocket he interrupts me, somewhat belligerently at that, and says, no that's no good, I'm going to need a couple of dollars, I am needing something to eat. I apologize to my departed mother who raised me better but my first response, just inside my head, was to tell the guy to fuck off. Instead though, in some ways worse, I just shook my head and flicked my empty hands toward him like he a fly and I wanted him to shoo away from me. When he kept on with his belligerent stance and somewhat whiningly said, man, you making it hard on me I lost my cool and it was then that I said, man fuck you, you making it hard on yourself. And I was suddenly very mad and stared hotly at my mashed potatoes, which were themselves now cold. A fellow at a nearby booth who had just devoured a burger and fries and who had been before, during and after talking non stop into the air via blue tooth, conducting business of some kind, and who had that accent that says Bronx or Queens, took control of the matter and firmly but politely told the guy he was being a bit of an ass and this was not the way to go about things and if he went outside people who could afford to give him something would give him something. It was cold as hell that day. I don't begrudge the guy his one try at indoor panhandling but his lack of manners, boy that really got me hot under the collar. It's true though, I was only going to give him fifty cents.
While I was finishing this piece yesterday I remember wanting to express that I would hope to do better, that I would try to act better the next time this happened. As it turned out only a few hours later having dinner in the neighborhood with Bill Macy, and Bernadette, at a different restaurant, and a panhandler, thankfully one with distinctly better manners than the one I ran into a few days previous but only got around to writing about yesterday, came into the restaurant's vestibule and poked his head through the curtain so he could address, well, it seemed like specifically me, but I'm sure he would have accepted anyone's offering. It flustered me for a moment because it seemed so surreal, writing about this very thing and then having it play out again so soon after. Perhaps what is happening is that the trickle down theory is finally working and what with everyone tightening their belts it is getting harder on the street for panhandlers. So they are coming inside and approaching the comfortable diner. I don't think I can support this tactic, and I tried to express to the guy last night--I think I did improve because I did not cuss at him--that it would be better to approach people outside. I told him if he were outside when I was done I would give him something but he was pressed for time, had to go pick up his meds he said, and wanted to know how long it would be before I came out. So it ended awkwardly, again, but with some semblance of manners projected by both parties. Which in lieu of the joy of giving, and receiving, will for now just have to be good enough.
Today I ate in a restaurant. To begin with I had only set out to find a place to shelter me from the cold, but the library by the park had proved unacceptable and so I kept walking, west, with a wool cap pulled over my ears and my hands warm inside the pockets of my down-filled vest. The wind would kick up now and again and when it did I could almost immediately feel a throbbing in the exposed tips of my ear lobes. And without warning my eyes would tear up and I would turn my head so fellow pedestrians would not see me as someone who cried at the least little thing. Sure, as if they give a damn, but how do you not see yourself as a public figure when out in public? We are not invisible are we? Are not our fellow pedestrians hungry for diversion? Interested in anything that allows them brief respite from their own routine?
Overall though, despite my occasionally teary appearance, I was in a good mood and felt especially happy when the tall buildings would allow passage of a sunny ray onto the sidewalk or the building fronts. The cruddy sidewalks, recording as they do, and sometimes in graphic fashion, our tendency to expel what we no longer need or want, are easier to forgive when bathed in golden sunlight, and as I crossed from the shaded gray of tainted paths into the diagonal bands of bright light, and back again, I could feel my mood lighten or darken accordingly. Also a good hard snow, fresh and without footprint beyond your own, could make the forgetting easier, or at least the details (where God may or may not reside) less noticeable--the etched pentagrams, the bittersweet fact that Roy once loved Lilly, that gum turns black when spit out and stepped on and allowed to absorb everything else that exists, that spit, big giant gobs of it or tiny flecks of it is really simply disgusting, and as this appears to be something of a list I would in fact be remiss for not mentioning the vomit and the dog shit, which if you are lucky you can avoid its conjoining with your shoe bottom, but only if you are not one of those types with your head in the clouds, dreaming some happy blissful dream, and unaware of what actually surrounds you. I will spare a person my inner self when I can. As example I will not lay before you the suggestion of vomit on the sidewalk being like an ill-conceived omelet, or I mean, at least I won't go on and on about it, expanding on the theme with details riffing one into the other, until it is the only omelet you will ever think of. The ill-conceived vomit omelet is the specialty at Ralph's. And in any case, we must be stronger than that, not allowing the glancing thought to take root and rule the day. We must move on and be happy. Think of all the good things you find on a sidewalk. But to yourself please, not out loud.
