There’s that time in the morning when you are being told you slept enough. The same song  starts playing in your head, over and over. You hearing Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz describing to the Munchkins, how she got to Munchkin land. You know the story. You start dreaming that you’re in a soap opera (Or worse, you’re just watching them from the sidelines.)

This all means: GET UP.

You’ve slept enough,whether you think you have or not. I once had Dean Karnazes give a lecture on effective nuclear charge, with the periodic table sprawled behind him. Have you heard him speak? He’s so quiet and unassuming.

This means:GET UP.

I can’t skate. But I can skirt. Hide. Wear hats.

Bandanas work too. I bought a bright yellow bandana with cherry patterned from Uniqlo. Am I Unique? No–and that’s perfectly fine. I have to give up trying to be special. Special is out in the cold, knocking on doors–with my hands out, when they’d rather be stuffed in fleece-lined pockets.

I did knock on your door once, remember? On Halloween. You gave the bad candies.

You also gave me V.D. Which isn’t called V.D. anymore. Anyway, it was the good V.D., the kind that penicillin could and did knock out. And I never got AIDs and that’s good.

Some people did. All I got was this lousy haircut. Well. And other things too.

And in a way, that’s a relief. Because that means people don’t ask you to do anything, because you are always doing wrong. Which means, instead, you can go out and do what you want to do.
“Oh no,” One of them says. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re going to stay until you get this right.”
“But I’m always doing it wrong,” you argue.
They argue back. You never end up doing that thing that they wanted you to do, because arguing is just another thing you do wrong. You don’t know how to argue like other people. Your so ineffective at it, that you always win the argument but saying you Can’t.

Can’t trumps everything.

So many people doing so many things–it’s exhausting.

Yet I find myself peering over there shoulder saying things like “Whatch doin’?” or “Can I see?”

And they are more than willing to show you. And that’s even more exhausting.

You do that thing that everyone else ends up doing: trying to make New York your own. You hope to describe the quirky people a little bit differently, present largesse humbly, paint words of praise to its beauty.

But it’s the same as everyone else. You try to find out what is important to you. Turns out it ‘s important to everyone else. There’s some relief in that, isn’t there?

Yeah, competition is fun, thinking your unique is fun. But when your weaving through the streets, in a hurry, it helps to go with the flow.

Death, Death, Death–will you please get out of my life?

Quit whining, God said.

I answered it.
It was a young black man.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hello,” I repeated.
And that’s as racist as I got.

We went out on a date and it was fun. He goes to Columbia, is majoring in Business.

I’m a forty-five year old woman who still thinks dates are big deals. It was a big deal in that we had fun. It wasn’t a big deal in that he didn’t ask me out again.

Well, if you notice it behind his ears, then relax: it’s probably only shaving cream.

Give him a break. He’s in a hurry to get somewhere  and forgets to wipe it all off of him. He’s on his way to work, to volunteer at a soup kitchen, for a clandestine meeting with his boyfriend.

Whipped cream is the least of your worries. Did you remember to pick up kitchen sponges? Did you take out the garbage?

Take him to an art gallery in Chelsea, look at Japanese art–notice the young interns at the reception desk, who are all but hidden, save for their eyes and foreheads.

Notice the whipped cream on the other men. They are in a hurry too. And yet they have to stroll through an art gallery, trying to figure out how to approach those half-headed interns to discuss price.

Wow. For some reason. I don’t remember being 26. It’s like one of those gaps in the Periodic Table of Elements. Not there. Yet to be discovered.

And I was determined to like it. I told people. I dared people to be disgusted by my food choices. They were. It was like a button I pushed. First, in myself for even going to a fast-food restaurant and buying their version of a value meal. But I also I pushed theirs.

A comedian, I am not. There is no way around this circle of wagons. I ate junk food and paid for it–literally and figuratively. And don’t think I gave up so easily. I told strangers too, and that’s where you find your true friends, regarding fast food. Many people were encouraging, encouraged me to do it more, or buy something different next time.

Next time. As if. My last time at McDonald’s was while watching people run the New York City Marathon.

I won’t be doing it for awhile. I shouldn’t have told anyone. I’m ashamed. For a great taste at a great value I’d been devalued and distasteful.

Donuts, of any variety are more acceptable. Marijuana is acceptable. Opoids at least illicit alarm and respect, if you are honest about using them and needing help.

But not fast food. It is the last territory for shame and ridicule, with no redemption.

Or is it? I see people with their take-out, the smell of french fries wafting on the subway. They seem unassuming. Acceptable. But they are not my people. But they could be. If only I’d confess to them.  Their initial discomfiture would only have to do with being talked to by a total stranger, rather by repulsion of food choices. They might understand.

Or not give a shit.