Weather brings people together. If there is a severe storm, such as in this blizzard, you are more likely to find people huddled together. In Manhattan, a common huddling place is the subway platform. It was crowded. It was hard to avoid the drip of melting snow off other people’s winter caps.

He stood next to me dripping. He was on his cell phone.
I thought I heard him curse. I assume he was directing his fierce, guttural four-letters to the listener on the other end. Though I am hardly a prude, I don’t like to hear such language unless someone is thrilled about some bit of exciting news.
But he was pissed. I heard another sentence that sounded to deep and guttural to discern. And it also happened to coincide with the loud screech of the approaching 1 train.

I’ve been invited to Tar Beach.
But I would rather do what I did yesterday: sit a in a Mexican restaurant, alone, at table facing a family at another table.
Dad is very fatherly, and knows to keep quiet as Mom instructs the girls on how to eat their quesadillas. The older sister is pouty, clearly does not want any part of this tortilla pizza. The younger sister delights in her food and is told not to play with her food.  Mother is a champion because she can sip her margarita and dip her tortilla chip into the guacamole and still field their questions and negotiate suitable answers to their delights and demands.
Dad looks on, sniffing a large piece of cilantro, over and over. He glances at me sternly.
Is he upset that I’m studying him? Them? I smile and nod and look elsewhere.

The music did not well up on your final scene. No one cried. Not even you. But your character had faced hardships, trials, love triangles, blindness, amnesia, baby-switching. You even had an evil twin at one time.

But no, as your character hopped into a yellow cab, to leave the city, there was no special theme music to accompany your character’s departure. No one, not even the supporting characters waved goodbye or lamented your leaving.

It was you, on your own. Fired from the soap opera. No severance package. Just a summarily depressing ending to your story line.

Best of luck, no one said as the camera manage a perfunctory but wide angled shot of your cab wedging into traffic.

I asked the man in the office if we’d met before. It was just way to speak with him after all this time. I’d noticed him because he was noticeable. Tall, white haired and he said Hi to me every morning. In a New York office, you don’t have to say Hi and often don’t. But he did and I noticed.
He often worked in the dark, with just a lamp light and a box of Altoids. Well, more than that, but that’s just what I noticed in the beginning.

Later I noticed how soften-spoken he was. How he looked at me and what I imagined that look to mean. He was an academic and often went through papers rather than his laptop.

I want to speak more to him about him, but I know nothing and I’m afraid to get closer. I have no reason to. I shouldn’t. But I want to. I also noticed he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. Is this a growing trend? And frankly I’m already starting to take him for granted. im. I no longer bother to gush inwardly when he passes by. I’m finding faults with his maturity. I’m getting annoyed that he won’t make the first move. It’s already been five years since we moved into this office building. Sometimes I don’t see him for weeks on end.

So by the time I said I walked into his open office door and introduced myself, it was all rather anticlimactic.

Yeah, it’s over, I think, as we start to talk. But it was great while it lasted.

I’ve given at home and at work. I feel good when I give. No one sees what I give. Or what I get.
And that reminds me of beer. No one sees what beer does to my insides, the feeling of warmth and compassion it brings. Sometimes tears. Very often laughter. .And those are the outward signs.
A compassionate cocktail consists of a splash of everything you’ve ever wanted to be splashed with. Kindness, generosity, understanding–all things that have left a bitter taste in your mouth in the past. But with just the right ratios, conclude down your throat and fill you with satisfaction.
And then you burp.

A better word is intention. A better is compassion.
Stop trying so hard. Just let it happen and roll with the punches. Let the rain fall.
Laugh as much as you can.
I am in an office. I am glad to be here.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha….

He walked into the convenient store with an attitude. I had caused his mood. Or at least had some part in it. He glared at me from over the aisle. I forget how tall he is, until his angry seems to remind me.
He came to the counter.

“Will that be all?” I asked him as he slid a bag of Doritos toward me.

“No,” he said with a snarl. “As a matter of fact, that won’t be all.”

“What else then? Cigs? Beer? A Slushee?”
He tilted his head and squinted. “As a matter of fact. I love you.”

The peace that emanates through Washington Square is unprecedented. No one is protesting? Correct. But I am partial to peace. I sniff out its trail from under the Washington Square arch toward the found. I lose it’s trail there but find it readily at the piano that emanates a wavery melancholy tune. It sounds beautiful. I ask the students what the piece is that the white-haired lady is playing.
“Beck,” they say.
“Bach?” I say.
“No,” they say. “Beck.”

I cried all afternoon at the things Bianca, Dot, Ricky, Peggy, Phil and so many others said. How can I like people who make me cry?
I guess because they’ve lived such harrowing lives. Which I could never live. All I can do is watch and cry. Sometimes they say funny things.
Especially Bianca. Come back Bianca!

“Happy to help,” says the underwear, it’s vibe tickling my hips. Even when you remove the underwear, it won’t shut up. Nor do you want silence. That’s worse. Not that you mean to insult it by telling it shut up. But if clothes make the man. Clothes may also make up things about that man. Gossipy underclothes are worse than a paper cut.

Example: “You’re not good enough to wear me.”

“I am too,” you say. You expect a response back. But the underwear provides the silent treatment. It’s silence is deafening.

“Carry on,” a friend says when you tell them about your latest dysfunctional underpinnings. “Make other friends.”

“Who said my undies are my friends.”

“You did.”

“Oh,” you recall. “Yeah.” But it’s a lie. You just want people to think your undies like you. They don’t.

But enough is enough. Confrontation time. You sit there, naked on one side of the room. The underwear on the other. It looks expensive and clean, as usual. You, on the other hand, feel dirty and cheap.

“Because you are,” says the underwear.

“Shut up,” you tell it. “Get out.”

And it does. Never to return.

Well, you think. That wasn’t so hard after all.