Sniffles

On the train to Brooklyn, a burly guy stood next to me with a big, open box of Kleenex tissues. He just hung on to the pole with one hand and he held the tissues in the other. He must have just come from a funeral. 

Seasons Change

The old homeless-looking guy on my corner was playing "Summertime" on his saxophone today. It is 38 degrees out there.

PROPER-GANDA

I was at an informative meeting for the Screen Actors Guild and folks got up to ask questions. One actress was wearing a corduroy jacket with Obama buttons on it ... even though it was over a week since he won. 

But, not only did she have buttons all over her ratty jacket, she also had Obama stickers. Like, paper stickers you would put on a notebook. They were all peeling and stuff. 

I was sure that she'd have a bumper sticker on her ass, but she didn't. I looked.

Pissed

I walked by a grizzled black guy pissing at a phone booth (remember those?) on my street. As I strolled past his gushing torrent of beer-reeking-piss, I muttered "Nasty." 

He shouted out, "Fuck you! Faggot! Honky! I'm gone do what I want do!"

Honky?! Apparently he watched too many episodes of 'The Jeffersons'.

Manners

I went to sweat out my additional toxins in the steam room at my local New York Sports Club after burning 478 calories on the treadmill while watching The View. 

This older guy was in the tiny steam room, leaning against the door, shaving his face. No shaving cream. No mirror. Just some old guy with some old, cheap, disposable razor, shaving and shaving his inflated cheeks. He then sat down next to me ... and methodically shaved again and again. Over and over. FUCKING WEIRD, RIGHT? 

Sir -- don't shave like that in public. It's creepy.  

PB&J

This morning I went out for a cup of coffee and walked past a middle-aged woman who was hurrying to her destination holding a large paper plate with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on it. 

How do I know it was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Well, she was eating one slice of the bread with the jelly on it. The other slice on the plate had the peanut butter. I should have told her how good the two ingredients taste when eaten simultaneously. Or how dangerous it is to eat while walking fast and holding a paper plate.

Goth

Last night I went to a screening of a film at the Bowery Poetry Club on the Lower East Side on Manhattan. 

While waiting on the long line I checked out all the poets and artists hanging around the cafe tables and dusty tomes. Unique eye wear. Unkempt, patchouli-smelling hair. Deep discussions. The people who go to Tom Stoppard plays. 

My eyes met with a young, bored-looking goth girl sipping the last drop of espresso out of her demitasse as the grizzled poets around her discussed literature and Communism. Her eyes suddenly darted around the room, and in a private instant she pursed her grey lips, peered down, and simply spat into her demitasse. It wasn't a forceful spit. More like a thick, slow, white voluminous drip. She put the little cup down, excused herself, and left the Club. 

A few other artists took her space and ate their organic hemp seed cakes and drank their soy lattes with the saliva-filled demitasse on the table the whole time. Poetic.

Getting There

Today I heard an old blind lady ask her sighted walking companion, "Are we there yet?"