intersection

As I approached Williams Street where it meets Emerson Avenue, my jaunty cane in hand, the one with the brass eagle for a handle, a low-slung sports car (red, of course) zoomed toward the crosswalk, seemingly oblivious to the stop sign, or not caring, not enough to obey its literal command. And seemingly oblivious to my approaching the crosswalk, preparing to cross Williams Street toward Porter School. Seemingly being the operative word. I did that asshole thing that people, especially old people, do: tried to teach the driver a lesson. I deliberately and purposefully entered the crosswalk ahead of the seemingly zooming car. I was making a statement: look at me, stop. Or, as Ratzo Rizzo, played by Dustin Hoffman in "Midnight Cowboy," memorably said: "I'm wawkin' heah!" I did not utter those words or any other. But that was my statement, that was my lesson. The other aspect of the lesson was: obey the stop sign, be law-abiding blah blah. As if any driver anywhere in Western Civilization or anywhere else is going to declare to oneself: "Gee. They're right. I should straighten up. Be a good citizen. I am so happy that stranger taught me this valuable lesson. Made my day. Maybe I saved a life. My life or somebody else's." 

Right. Sure.

Surprise.

The driver stopped. 

As I reached the other side of the street, clearing the crosswalk, the driver, through a half-open window, half-shouted, not aggressively, more informationally, pleadingly, said: "I'm sorry, buddy. I thought you were going to stay on the sidewlk."

"No, no. You're fine. Have a good Thanksgiving, have a good day." 

I didn't exactly say that. But close enough. That was the best I could summon, off the cuff.

Still, I felt like a fool: for my assumption, for my misreading, for a lost opportunity.

As I walked toward West Genesee Street, I wanted to turn back and tell on myself, a confession, the works; tell the driver what was what: the lesson, the surprise, the gratitude for this act of human kindness, this one act of one day in which someone was better than expected or anticipated or imagined.

But he was gone. The car was gone.

where there's smoke, there's clementine

I tossed the peelings into the sink and turned the disposal on. I am not enamored of such devices. Is it because the one we had in The Projects broke? Didn't it break so often we gave up on having them repair it? Did its guttural grind scare me? As the disposal was gargling the skin of the clementine, I thought I saw a cloud of smoke puff up from the bottom of the sink hole to the right of the disposal. Smoke? Uh-oh. The next day, I kept an eye out for smoke. As I was uncurling my clementine at breakfast, I spotted -- and smelled -- a sudden burst of citrus spray escaping from the tender fruit.

Mystery solved. Mystery epiphanied.

Where there's smoke, there's not fire. Not necessarily.

And the day after that, steam uncurling heavenward from my hot tea with half and half no sugar. Swirling skyward. As if a genie were about to appear and offer to grant me wishes.

Wishes already granted.

Because in seventy years I had never seen my breakfast tea in quite that light.

20QQs

Twenty quarantine questions (20QQs) from a self-isolating, elderly, single, non-roommated, non-petted, healthy white male during the Time of Coronavirus (TOC) .

1. Should I get out of bed?
2. Might I stay under the covers for a full 24 hours?
3. Will I brush my teeth?
4. Is today a shower day?
5. How about deodorant-antiperspirant?
6. Shall I apply Tom Ford Ombre Leather, or similar, to my body?
7. Will I wear yesterday's clothes?
8. Where will I walk today, and can I devise a route I've never traversed before?
9. Would you suggest I wear my hearing aids, and why or why not?
10. Should I drive my car today?
11. Have I meditated yet?
12. Would I consider prayer, and would you, and pray for what?
13. What am I grateful for today?
14. Should I shout out something to the walls to exercise my vocal cords and to remember what my voice sounds like?
15. Do I dare to eat a peach?
16. That sound, is it the mermaids singing each to each?
17. How long will I nap?
18. To whom will I reach out?
19. What will we say?
20. How much of human touch will my skin remember?

