Off to Water My Plants Now

Pondering:
I am considering collecting the air with a ladle and making a meal out of it.
I am thinking of sleeping less.
I am wondering if a person can die if they forget to breathe. As in forget to take actual breaths, as I seem to do often these days.
I am curious how I am using "Google Docs" for the first time and opened it up and found three previous documents by me. Only two of which I recognized.

Grooming:
My plants are thirsty.
My room needs straightening.
My hair needs washing.
I am in need of a laundromat.

Potentially Accepting:
I am discovering that people I would like to understand are unfathomable. I am realizing others are reassuringly consistent.
I am enjoying my new job immensely.
I am realizing I am one of the adults in my office.
I am becoming aware that my four office walls will become horribly familiar eventually.

Things That Make Me Want to Poke My Eyes Out:
Jonathan Schwartz and his elevator music.
Waterbugs.
Wanting to talk to someone who does not call back.
Lists that have a rhythmic grammatical quality.

Things That Make It All Seem OK-to-Good:
Knowing that my bed is extraordinarily comfortable.
Knowing that I have complex, loving friends.
Knowing that I live in the best city in the world, and in one of the coziest corners of it.
Recognizing that this part of the list is about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
Gerunds.

I KNOW.

I know I've been delinquent. My parole officer is giving me hell. I know. But new work=life adjustment. In the meantime, here is my view of the sky over Brooklyn yesterday. I know. It's a generic panorama of a sky. I know. But if you think about it, it's not generic. It's what I saw on a day where I couldn't help but smile at the layers of cirrus and cumulus clouds. This is what I have to offer. So there's that.

I'm Choking

FANtastic! I am being terrorized by a 12-foot roach, better known as a waterbug, or the monster of perverted New York bugs. I have currently chemically barricaded it in my roommate's room. (She isn't home.) To explain....There is 1.5-inch gap beneath her door. I chased said monster with the NYT Metro section into her room, grabbed the foulest, earth-destroyingest cleaning spray in my house and sprayed a barrier line under her door. If it crosses this noxious wall, I will know it is truly an alien. That'd be cool. I put the section of paper in front of the foamy line...for no reason whatsoever. Maybe it will find some decent reading and stay back. Back, I say.

Forgive me. I am one day off my new, kick-ass, full-time occupation, which is journalism-related but out of a newsroom. Sniff. But, good. Very good. Nine or so hours flew by today and I looked back at what I'd done and thought, Fuck. I did things that might do something good in the world. So it shall go. I hope. Now I just have to work on my sleep. You know, waking up at 7 is not something I've had to do in a while. No one should really. But to get out of work at...oh god. I hear it. It is so big it is making sounds.

Clearly, either it will die, or I will, from the fumes.

Wish us luck.

A Storm Hits Gotham, 5:50 p.m.

Seven minutes ago, this is what we saw out our newsroom windows.



"So Gotham."

"Apocalyptic."

"Very Blade Runner." (Note the white blip of a TV screen-billboard on top of the building at the right.)

All very trite, all very apt. I'd never noticed that the new New York Times building looks so very post-Sept. 11th Trade Center at its top.

Upon rereading this post, I realize it reminds me more of the photos I've seen of the Trade Center under construction. When the North Tower was mid-rise.

Both. It somehow reminds me of both.

Interesting

I forgot to wear deodorant on the hottest day of the year.

The air is a kind of thick drink tonight. A smoothie of sorts. No milk.

Laugh, Dammit

At Johnny the Tackling Alzheimer’s Patient.

Skimming the Surface

So I read about these kids once in the New York Times, I think.


But here they were today, on my subway platform, in the hip-hoppity flesh. I was suddenly watching a real-life episode of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” you know, hangin’ with DJ Jazzy Jeff and Will Smith, when he still had square hair. These guys pride themselves on their flat-tops and high-tops. One said to the other, “I saw this ‘Yo MTV Raps’ T-shirt.” “I want that shit so bad,” said the other one, a guy holding a 1-foot-by-2-foot silver boom box. They’re disorienting, time-shifting, blinding the masses with primary-colored clothes. I like them.


Last week, I maneuvered on the sidewalk past a couple of Stadtler-and-Waldorfy old dudes. They were maybe creeping up on 70.

“Do you want to learn about the Lord today?” one said to my back as I passed them.

Before I had the chance to turn around, the other man said, “Nah, she doesn’t want to learn about the Lord. She believes in Hillary Clinton. To her, Hillary Clinton is the Lord.”

Nice of them to sort that out for me.