December | 2012 | Exile on Pain Street

I attended a jewelry party in Manhattan last week. It was held in someone’s apartment. It’s quite common. Not too far removed from the Tupperware parties of the 1950’s. You invite your friends to a party and proceed to sell them your products. Or you host a party and receive a generous discount or free merchandise.

In this case, it was the latter. One of my oldest friends—someone I met when I first moved to New York—invited me to her girlfriend’s jewelry fête. She knew I couldn’t buy anything but we hadn’t seen each other in quite some time. I can count my close, long-term friends on one hand and she’s one of them. It was great to see her. We can go long periods of time without hearing from one another and once we’re together, we pick up the thread of our last conversation as if we just spoke yesterday. It’s magic.

The apartment was on Broadway and 10th Street. It was in a building I’ve walked passed thousands of times. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to live there. It’s in a perfect location. Only three blocks to The Strand bookstore. Four to Union Square park. The East Village one block east. A delicious slice of the town.

They have a balcony and because it was so freakishly balmy for a December evening, we took our glasses of vino outside to catch-up. We dished on our families and relationships. Her dog, Buddy, just passed away and she was sad. I did a post about Buddy once. He kept chasing porcupines and ending up with a quill facial. Each time it happened it cost her $400!

The apartment was on the 8th floor. In my delusional apartment fantasy, I’ve changed my mind about what to demand from the real estate agent. I will no longer insist on a unit above the 30th floor. I’ve decided that being closer to the street is the thing to do. Too high up and you miss out on all this fantastic detail.

Just look at this balcony view. My God, how some people get to live. This is looking north up Broadway to Union Square with Grace Church on the right. The ornamental floodlights pouring down are on the roof of the building across the street.

The light spills into the church courtyard creating creepy renaissance shadows. In the distance, steam rises off the crown of the Zeckendorf Tower. The blue clock tower is the ConEdison building on 14th Street. Were this mine, I would take my New York Times out onto the balcony each Sunday morning with my coffee. This is my idea of a house of worship. From the horrified looks on their faces, you’d think the other guests had never seen a grown man weep.

* * *

Here’s another festive holiday snapshot for you. GIANT RED BALLS in a fountain across the street from Radio City Music Hall. Everything in this town is over-sized. Ornaments. Egos. Problems. Everything.

This past week there was a gigantic lottery payout here in the U.S. The jackpot was a staggering $588 million. Over half a billion dollars! I didn’t buy a ticket. I like to fancy myself a super sophisticated student of the odds and at, literally, 175,000,000 to 1, I felt it was a boorish bet to make. I won’t even lay 35 to 1 at a roulette table.

While on my arduous commute home, past the petroleum refineries and chemical plants of northern New Jersey, I did what every red blooded American did. I stared out the window into the dusk and imagined what it would be like to suddenly win that preposterous amount of money. My first thought was, of course, no more life-sucking hours spent commuting. The second was the cliché palatial apartment overlooking Central Park. “Please don’t show me anything below the 30th floor,” I would instruct the real estate agent.

Then, very quickly, my mind drifted towards all the trouble it would cause. The relentless phone calls and pleadings for help. The whacked-out investment schemes and long, lost family, friends and ex-colleagues who would emerge from the mist of my intentionally forgotten memories. The unrelenting tsunami of temptations and guilt.

Do you see what I did there? I took a fortuitous event like winning the national lottery and immediately fashioned it into something bleak. I turned it into a problem. What the hell’s the matter with me? I don’t understand how my mind works sometimes. I lead a pretty decent life. From what deep, dark crevice does all this angst emanate from?

Do you know the plot device in the Harry Potter novels whereby memories and thoughts can be extracted and shared? In the films, those thoughts and memories are depicted as long, sparkly, glistening threads. I’ll bet my thought strands would be brown and dripping with rust.

Not every post can be pizza commentary, casino hijinks and theater boasts. Nor should they be.

* * *

Self portrait #7. The Canine and I are getting along much better. I haven’t been bitten or seriously growled at in quite some time. Just in a playful way. Still, if I were a wizard, I’d dramatically slice the air with my wand and turn her into a cat.

* * *

City sidewalks, busy sidewalks.
Dressed in holiday style.
It’s Christmas time in the city.

Here’s the first of several holiday shots of the city. I love Christmas for purely secular reasons. The town gets all gussied up like a cheap, glittery, 10-cent transvestite. People are genuinely nicer to one another and I like the music. I’m not even bothered by the holiday throngs that residents constantly complain about. If you hate crowds so much, why the hell did you move to New York City in the first place, you idiot? Go live in Omaha. I hear they have room to breath. Merry Christmas!