Fools! Fools! Fools!

As I am mid-process in the possible procurement of a fantastic new job (full-time; fuck?) I questioned some of my pertinent skills to a friend. Here was his reply:

“Everybody questions everything except for the handful of fools that question nothing. They usually are put in charge.”

Hahahahaha my knee hurts.
Sniff.

City Dwellers: We Eat Concrete

I got hit by a car. While I was on my bike. About an hour ago. I’m ok. But I’m also post-adrenaline, mid-pain, loopy from it all.

Scenario: Prince Street, car edging me out, me swerving into the sidewalk, me flying over my bike: knee, pelvis, hand, chin.

I saw my chin propel to the concrete in slow motion. Couldn’t stop it, but I thought pretty loudly: “Do not hit your chin hard!” (It wasn’t too hard.)

Three men: “Are you ok?” etc.

Hands gravelly, pelvis scraped red, knee with a grand blue bump. Chin? Chinny.

My body is all wibbly. I don’t know what other word there is to describe this feeling. Woobly.

Damn You, Mikey

So yeah. I’ve been reporter/witness to two fires in the city today. One as I left a newspaper job at Union Square. Burning building, 10 trucks, large men in black-and-yellow uniforms on ladders high up. The other fire, now, near my other newspaper job. Here’s the view from the "terrace" [read: frighteningly high out-jutting platform surrounded by skinny metal bars]:


Which brings us to the Morbidity Count as of Today, since the past almost-three weeks:

2 fires
+
1 staffer car accident
2 staffer relatives/significant others dead
2 staffer relatives/significant others dying
=
What the fuck?
No, but what the fuck?

Did You Know the Devil's Name Is Mikey?

I almost rode my bike to work, but the martinis from last night whispered to my pained brain that I shouldn't. (Note to self: Do not drink with old bosses. You people are my downfall. Drunks.) Anyway, my legs could also use the time off to turn skin-colored and not bruise-colored again. (I don't know why I get so banged up when I bike. I like it.)

But, Jesus Christ, I am so happy I took the train this morning.

It was silent. We were still rattling on the R through Brooklyn toward Manhattan. And then the air was broken by a woman dressed in a teal tank top and gold, heeled sandals. She was in her late 40s, strawberry short hair.

"Hey Mikey! Get out of my people!" she said. "I'm sick of this shit. I know where you live, motherfucker."

Her voice poured out like acid. She waited a four-count then turned to the humans in the car and said: "That's right. I'm talking to the devil."

The devil's name is Mikey! Fuck! How did I not know this? Did you know this?

About 15 minutes later, hurling under Manhattan now, she turned to the car and said: "Mikey just hit that man."

A woman nearby who had recently entered the train looked at me, bewildered.

"Oh, Mikey is the devil," I told her. "You missed that bit earlier."

Her eyes popped and we covered our mouths like little girls, trying not to show the lady we were giggling.

Structures: The Walls Dropped Away

There are things to say. I experienced an absolutely new feeling today. During an ayurvedic massage. It has to do with inhabiting space, the self, the body, the mind. I have never. I can’t even. Not yet.

So instead here’s a photo I took of one of my favorite views in New York. Really, I love the crazy winding dark stairwell against the low building and the faded signage to the right of it, but, hey, the view of the wacked-out deco “New Yorker” building ain’t half bad either.

Over Two Weeks, Many People Die

One of my good friends and colleagues was in a terrible car accident. (He is recovering.)

Then an editor's boyfriend died.

Then another editor’s mother.

And now our Albanian cleaning man’s mother.

We have been joking we work on top of an Indian burial ground.

“But this is the life,” the Albanian’s man’s brother-in-law, who is filling in during his absence, just told me. “This is the life. I wish it were a better life, but it is not.”

No, it is not.

Water, Wind, Fire

We climbed up a thin-railed ladder. It was at nearly 90 degrees and led into the sky. I could feel the rust flaking off in my hands. I could feel my sandals angling against each rung. I could feel the whiskey twirl in my head. We reached the top and sat on the platform, which was a series of flaking iron slats only about a foot and a half wide, and we watched the water ripple below us, maybe 60 feet down, and we wondered at the lit buildings. We had a time of it trying to light our cigarettes.

“I fell asleep up here once,” the Welder said.



Today I spent with One Man in Baghdad, who is, clearly, not in Iraq but in New York. We drank wine on a terrace in Tribeca and watched a storm gather on this 85-degree day. As we stood from the table, the wind whipped our empty bottle of Sancerre clear off. Waiters scooped up glasses and we ran down the stairs to the street to get to the subway as quickly as possible. At street level, wind hit us squarely. It was the Great Grit Bowl. I have never felt such force from wind; my dress was held securely down in the front only to fly directly up in the back—it was “like Marilyn Monroe…in a turbo jet engine,” OMiB said.



We flew into the subway station and witnessed a chase. A plainclothes cop led the manhunt as a Man in Blue hid behind a column. Suddenly, they sprinted. Off went the prey, a teenage boy in a striped polo. They ran—fast—down the platform and when they reached the end the kid jumped onto the tracks. We all gasped. Some of us shouted “No!” as he ran at full speed across the uptown tracks, the third rail, the downtown tracks. Four beats later the cops jumped in and crossed all the lanes too, only slightly more carefully. The three disappeared at the far end on the far side of all the tracks as the uptown 1 pulled in and OMiB and I sped off, grit-covered and stunned.

“The devil just came down from the sky,” he said.

“And I think we just watched him run across the tracks,” I said.

“'It was a beautiful warm day' is how the story would start,” he said. “There is some kind of thread here, we just have to find it.”

“Maybe it would end with: 'And the devil got away again,'” I said.

You Never Know, Right?

A man gets on the A train today to sell his hip-hop CDs.

“Do you like hip-hop? Do you like hip-hop?” He approaches people individually.

“Do you like hip-hop?” he asks a man who is maybe 60, with Gary Shandling’s puffy hair and a red pocket square tucked into his dark suit. He is reading over papers through his bifocals.

“Only Grandmaster Flash,” he says, in a perfect Brooklyn accent.

I laugh a lot.

“Do you know who he was?” the suit-man asks me.”

“Yup,” I say.

“Do I look like I like hip-hop?” he asks me.

“You never know,” I say to him.

~

Totally aside, Holy Fucking Crap.