Ball 1

So lonely, like a lonely planet. So abandoned. Kicked (or thrown, dribbled, tossed, rolled) to the side of the road, actually the sidewalk. Air ball. Ground ball. Basketball. So many questions, so little time. Actually, as much time as we need. The parade of questions, replete with mystery, enslaved to no shot clock:

• Who left it here?
• Why?
• One person or several?
• Male or female or questioning or both or none?
• How long has it been here?
• Why was it still there two days later?
• Who won?
• Or was it a solitary game?
• Where's the hoop or hoops?
• Wouild a baseball or football lie (lay, lie, who knows, who cares) there similarly and for the same duration?
• Would someone toss a basketball back and forth against a wall as one might a tennis ball?
• Was violence involved?
• Apathy?
• Attrition?
• Anomie?
• Anime?
• Espionage?
• Subterfuge?
• How long will it stay there?
• Has anyone else noticed it?
• Why has no one picked it up and kept it?
• Is this symbolic?
• Iconic?
• Nihilistic?
• Does this prove the world is round?
• What would happen, where would it go, if an earthquake trembled the earth, wobbling the ground beneath our feet, the way coronavirus is shaking our foundations, our infrastructure, nudging downhill on the one and only Tipperary Hill?

a coinage

During his morning walk, he spotted a wet penny on the black glistening pavement as he walked downhill on Lewis and Clark Street. Only a thin crescent of the penny glistened; the rest was darkened by time and decay. He picked it up. He walked a few more steps. A trove of pennies. And one dime, shiny in the damp. He bent to pick them up. Was anyone watching him in the snowy rain? He stooped and rose, stooped and rose. Is this embarrassing? Is this what old men do on their morning walks? Twenty filthy pennies and one dime. Filthy to the point of non-recognition except by shape, diameter, and thickness. Not texture; disgustingly dirtied. He left one penny on the pavement. A statement. A question. A tease. An invitation. Thirty cents. Home. Washed with dish detergent, to little avail; cleanser, same results. Rinse. No. not the steel wool. Rest them on a paper towel. Rinse with finger rubbing. Pick them up. Put them in the coin jar. Will the machine take them? Was it worth it? Why? Worth exactly what? What was the point?

post scriptum: Two days later, I returned to the scene of the dime (and pennies). The penny I had deliberately left remained on the ground. Truthfully, it was impossible to say, because scattered on the ground was a constellation of a dozen or so pennies. Which penny was the one I had decided to leave there, as a "message"? Impossible to say. More disturbing is this notion: did I not see that many other pennies on my first go-round? Either way, on this coin-incidence I kept walking. I had no inclination to stoop to conquer said artifacts. Who would do such a clumsy, doddering thing?

quote unquote exciting

I strolled into my bank. "My" is undeserving of this application of a personal pronoun. The article "the" is apt in this context that is being built one verbal brick at a time. When this institution was a credit union, when I joined it in 1990, "my" would be literally and figuratively correct. But that was then. (I don't have to tell you we live in radically different times. Even if you hear someone lament the externals of these times, you can't commonsensically conclude whose side they are on: the uncivil, invidious xenophobes or the unmoored, vexed communitarians [moi].) 

Back to my bank stroll. 

I glide through the lobby, a boulevardier without portfolio, a citizen of the commonwealth (as if our wealth were common!). Absent any forethought, I ease into one of the cozy faux-leather chairs arranged away from the tellers, a distance from the glassed, venetian-blinded offices of "associates." The armed chairs (meaning they had armrests not weaponry) were in a tight circle around a nonexistent bonfire, adjacent to a Keurig with coffee pods, creamer, sugar, stirrers, all of this free stuff intended to enhance the customer experience, to welcome bank customers and prospects, or bank customers' or prospects' friends or relatives awaiting the financial-task-performer's task completion. Granted, the chairs might potentially host a waiting retinue attending to latter-day Bonnies and Clydes or Jesse Jameses, their thumbs gliding on "devices" in order to share strategic get-away info. (But why would they be so foolish or risky? Today's thieves silently hack, 24/7, invisible even to the rest of the household above the Mountain Dew-empties-littered room in the basement illuminated only by a nest of computer screens.) Do not so breezily dismiss this heist theory: at the entrance, the bank warns entrants against wearing hats or sunglasses for this very reason. Really? How retro!

As I said, I plop down on the tawny-cream vinyl waiting-room-decor chair. I figure I'd complete a text or two before entering the line (no waiting line evident, actually) to "do my business." Being old, I am an agonizingly slow texter, using my (not "the") index finger, not my thumbs, which anyone under 40 does, which is agonizing for millennials et al. to observe. Drives them nuts.

No hurry.

A flaneur not in France. 

An associate pops out of her office, her face barely disguising worry and urgency.

"Can I help you, sir?" she asks in the international language of officialese.

Insouciantly (to continue the français theme), I reply, "No, I'm fine."

If I could've, comfortably attired in my paisley smoking jacket, sans chapeau, I'd've lit a cigar, tossed the wooden match, and asked her for an espresso.

