On (or Close to) Schedule

Japanese(ish) food with my Japanese friends

Post author By Logan Lo
Post date 2025/05/29
No Comments on Japanese(ish) food with my Japanese friends

A grand time with friends

The Frenchman and Bryson were game to come my way to get some food, so we headed to our usual Japanese BBQ haunt in the area the other day.

We’d all decided that the adults would head out and get dinner while the kids would stay by mine.

To this end, I ordered – initially – one pizza pie and picked up some snacks and drinks as well.

Bryson: Uh you might want to get more than one pie. Two teenagers, and three boys. I know [my son] can eat three slices when he is hungry.
Frenchman: Was just gonna say.
Firecracker: Yeah, one pie isn’t gonna cut it.

I don’t have a lotta kids over my pad, so I ordered two pies and let the kids do their thing as the rest of us went out and stuffed our fat faces.

Interestingly, on the way there, evidently, we walked right by my neighbors several blocks from the pad and they snapped this pic of us.

Both Bryson and the Frenchman – despite the latter’s moniker – are Japanese, so I was a bit hesitant bringing them there.

But everyone really enjoyed everything, and the conversation was great, as usual.

Person1: So, how did you all meet?
Person2: We were neighbors and…
Person3: I asked him to come to Barnes and Noble with me, and he said no…

The alcohol – including that beer tower above – didn’t hurt…

…and everyone seemed to enjoy the s’mores, except me. I’m just not that into sweets.

Or, to steal a line that my dad used to say alla time, I’m sweet enough.

Afterward, we walked home, although no paparazzi this time around.

When we got back, the kids were all having a grand time – and while they killed the drinks and a lotta the snacks, they only ate one of the two pizza pies.

Me: Ah-ha – vindicated!

We all ended up drinking and chatting until it was late.

My kid went to a birthday party that day, had this impromptu party, and was heading to another get-together the following day for Memorial Day.

But I’ll tell you all about it in the next entry.

Location: not Staten Island, due to the rain. Have to head there next week.
Mood: still super busy
Music: Things will happen while they can (Spotify)
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Tags friends, good things, New York City, NYC

personal

The exciting UWS

Deer, water, and the UWS

I like my neighborhood precisely because it isn’t exciting – at all.

There are cool things like the Beacon Theatre and Lincoln Center but it’s still relatively quiet around here.

Well, last week was a doozy of a week for the UWS for a number of reasons.

Me: What’s going on?
Buddy: A deer got hit by a car.
Me: No, seriously, what happened?
Him: That’s what happened!

Didn’t believe my friend I ran into around it when he told but it seems that a deer that somehow ended up in the Upper West Side and got hit by a car.

It then sought shelter in a townhouse courtyard that I regularly walk past on the way to/from my gym.

The cops shoo-ed me away when I tried to take some pics…

…but a fella I didn’t know came up to me.

Him: Hey, I got some pics if you want to see what’s going on.
Me: That’d be great, thanks!

He ended up sending them to me so I could show the Firecracker, who was definitely not gonna believe me because I could barely believe it myself.

He was definitely wounded and bleeding profusely.

Yes, that’s the deer’s blood. It was really that colour.

They shot it with a tranq but had to put it down, I heard.

NYC’s a rough place if you’re not used it to.

Poor guy.

The other thing that’s been happening is that my tiny building is dealing with more water issues.

Couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out where it was coming in from so, I hired a pro, whom I’d worked with in the past.

Damn if he didn’t go to the other side of the guardrail – the side where you fall to your death – hold onto the potentially unstable guardrail with his left hand…

…balance on one lege, and dangle OVER the gutter and take a picture of a 25 foot long, one inch gash underneath my gutter.

Him: I think I found your problem. There’s…
Me: Come back first!

He survived and I definitely needed a drink after all that.

Like I said, I like living where I live precisely because it isn’t exciting.

Here’s hoping things go back to being boring next week.

The X is where his foot was and the dot is where his head was.

Location: Not dangling over my roof, I can tell ya that
Mood: insanely busy
Music: standing ’round this corner, tall enough to touch the New York sky (Spotify)
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Tags interesting facts, meeting people in NYC, New York City, NYC

personal

Showerheads and Siblings

Main Character Syndrome

Reading about the psychopath that blew up the IVF center in California gave me so many mixed emotions, least of which this asshole decided his opinion of the world trumped everyone else’s opinion of the world.

