I'm tired and my brain is running on empty, so it's the perfect time for a pin-the-mouse-on-the-photo post.
I took this pic in December, 2004, from a taxi. It's the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue next to Bryant Park. It was a chilly night, probably around 3 a.m., and the city felt quiet and deserted. Though it's not a fantastic photo by any means, the darkness, the gray marble building, the fuzzy streetlamp, the skeletal trees, and the few ghostly-looking cars still evoke the sense of tranquility I had at that moment.
In a metropolis that is teeming with activity at all hours, moments of quiet desertion are an unexpected but welcome luxury. It was a rare opportunity to feel like I had this small chunk of the city all to myself—just a lone little ant, sharing secrets with ghosts in the crisp night air.
This is what I woke up to about three Sundays ago: A woman moaning loudly, "heeeelllp meeeee..." "heeeelllp meeeee..." over and over and over again. She was on the ground, falling over; I couldn't tell if she was injured, or drunk, or loony, or what. There's a bicycle cop trying to help her. Notice the crackhead lady walking by with no pants on, and some inspired citizens, greeting the morning with spirit(s).
Yes, it's quite scenic here in the Tenderloin. I've lived here for 3 1/2 years now, and in general I really don't mind it. It's only one bus to work, and within walking distance to pretty much everything I need. It's in the heart of all the action, and on the edge, and far, far away from pretention and snobbery.
But recently, I find myself getting more and more annoyed and exasperated. This morning the first thing I smelled when I stepped outside was stale pee; and coming home, I nearly stepped in a pile of shit—I wouldn't have been the first. There are two SROs and welfare housing across the street, and almost every day at least one of these buildings is visited by the paramedics/fire department. Then there's the rock-star motel next door, whose bar attracts weekend party buses full of dumb twenty-somethings learning how to get blitzed. Add to this the elevator of my seven-story building going on the fritz monthly, and the water heater breaking for days at a time a couple times a year.
Yes, people, you, too, can have all this joy and more for the low, low TL price of $1,000 a month! Actually, no, you can't, because if I were to leave this studio apartment, it would be rented for about $1,150.
I really can't justify spending more than I already do for a place I don't own. And that is the simple reason why I will be here for a few more years. Unless I win the lottery, or find someone to shack up with, or get a much-higher-paying job, or this city comes to its senses and makes itself livable and affordable to all classes.
Today's post is again courtesy of The One-Minute Writer: What noise annoys you the most? I haaaate the sound of everyone on the airplane opening their cellophane-wrapped food at the same time. That squeaking, crinkling, screechy-squealy sound grates on me worse than fingernails on a blackboard. It's gluttony in concert, amplified 'til my eardrums want to burst and bleed.
Lucky for me, the airlines rarely feed us anymore.
I got sidetracked on Ancestry.com again today, and traced an additional six (!!) generations, making an exciting discovery. While I can't confirm that my sleuthing is 100% accurate, I'm pretty sure that my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother was the amazing Penelope VanPrincis Stout.Penelope was born in Amsterdam in 1622. In 1640 she married John Kent and they sailed for New York, but their ship crashed on the coast of New Jersey. Most of the passengers escaped, but John was ill and Penelope would not leave him. Soon they were attacked by Indians, who killed John and left Penelope for dead, having hacked up her left shoulder, sliced open her abdomen, and partially scalped her. For eight days she survived by finding shelter in a hollow log and eating the moss and mushrooms that grew from it, until a couple Indians found her. The younger one wanted to finish her off, but the older one threw her over his shoulder, took her back to the wigwam, sewed her up and nursed her back to health. Eventually Penelope returned to her Dutch community in New Amsterdam (now NYC), married Richard Stout, had 10 kids, and lived to be 110 years old (or 90, depending on the source). She became known as the "First Lady of Middletown" and was highly influential in her community and relations with the Indians.I think it's incredible that 400 years ago a person could avoid infection and survive these injuries and then go on to bear so many children and live so long. She was obviously a very strong, very determined woman. I am honored to be a descendant of her—and what a cool story I have to tell now! (Read more about Penelope at History of American Women.)
Tonight's entry is courtesy of a prompt from The One-Minute Writer: Write a brief bit of fiction from the point of view of an animal.Tony the two-legged tarantula hadn't eaten in days. Moths weren't usually his first choice for a meal—they tended to be a bit dry. But he was desperate. He opened his mouth wide, belched gastric juices, clamped down, and masticated the wings, the thorax, the head, until the only thing remaining was a scrawny leg, dangling from the corner of Tony's mouth.
Ok, and that actually took me a minute and twenty seconds—I can't type fast enough! Oh, crap—I just realized it wasn't from Tony's point of view! Oh, well...
"When all else fails, play dead."Holy hiatus, Batman! How did six months pass in what seems like only six weeks? A spur-of-the-moment trip to London threw me out of the blogosphere for about a month while I researched and traveled. After that, I have no good excuse for not posting except for an extremely busy work schedule that depleted my creative energy. But no self-kicking allowed—I did just take a five-week memoir writing course, during which I wrote for far more than 365 minutes. That completed, and work back to normal, I am now happily resurrected and re-energized.I do believe that time really does fly, faster and faster, the older one gets. Perhaps it's the contrast of our bodies and minds moving more slowly against the ever-speeding-up of the technological world around us... I can't think of a likely explanation for the phenomenon, but it reminds me of one of my favorite books—one that I re-read every few years, and that has had a tremendous impact on my philosophy of life and time—Einstein's Dreams, by Alan Lightman.What is time? Does it have shape or mass? Is it fluid? How does one explain déjà vu? Lightman explores these concepts and more through about 30 brief chapters, each a unique time-world, each a dream of his fictional Einstein. In one world, time moves backwards; in another, at high velocity. Sometimes it moves in fits and starts; and at others, in repeating circles. In all cases, people's understanding of how time works influences how they live their lives—whether they live on mountains, race from place to place, live in constant fear, or record every action in an effort to remember it. And each dream offers a theory that explains why people in this "real" world are as they are. "16 April, 1905" is one of my favorite dreams: "In this world, time is like a flow of water, occasionally displaced by a bit of debris, a passing breeze. Now and then, some cosmic disturbance will cause a rivulet of time to turn away from the mainstream, to make connection backstream. When this happens, birds, soil, people caught in the branching tributary find themselves suddenly carried to the past." People who have hiccuped to the past wear dark clothes and carefully tiptoe around, trying not to alter anything in that time, lest they alter the future—their futures and themselves—as a result. They lurk in corners and hide under bridges, waiting for time to deliver them forward to where they came from. They aim for invisibility, ignoring stares and not participating in life. A person from the future "is an inert gas, a ghost, a sheet without soul. He has lost his personhood. He is an exile of time." These future-people are lurking in every city. "They are not questioned about coming events, about future marriages, births, finances, inventions, profits to be made. Instead, they are left alone and pitied."I love Lightman's brevity, concise words and strings of repeating structures that, together, lend a lyrical, dreamy quality to each story; and I love that each dream makes me question what I perceive to be reality. So maybe that loony guy who sleeps in a box in the alcove and whimpers to himself isn't so loony, after all... Who am I to say?
I'm tired and my brain is running on empty, so it's the perfect time for a pin-the-mouse-on-the-photo post.