I continue my dilatory digital dalliance on my device.

Within minutes, another associate pops out of her office, next-door to the office of the aforementioned associate.

"May I help you, sir?"

Your poseur-narrator, a former English teacher and retired editor, appreciates her understanding of the distinction between "can" and "may."

However, for this gadabout, the word "sir" in her query is jarring, off-putting. Why? Three, maybe many more, times this associate and I have interacted professionally at the (not "my") bank. She has answered my queries, helped me perform the proper paperwork, seen my signature affixed, and secured a financial instrument or two for me.

Sir?

You don't remember my name, or if not my name my visage, or if not my name or face my signature if I show it to you?

Without hard evidence and with a dollop of imagination, I conclude the two bank associates see me as a threat, an indolent idler casing the joint. A would-be John Dillinger or "Pretty Boy" Floyd in-waiting. (Pawlie Kokonuts does have a certain criminal panache, don't you agree?) 

Some welcome, Keurig and all.

This institution boasts the slogan "America's Most Exciting Bank," a curious tagline given that a tsunami is at least as exciting as a wedding; given that a once-in-a-lifetime stock market plunge is at least as exciting as a World Cup victory.

Despite my insouciance, was I too exciting with regard to Financial Institution Security Heistiness (FISH)?

May I help you, sir?

"No, I'm fine. Thank you," I replied avec un sourire anglais.

walking with coffee

The deep, wide-brimmed ceramic cup wobbled. Not true. It didn't wobble, not that you could see. The coffee in it swayed. Medium roast. Half 'n' half. Swayed not even up to the alabaster brim, east or west, north or south. The birth of a wave. A false tsunami. No spillage.

He gets to the table, dry, slight swirl subsiding.  

"They say it's easier if you don't look at it."

"I've heard that."

"It's true."

"I don't doubt it."

He looks across the table, studiously avoiding a glance at the cup as he lifts it toward his lips. He recoils from the hot coffee, flinches, spills a dollop onto the table.

"See? I didn't look but look what happened."

"I see."

"So unlooking only steadies you if you're walking?"

"Something like that. Maybe. I don't know."

"Some kind of crazy metaphor?"

"Who knows, right? For what, I couldn't say."

He reached for the cup again, looked straight at it, lifted it, coffee waltzing, and leaned forward, trying to meet the cup halfway. His lips found the brim; he sipped.

"Ah. Success."

"I see that. Congratulations."

"Thanks. This time." 

hole in the donut

Waiting to board an Adirondack Trailways bus bound for New York from Syracuse, I spied a sign in the distance at the Dunkin' Donuts in the regional transportation center. 

The sign read, "DO A DOZEN."

Or did it?

Now picture a doughnut, or donut, if you will, in place of each letter "O."

"D A D ZEN." 

I pointed out this oddity, coincidence, novelty, or providential message to the prospective passenger sitting in front of me on a metal bench.

"I've never been on a bus," she felt compelled to confess.

"Never? How old are you?"

"Twenty-two."

"How about a train?"

"No."

"Plane."

"No." Self-conscious chuckle.

"A school bus?"

"Yes."

What Dad Zen wisdom could I impart to this brave-new-worlding daughter of her dad?

A smile, a reassuring voice.

"I wonder if it's late. I'll check," Zendad offered.

What is Dad Zen? you might ask.

If there is no self, wouldn't that rule out Dad Zen, as well as Mom, Son, Daughter, Brother, or Sister Zen?

Having no self, do we become the hole in the doughnut? 

But in doing so, are we made whole?

In Step Three of Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Bill Wilson observed that someone, especially a fledgling seeker, might be afraid of taking a leap of faith, a surrender to Somebody or Something. Such a BraveNewUniverser might be afraid of becoming "the whole in the doughnut."  

Becoming a doughnut hole isn't just a clever Dunkin' marketing ploy.

Willing to risk becoming the hole in the doughnut takes a leap of faith, as Soren Kierkegaard put it.

Who wouldn't be afraid to take a leap of faith? Where do we fall to? Who or what catches us? Are we bruised? 

And what or who are we after The Fall?

There you have it.

It?

Alan Watts says, "This is It."

So be it.

Later, having arrived in NYC, I see In front of La Mode cleaners on Broadway near 109th Street, an Asian man wearing a black baseball cap emblazoned with the word "DAD."  

Was he practicing Dad Zen? 

(Or subliminally advertising DO A DOZEN?)

I've been staying with friends on 108th Street.