Then I'm in the restaurant, across from the park, where I eat occasionally because despite ownership and menu changes and some expansion, it is still there under the same name and it reminds me, for better or worse, of thirty years ago when I would visit the city and was seeking out those places that laid out large plates of food for little money. Sometimes for me it is comforting just to think that there is even such a thing as thirty years ago. Or if I'm looking for a pep talk that can be contained in a single thought I might look back 45 years and be comforted by the image of all us kids doing that duck and cover drill at school, which was intended to save us from nuclear attack. I mean really, all that is implied in the duck and cover maneuver, that's the kind of blind optimism you need to survive in this world.
I ordered the meatloaf which comes in at just under ten dollars and includes more meat than you really need and mashed potatoes made from real potatoes and a salad and a soup. And I had a coke, which I really only drink at restaurants. I tried to read some, a lesbian romance, by Patricia Highsmith, on one of those electronic devices, and had some success with it which is remarkable for me because I am usually highly distracted by the sound and subject matter of people talking around me, like against all evidence to the contrary, hundreds and hundreds of hours of it, I think I am going to hear something that is going to change my life, make all the eavesdropping worthwhile.
I haven't been in this restaurant but twice since moving here in November so I am not all that in tune with what may be the restaurant's protocol regarding panhandling inside the establishment. If I was a proprietor I think I would generally discourage it. You see it occasionally in the city and someone on staff usually deals with it very politely, telling the panhandler that it is better to conduct his or her affairs on the public sidewalk. So when this guy comes in and stands mostly right in front of me but to play for better odds addresses pretty much everyone in the section, I wait for a waiter, or the manager to deal with it. When no such action is forthcoming I say what the hell and begin reaching into my front pocket. The crazy thing is I had before leaving the house actually removed from the substantial weight of my change cup a dozen quarters, thinking I would be prepared for a soul in need (I carry a wallet and don't feel right taking it out on the street and rifling through twenties in search of a single, and if that is the only option most often I will not give.) But when the guys sees me going into my front pocket he interrupts me, somewhat belligerently at that, and says, no that's no good, I'm going to need a couple of dollars, I am needing something to eat. I apologize to my departed mother who raised me better but my first response, just inside my head, was to tell the guy to fuck off. Instead though, in some ways worse, I just shook my head and flicked my empty hands toward him like he a fly and I wanted him to shoo away from me. When he kept on with his belligerent stance and somewhat whiningly said, man, you making it hard on me I lost my cool and it was then that I said, man fuck you, you making it hard on yourself. And I was suddenly very mad and stared hotly at my mashed potatoes, which were themselves now cold. A fellow at a nearby booth who had just devoured a burger and fries and who had been before, during and after talking non stop into the air via blue tooth, conducting business of some kind, and who had that accent that says Bronx or Queens, took control of the matter and firmly but politely told the guy he was being a bit of an ass and this was not the way to go about things and if he went outside people who could afford to give him something would give him something. It was cold as hell that day. I don't begrudge the guy his one try at indoor panhandling but his lack of manners, boy that really got me hot under the collar. It's true though, I was only going to give him fifty cents.
While I was finishing this piece yesterday I remember wanting to express that I would hope to do better, that I would try to act better the next time this happened. As it turned out only a few hours later having dinner in the neighborhood with Bill Macy, and Bernadette, at a different restaurant, and a panhandler, thankfully one with distinctly better manners than the one I ran into a few days previous but only got around to writing about yesterday, came into the restaurant's vestibule and poked his head through the curtain so he could address, well, it seemed like specifically me, but I'm sure he would have accepted anyone's offering. It flustered me for a moment because it seemed so surreal, writing about this very thing and then having it play out again so soon after. Perhaps what is happening is that the trickle down theory is finally working and what with everyone tightening their belts it is getting harder on the street for panhandlers. So they are coming inside and approaching the comfortable diner. I don't think I can support this tactic, and I tried to express to the guy last night--I think I did improve because I did not cuss at him--that it would be better to approach people outside. I told him if he were outside when I was done I would give him something but he was pressed for time, had to go pick up his meds he said, and wanted to know how long it would be before I came out. So it ended awkwardly, again, but with some semblance of manners projected by both parties. Which in lieu of the joy of giving, and receiving, will for now just have to be good enough.