A fresh cold is keeping me awake. I have Nyquil, but the last time I drank it I felt as though I were waking up next to the toilet after the most idiotic college party ever to be thrown, and so it shall remain tightly sealed on my bathroom's window ledge.
I haven't blogged for a few weeks. It's not that I have nothing to say, it's that I don't understand this part about blogging yet: how does one write without a theme? Were I to develop one, it might have to do with what I miss when I walk down the streets in New York. Day in and out, butcher paper slaps windows with the ubiquitous "lost our lease" or "retail space for rent" scrawls. These stories are well-documented and practically a cliche now.
What they would read were I hanging them would be a different matter. "Jamie's best friend moved away from this huge apartment complex with the turtle sculpture in the playground." Or, "Sometimes I desperately miss the old people that are rapidly dying on my block." Hank, who showered Jamie with toys every holiday with money he didn't have to spend after dialysis. Marva, who brought Kayla to his third birthday party, in the rain, before any one else arrived. Maritza, who invited us to every party she threw and who used to lean out of her window and shout to me 'He's gonna be a football playah!', her love birds twittering away in the background. Little Sarah, who spent her entire life on the block, went to the Church of the Nativity every day, and pushed her own groceries till the ripe old age of 90-something. And most recently, Albert, the Cooper Square elevator operator whose smile lit up the whole block.
East 4th Street, between Bowery and 2nd Avenue, is changing so quickly, and casual passers-by can't tell just by Lost Our Lease signs in the neighborhood. Goodnight, all.