There are 108 mala beads.

A baseball has 108 stitches.

It's Opening Day.

I'll have a bagel with a schmear.
 

lockdown

They've locked down the toilet paper. It sounds like a line straight out of "Desolation Row," right after "they're selling postcards of the hanging." Same cadence and mood. In this case, who are "they"? They are the owners, managers, or maintenance staff of the building housing a coffee shop I occasionally frequent. (Let me get away with the oxymoronicness of "occasionally frequent.") I happen to know one of the owners of the building; have known him for decades. He confirmed my suspicion that the lock placed on the toilet paper dispenser seeks to prevent the theft of toilet paper. He added that they (a different "they" than in the first sentence) were losing a significant amount of "bath" rolls every week from the various "bath"rooms with public access. Permit me to clarify. The lock does not prevent you from taking a sheet, two-ply or whatever-ply, from the roll. It's not like that. If you were so inclined, or obsessed, you could unspool a stream of sheets, hundreds. You can still steal sheetly. In that case, you could steal one roll of toilet paper, and it would then be your choice as to how to surreptitiously transport it out of the restroom. Presumably, re-creating the roll shape would be both awkward and too visible. Without a cardboard tube as a core, would it even be possible? No, you would probably want to neatly fold layers of the thin paper, forming a book, as it were, which could be slipped into one's pants, underwear, briefcase, knapsack, or backpack. The toilet paper dispenser lock we are talking about is a lock on the receptacle or holder that holds in the roll. Typically, a second roll drops down by gravity when the first roll is depleting. Most likely, the toilet paper thieves were taking one or both rolls. Clearly, they were toilet paper thieves, not borrowers. Borrowed toilet paper that is returned? Ewwww. Gross. 

In some cultures, this wouldn't make much of a difference. The toilet paper dispenser would not be locked because there would be no toilet paper. Restroom "customers" would employ other means of cleanup other than toilet paper, a topic I'm not willing to explore right now. 

At first glance, toilet paper theft might evoke a response along the lines of, "Are you kidding? Locks on toilet paper? They don't even do that at Penn Station! What's next? Locks on water fountains?" On further reflection, you might think: who are the toilet paper thieves? I suspect it's homeless people. But that might be a biased conclusion, however tentative. We can't rule out needy college students, large families, sufferers of diarrhea, the mentally ill, hoarders, or eccentrics. (These are not mutually exclusive subgroups.) Whoever, he, she, it, or they are, can you blame them? The bathroom is in an urban setting. Users punch in a code to use it. Despite efforts to limit use, it gets a lot of traffic from a downtown urban population. Since "drugs" are often mentioned as a cause of civic woe (they don't mean drugs; they mean illegal pharmaceutical substances; again, another different "they"), we can pose this question: how much does a roll of toilet go for on the street? Is it enough for one to get or maintain a high of any sort or a purchase of that other drug, alcohol, or a single loosie cigarette? I don't know. 

I am curious, but only mildly so, about the success or failure of this preventive gesture. Had someone been caught in The Act? Not the act of taking a shit; the act of making individual a bit of intended communal property. Wait! It's a unisex bathroom. Did you assume it was a male thief? Maybe not. Maybe female. Is there not arguably a greater female need for this product? Maybe not. 

As for preventive measures, could there have been a community forum to address this issue? (I almost wrote "tissue.") How about a pay-it-forward initiative? At one local coffee shop, customers can buy medallions for coffee or bagels. The medallions are placed on a wall, and people can cash them in if they can't afford it a coffee or bagel. Could something like this be done for toilet paper? (Why stop there? Consider how transformative this practice would be on a community scale for an array of social needs. Consider how radical this is.) 

What charge would the thief or thieves face if apprehended, red-handed, as it were? The penalty for conviction? I know: community service. 

Cleaning bathrooms. 

