Going home

"Okay, I guess I'll sleep over. It's so late that I'm afraid that if I do go home now, I'll fall asleep in the cab and then I'll wake up in Guam."

"Well, I have relatives in Guam," you said. "Although you probably won't be driven much further than Brooklyn. If you stay over, though, there's a guy coming to pick up the gun at 9:00 a.m."

Cool (in the backseat)

Remember that time that I called my parents and said, "Hey, let's get tickets to see the Rolling Stones," and they said, "Umm, we already have tickets to see the Rolling Stones, and I said, "Wow. Great. I didn't realize they were on sale yet," and they said, "They're not, but we have them, and we're going with X and Y," and I realized, "Oh, and not with me," and then I felt like my parents thought I was really uncool?

Tonight they're going to Schiller's for dinner.
Sans me.

Maybe they'll take my table.

Seasonal affect

You feel the scurvy coming on, eh?

I think you should join our citrus club.

It's the season.

Another mother

I asked him to take me to Avenue B at 7th Street.
But he took the FDR Drive and we ended up going up Avenue C so I asked him to just drop me on 7th Street between Avenues C and B. But he was driving really fast and I remembered that I had to run an errand on Avenue A so finally I told him that he could just continue down the street and drop me at Avenue A.

We stopped.
He laughed.
And he said, "You are funny. You have kids, right?"
And he kept laughing.

I felt like the funny bit was a compliment, but I'm not sure that the bit about being a mother was one too.

Also, being the kind of mother who displays such an utter lack of decision-making skills couldn't possibly have been a compliment.

I wasn't sure how to respond.

I asked, "What makes you think I have kids?"

He just laughed and laughed.

Maybe I did look a little harried.

Crisis mode

Someone I work with just told me that I'm beautiful.

Yeah, it's sort of like we're preparing for the apocalypse here.

Backseat Shooter: Shooting, Drive-by

A new feature, from the backseat.



Houston Street, at Bowery; Billy's Antiques.


P.S. I bought my couch from Billy. The pretty couch.

Watch it, Mister

Watch Me Change is disturbing.

Not because I'm worried about the implied voyeurism, or bizarreism, or any other 'ism that I'm sure will be invoked when critiquing this approach to advertising.

Nope.
I was in the Gap yesterday, trying on jeans.
And I just hope I don't look as heinous as this cartoon seems to tell me I should.

And I certainly wasn't having a dance party in there.

5G37

His name was Wade Tango.

I was caught up in thinking about this, and the short story character his name could become, when he proclaimed, "You will have a great evening."

He repeated it and added, beaming, "I just came from praying. You are the first to enter my cab since my prayers."

It was only noon, so it seemed a bit early to be making predictions about my evening.

Superbeauteous

I haven't abandoned cabs.
Or things that are pretty.

I will return.

Tonight, though, you must come to this, a benefit for 826NYC:

MM: Cab Drivers Tell Him He's Pretty Too

"MM lives in a hovel and dates cab drivers!"

I owe MM $3.
For my share of a cab ride, in fact!

I should pay it at once; I don't want to prevent him from taking his drivers out in style.

Third wheel

She got into the front seat while I was paying, waiting for change.

In passing

Your offer of a free wireless connection is sweet, but vegan gelato surely isn'’t.

Bittersweet: learning that someone you had a crush on in high school is married. And vegan.
(I guess we'll never go on a date and eat steak.)

HP7Z? 73HZ?

I'm loathe to leave his number, even as I indict him here.
(Also, I didn't take a receipt, so my recall of the number is sketchy.)

Maybe if he wasn't driving around New York with a trunk full of porn, I wouldn't have reason to write about him.

His car was clean.
He helped me with my suitcase.
He ignored my histrionic cell-phone call.

But he kept them in a big, clear trash bag.

Trashy.

MED#7H54, TRIP #15052

"Have you been to that place on the corner?" he asked when he dropped me off.

"No, I haven't. But I heard it's good."

"I think I'll go there someday," he said.


I thought about asking him to write and send a review when he does.

On sap. Or, Still Beautiful?

Just now, while working at my desk, in an office that's empty (as it is Sunday night), culling through the archives, a cartoon made me cry.

The only thing that did it then, when it actually happened:

"Hey, New York, you're still beautiful."

(Written then on the Penn Station wall.)

I passed it every morning on my way to work.
And every night as we ran for the train home.

And it was the only thing then that got me.

Maybe today it was the sappy soundtrack that's playing here.
Or maybe the fact that we don't run there anymore.
Either way, I don't have a heart of stone.