The Participation Award

- There was a lady sketching a self-portrait at the gym today.  She was in gym clothes and conservative heels.  I know the gym has big mirrors, but I think there are a few more-appropriate places for that such as your home, an art studio, or I don’t know, the changing room at The Bon Marche.  

- Do they still have The Bon Marche?

- I ride my bike a lot.  There are times when I’m riding next to, or at least, in the same traffic flow as someone else.  We obviously don’t know each other and we don’t speak, but we’re on the same road with something in common: we’re both on bikes in New York, afraid for our individual safeties, and with our own destinations in mind.  Sometimes I pull ahead of them ,they pull ahead of me, or we’ll take a different block only to end up on the same main drag, often going to, or coming from the Manhattan Bridge.  I don’t know these people and the chances of ever having the same experience with them or even remembering them are nil, yet every time we part for our respective destinations and it’s clear that we’re not going to meet up again a block or two later, I have this intense urge to tell them goodbye or to tell them to have a nice day or night.  I don’t know if that’s a desperate need to connect with somebody or a simple explanation of my nature as a human being who isn’t an asshole as much as the people he comes across.

- When I left the gym today there was a gaggle of high school-aged kids.  There wasn’t less than forty of them and they were ALL talking at high, high volumes.  I almost couldn’t hear the cars honking on Houston, which was a block away.  It was one of those moments where I truly felt old and that I had absolutely no way to relate to young people and absolutely no reason to do so either.  They all looked like little Pharells and Nicki Minajes.

- I put chips on a sandwich today.  I don’t think I’ve done that in at least 14 years.