The Clementine Chronicles, continued

Murder on the Disorient Express

Dramatis Personae:

OldWhiteGuy stereotypical converted-loft dweller, goatee-adorned; spectacles-wearer; enough head hair to comb except on the sides owing to stylist's shorning the week preceding; 5'10"; 169 pounds; blue jeans; blue T-shirt; blue-green-purple flannel shirt not tucked in; fragrance: Luna Rossa by Prada; Euphoria by Calvin Klein deodorant; unshaven for several days

Three Ravens pecking at unseen morsels on the roadway or bickering on the chain-link fence or telephone wires

DismemberedClementine* Jackson Pollocked (except for color; goldenrod-clementine-flesh yellow-orange backgrounded by burnt umber wetted, ergo Mark Rothko'ed except for the scatteredness; picture a spherical descent bursting onto the concrete, tossed from an upper-story window; motive and perp, unknown) into 22 segments and/or fragments of said segments, on the sidewalk [see below] by the side exit of the brick former knitting mill; a splayed and still glistening ink-blottish stain artistically placed on the snow-bereft sidewalk as a place setting or as a result of the Capital Citrus Murder (CCM)
*cf. The Laughorist blog post of 2 December 2018

DismemberedClementine Peeled Skin (absent, nowhere to be seen; unknown if peeled in one fell swoop or not)

DeadFish (scales on; head attached; accusatory cyclops-ish eye; absent corpse, nowhere to be seen; cf. The Laughorist blog post of 2 February 2019)

62.8 CCM Suspects (40 apartments, average of 1.5 residents in each minus 1.0 LaughoristDweller [a.k.a. OldWhiteGuy], plus 3.8 happenstance, random street-cred pedestrians) 

Ghosts of Bob Marley & The Wailers

Scene 1: 

Enter OldWhiteGuy, exits building, turns right, spots DismemberedClementine (rest in pieces, R.I.P.), halts, retreats, pivots left, inspects crime scene, counts segments, makes mental notes, turns right again, walks on ice- and snow-ridden sidewalk to car

OldWhiteGuy (posing as Hamlet Lear) (sotto voce): "The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the skin!"

Enter Ghosts of Bob Marley & The Wailers singing: "One love, one heart... Let's get together and feel all right... Hear the children cryin'; give thanks and praise to the Lord ... Is there a place for the hopeless sinner who has hurt all mankind just to save his soul? One love, one heart ... Let's get together and feel all right!"

Exeunt Omnes

something fishy

Exiting my Nissan Sentra, I walked on the crunchy snow in the parking lot. I like that squeaky, stiff, yet hard rubbery sound when the snow is packed and the temperatures are frigid. Reminds me of a dentist putting a filling into a cavity. Though it is after 10 p.m., the lot is brightly lit. Security cameras are strategically placed in a corner and on the sides. Wait. Stop. Rewind. Step back. Is that a fish? It is. A dead fish, mouth and one eye open on its side, scales silvery in the January moonlight. Bloodied in the middle as if shot. The nearest body of water, a lake, is a mile away. This Surprise Fish Presence (SFP) sparks a gazillion questions, some you are already formulating, others being fished from the open air of my imagination. Aside from the obvious how and why it got to this spot, there's the who placed it and was it by accident or on purpose. Was it a coded "sleep wit da fishes" warning? To whom? Not likely me. It wasn't snoozing near my car and its apparitional appearance preceded my parking in this spot anyway. I suppose someone could have gone to the regional market (we don't have a fish market as New York, Boston, Tokyo, San Francisco, and Omaha has have), bought a bass or perch or whatever my Piscean Poseur is, and dropped it, tossed it, placed it, planted it. Maybe it's performance art. I do not know the answer to any of these questions or to any of a myriad queries associated with this Neptunian Mystery. This terrestrial sighting, um, spawned a stinging array of additional questions upon finding the SFP gone two days later. Gone as if never having put in an unannounced, uncamouflaged cameo in the first place. This bothers me more. Did I dream or delusionally fantasize the Unidentified Fishy Observation (UFO)? I did not. It was there. I have no corroborating evidence, no cellphone photo. My observation is evidence-based reality, or reality-based evidence. It was there, staring at my two eyes with its dead-pan unmonocoled cyclops of a visage (other eye peering blindly into the icy snowpack). I was there, and so was one dead unfake fish. It was. Believe me. 

the kindness of stranger

Mall food court. Dinnertime, not loud or crowded. A weekday. The 1909 Carousel bearing silent and stilled witness. I ate a quarter chicken breast, mashed potatoes and gravy, and string beans from Boston Market. Root beer. I picked up the tray on my way to dump the unsustainable plate, utensils, and cup into the trash, saving the tray. "Thank you!" she exalted. I thought I misheard. I turned around. "Pardon me?" She worked for the mall. Would you call her a food court janitor? Her gratitude seemed disproportionate. Misplaced. Too excited for the banal and quotidian occasion. "Thank you," she repeated. "You're welcome. Thank you." But a voice inside, not far from the audible surface, murmured: "What's the thank you for? I'm just cleaning my place and dumping the trash. What's the big deal? Am I that much of an outlier? Is it so rare?" I faced her. Her smile was wide, her delight was deep. From all appearances, she was happy to be there, doing what she was doing. Grateful for whatever life was dishing out. It wasn't me. It was everything and everyone. It was her. "You have a blest day." "Thank you. I will. You too." 

Some people.

hey, sir!

Walking to the Boulangerie bistro by the coffee shop, I was in a hungry hurry. (The name of the place begs for a spooky underwear promo every October.) "Hey, sir!" I heard but kept walking for a step and a halt. "Hey, sir!" is the perfect intro for a panhandler or evangelist. Someone asking me to sign a petition, or to sell me something. Ask for exactly $1.73 to get a bus ticket to Auburn. As if. Keep walking. I was annoyed, mildly irritated. But I stopped. I stopped and turned. Did he say it twice? Was it an undertone of sincerity blended with urgency that stopped me in my tracks? "Did you drop this?" Or was it: "Is this yours?" A young professional. White shirt and tie. Who wears a white shirt anymore? Even in my corporate life I hadn't worn one since the 1990s. When our company president wore white short-sleeved shirts with a tie, I'd mock him. "Lee, what do you think this is, NASA in the Sixties?" He never wore one again. My interlocutor was Asian American. In his twenties. Is this what they call a millennial? A white envelope sat on the just-rained-on sidewalk. I picked it up. Or he picked it up and handed it to me. I saw right away that it was a bill from St. Camillus, the long-term care facility (nursing home). For Mom. A bill that had come in that day's mail. It must have slid out of my grip holding my laptop portfolio with my other mail, nothing of consequence. If so, I'd've handled it all more carefully. "Thanks." Now I can't piece it together. Did he say this from his Mercedes (Audi? Ford? Saturn? black? white?) with the window rolled down? Or was he walking in my wake? But my thanks was real. I detected an honest civility in his act, an uncommon courtesy. What if it was something terribly important, not just a bill that would be re-sent? An atmosphere of gratitude washed over me. No, seeped out of me, from within somewhere. I could have kept walking, I could have ignored his entreaty. Likewise, he too could have ignored what he saw, something dropping from a stranger's personal effects. He didn't ignore the seemingly minor mishap. Neither did I ignore him, ultimately. My irritation, disturbance, "rude" interruption took on a different complexion and turned things in a different direction. And I hadn't even bought my hungered-for lunch yet. 

Quotidian encounter. 

Small miracle.

Blind Person Area

Take a deep cleansing breath.  

Before you get riled up, I'm not "against" blind people, deaf persons, disabled children or adults, or anyone who faces physical or mental challenges. Who would be? As you likely know, the vocabulary we use to describe people and their limitations is open to question and controversy. That's why I hesitated typing "disabled" above. I am not acquainted with all the verbal alternatives, such as "typical" versus "atypical." (And because my Attention Surplus Disorder [ASD]-addled mind will otherwise forget, let me observe in passing: Have you ever seen a traffic sign cautioning drivers with respect to someone with mental health issues? Why not? Isn't that a statement in itself, relegating mental health to a level less important than physical health? Chew on that one before proceeding.)

But these semantic distinctions are not my main topic here, though I frequently noodle notions about words and their use, misuse, and connotations, inadvertent or otherwise.

So what is my main topic?

Slice of life. Slices of life.

Signs of life.

Just slicing away for you and me to examine.

Such as:

I was driving around and saw a BLIND PERSON AREA traffic sign. It occurred to me that I have never encountered a blind person in one of those traffic-sign-designated areas. Not yet. I might tomorrow. Same with a DEAF PERSON AREA. I have yet to encounter a hearing-impaired person in the vicinity of a sign advising me of same. But how would I know? Perhaps I have. (And why should I know?)

Have you?

If so, what are we required to do? Presumably, the sign is advising drivers to slow down, but it doesn't say that. And presumably it is asking drivers to be more alert.

Fair enough.

Believe it or not, the signs themselves have stirred controversy. For example, in 2007 the issue of whether to put up a DEAF CHILD AREA sign in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, stirred up the local citizenry. Some argue that such signs are not necessary, that they reinforce stereotypes regarding limitations. Traffic sign engineers assert that the signs diminish in effectiveness over time. (Couldn't you say that as well for the ubiquitous STOP sign? I've written about this before.)

Again, as stated in my introductory disclaimer, I mean no disrespect to anyone with special needs. However, I would wager that the definition of special needs could withstand some stretching, twisting, and pulling. With that in mind, consider some signs we do not have but might consider, for better or worse:

WARNING: ACTIVE ADDICTION ZONE (Don't stereotype as to where you might plant this sign. It could be anywhere.)

CAUTION: ALCOHOLICS AT PLAY (Imagine the ruckus bar owners would raise if these were sprinkled in their environs.)

DOMESTIC TURMOIL AHEAD (Placement would be based on the number of disturbance calls to authorities, or determined by the number of pink flamingos or ceramic trolls on the lawn.)

ABJECT POVERTY (Insert your own dang comments.)

SICKENING WEALTH

JUNK FOOD FLOOD

CAVIAR SURPLUS

BOUGIE

DO NOT ENTER: ENTITLEMENT ZONE 

EGOCENTRIC ZONE

DON'T YIELD

DIVIDED HIGHWAY — AND MORE!

COMPROMISE

TATTOOS

LITTER ZONE

YOUR TURN

compulsion

. . . or is it obsession? I get confused. The screen says: 6:17 in its lean, sans serif sleekness. It tells me the time, doesn't it, that screen. Various symbols tell me if I have a text, a message from someone near or far. Press the home button. Wake it up. "It" is a device. Thank God-the Universe-the cosmos that I'm not on Facebook. There'd be more curating, checking, calculating, catching up, observing, weighing, reacting. At least I know my Twitter presence is utter, vacuous nonsense. Swipe the screen again. Wake it up. What's the latest? What is the latest notification, the crawl of lights on a building at Times Square, my own personal, idiosyncratic version of it. What about the hum, the vibration. Wasn't that it, a nearly imperceptible hum on the table at the coffee shop. Or was it the phantom hum, the one people falsely feel in their pocket even when it is not there. Click home. Or side button. Alert it, rouse it. What if I am missing a reply, taunt, compliment, accusation, headline, warning, omen, fact, fiction, question, assertion, tug, pat, hug, shove. But I just looked. I just saw the screen, moments ago. Nothing but ennui and quotidian banality. Is that it, a compulsive craving for excitement spurred by something, anything, good, bad, or indifferent? Indifferent, you say? Isn't "it" infinitely indifferent to my whims, wants, fears, validations, excretions, accretions, and deletions? Click. home screen. Nothing changed. Just the time. 6:29.  

open sesame

You approach the doorway. It is a public thoroughfare for walkers, the entrance to a department store in an age when no one knows exactly what a department store is or should be. Nevertheless, you walk through the portal. Actually, you intend to walk through the entranceway (or exitway, if you are proceeding out of the building), and to do so, you must first open the door, since you cannot proceed through the glass as if by osmosis or by sci-fi, special-effects walkthrough. But wait. Someone is ahead of you, pioneering their way into the building. The person in front of you breezily opens the door. You are a few steps behind the person, maybe a step or a half step in back of the person who just opened the door. You expect the forerunner to hold the door ajar for a moment so that you can hold the door open for yourself. You anticipate a mumbled "thank you" from your own lips and perhaps, though not likely, a "you're welcome" from the other. "You're welcome" is a dying phrase, even more so than "thanks" or "thank you." But the door is not held open, so those are moot points. The person in front of you, the one who countered your blithe expectations by not holding the door open, proceeds briskly into the store, the door left ajar, left to do what it must: close in your face unless you and your hand intervene. They don't look back. You wonder: did they know that you were a mere step or two in their pedestrian wake? Couldn't they hear your footsteps? Didn't they see your reflection in the glass of the door? Didn't they catch a whiff of your expensive, recently purchased fragrance? Should you have cleared your throat or coughed to alert them to your presence? This line of conjecture riles you. You tell yourself you are blaming yourself for another's rudeness. You are making an excuse for someone's incivility. True, you argue, you can't conclusively discern nor prove the motives of the person who walked before you and failed to hold the door open. You fully admit that the other person may not have even been aware of your presence in the aftermath of their footsteps. But that does not let them off the hook so easily. Were they unaware of you as a result of self-absorption? Or were they unaware of you because they were in a hurry, a mad dash, under a deadline or in need of a restroom? Possible, though not likely based on their speed of walking and the expression on their face as you caught a glimpse of it, a side glance, as the person turned, pivoted, after opening the door and letting it close by itself. You even generously allow the notion that the person who was in front of you was lost in a reverie, a dream of sorts. You consider the chance that a loved one was gravely ill or had just passed away; maybe a pet had shuffled off its mortal furry coil. You say this to yourself, but, no, you don't really believe it, not for a second. Who knows, you imagine, maybe the Recalcitrant Door Person (RDP) was mentally rehashing, or preparing, an argument with a friend, foe, spouse, lover, politician, driver, colleague, boss, subordinate, or stranger. But you doubt this as well because the person was not gesticulating nor were their lips moving in silent rehearsal or silent reenactment, a phenomenon you used to witness when you worked in Manhattan, as employees de-stressed on the sidewalk as they walked to Grand Central or the Port Authority. You resign yourself to the fact that you will never know the answers to these questions, not unless you see that person as you walk through the store, or as you exit, fearing a repetition of dour doorness. Besides, you doubt you would raise the issue with the stranger, even if you were certain it was the same person. Where and how would you begin? "They say that when one door closes another one opens up." If you were to utter that platitude, could you do it without irony at best and sarcasm at worst? And then what, you imagine, as you walk toward the exit on your way out the door. 

what comes after 'penultimate'?

So now we are at the ultimate, the last day of 2016. Squeeze it out, like someone making orange juice, fresh. Drain it all, seeds and rind and pulp and beverage.

nature bling flash

A shock of yellow. Is it yellow? What's a canary? A winged flash. Swooping amid the green branches. Is that green? Reeds, meadow, shrubs. Brilliant yellow. Here and gone. Goldfinch. Into the sky. Is it cerulean? A vision. A blessing. Mirabile visu.

our lady joy of all who sorrow, philadelphia

Our Lady Joy of All Who Sorrow

and who doesn't sorrow

seeking joy

or all

sorrow

seeking nothing 

the dolorous faces

of the icons

even

the joyous ones

our lady

succoring our sadness

savoring salvation

somehow

joy

 

you turn

At the intersection of Lowel and Whittier (Syracuse streets named after authors), the driver in the SUV slowed, stopped, and began a U-turn. (A woman in her fifties, she was -- to recall more accurately -- driving a CRV, one of those so-called crossovers, and for all I know it was literally a Honda CRV.) She completed three-quarters of the U-turn. I was at the intersection's stop sign, getting ready to turn left. The only other traffic was a car to my left on Lowell. I slipped through and proceeded to make my left turn. I wasn't in a big hurry, though I was a bit later than I'd planned to be on the way to a pre-Mother's Day "tea and dessert" with Mom, 99, and the seniors at her independent-living facility. I didn't impatiently beep my horn or wave my arms. The driver witnessing all this, on Lowell to my left, who couldn't go anywhere anyway except backwards, sported a beaming smile. In her twenties, hair tied up, she flashed an exuberant, bright-toothed smile of wonder and delight. It said, "Look at you, maybe you are lost. you've decided to correct your 'mistake' and do a 180. How sweet. Isn't life grand!" Or notions along those lines. Her smile was rich, patient, buoyant -- and unmistakably genuine. I was immediately grateful that I had not beeped my horn or waved my arms. I was also relieved I had not given U-Turner the finger or yell to no one in the car, "What's the matter with you? What are you doing? How dare you slow me down? What is this country coming to?" I first thought the two female drivers knew each other or were related. I assumed Smiler's breezy tolerance was several doses of "hey, that's cool, we'll find the place, no hurry, we'll get there, I'm good." But as I drove on, on Lowell, with U-Turner in my rearview mirror, Smiler was nowhere to be seen. Now it appeared that Smiler and U-Turner were strangers to each other, as they were to me. With U-Turner in my rearview, searching Tipp Hill slowly for her destination, I had a revelation. Why is familiarity the pretext for kindness? Why couldn't Smiler be someone who took the world in stride, as it came to her, at its own speed, someone who took the "good" with the "bad" equally, not personally offended or distraught by life's disturbances or challenges? Before you dismiss this view of life as either sappy/sentimental or deranged (and I get that, I really do), think again. (Or feel again. Neuroscientists tell us there is no difference biologically and neurochemically between thinking and feeling.) Aren't we offered many moments in every day with an opportunity to be either the Smiler or the FingererGrowler? I am not suggesting that I (or you) can inhabit a Hallmark, gauzy world of inhuman tolerance, or walk or drive in a hazy, psychotic fugue of benign delight. 

Well, maybe I am.

p.s. This episode reminded me of Splashed Woman of Times Square, in the Eighties, who got doused by a cab. It drenched her. I witnessed this, fifty yards away, on my way to work. She laughed.