I don’t get how people think it’s ok, or even reasonable, to force their worldviews on others.

Like, that’s the ultimate in main character syndrome I can imagine.

But I digress.

Perfect Circles dropped me a line recently.

Her: Pregnant again! Number three joining us in August. Plainly we’ve lost our minds but it just felt like the gang wasn’t all here yet.
Me: That’s amazing, congrats!! Oh man, that was my dream, to have three kids. Alison only ever wanted to have two. Sigh.

Told her that I was thrilled for her, which is true.

But then that got me thinking: I’ve got a few embryos out in the world that I’m still struggling to figure out what to do with.

I’ve always wanted another child but that doesn’t appear to be in the cards.

In any case, one idea was to donate them to couples in need – ie, a couple that can’t produce a child on their own.

I seriously considered it in the past, but there’s an interesting phenomenon where people that are biologically related – a fact that they often don’t know initially – find each other and fall in love.

There’re a buncha stories like this:

- Reddit reported revealed that a woman found out her six-year relationship with her boyfriend was really a six-year relationship with her biological brother after taking a DNA.
- A Mississippi couple found out that – not only were they brother and sister – they were also twins!
- A lesbian couple have suspicions that they might be half-siblings but plan on remaining a couple.
- A couple from Brazil – with a six-year-old child – found out that they were actually brother and sister, both of whom were abandoned by their mother as children. The kicker is that they found this out together and live on the radio.

It’s not hard to see how they might fall in love; after all, we’re equal parts nature and nurture.

In fact, you can see how a hypothetical conversation might go:

Him: I love 80s music.
Her: Me too, my favourite band is Duran Duran.
Him: OMG, me too! I went to their last concert in London back in 2022.
Her: Wait, I was there too!

I’d read about this phenomenon ages ago but I was recently reminded of it when I visited my sister the other day.

I never told her that I fixed my bathroom but when I went to use her newly renovated bathroom, I found out that:

We both picked the same shower head – in the same colour to boot!

The one on the left is my sisters and mine is on the right. They’re the same colour – it’s just the lighting that makes it look different.

AND we picked the exact same tiles!

These are hers…

…and these are mine.

Again, we both did our bathrooms without discussing it with the other.

Anywho, yeah, I don’t think I’ll give those embryos away…

Location: the wet rain
Mood: brrrrrrr
Music: Tell me all the things that you like (Spotify)
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Tags discussion, family, human condition, interesting facts, observations, relationships, social commentary, tiny wisdom

personal

Our Bathroom Reno, Pt. 2

Soldiering on

Now, this whole renovation thing really started when we admired the ABFF’s bathroom and she offered us her leftover tiles.

The tiles were gorgeous and the right amount, so we hired her guys and expected to use them.

Unfortunately, her tiles were wall tiles, and we needed floor tiles; her’s were too thin and too slippery for us to use.

So, the reason we started the whole project in the first place was moot.

But, it was too late, we already started the work, so we had to soldier on.

On top of all this madness, the Firecracker made a major mathematical error and ordered a TON more green tiles than we needed.

Me: I thought you were a teacher!
Her: English! I was an English teacher!
Me: Blargh.

But it ended up being ok because we decided to do an accent wall that, originally, I wasn’t keen on but ended up being quite nice.

This bathroom is right off my bedroom so that meant that dust was *everywhere* and my bedroom was like a live-action Tetris.

But we were making quick progress.

After just 10 days, it was really coming together.

The Firecracker’s been pleased as punch since we finished up.

Me?

I’m just happy that she’s happy AND I’ve got my room back.

Mostly.

Location: earlier today, under a 200 pound blackbelt getting strangled
Mood: exhausted
Music: If I could count the stupid things I do for you (Spotify)
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Tags good things, NYC, self-improvement

personal

Our Bathroom Reno, Pt. 1

Not just touching things up

When Buckley and I first bought our pad 21 years ago (!!), we set aside about $30,000 to:

- Completely gut renovate our front bathroom.
- Fix the shower in the back bathroom.
- Completely redo the floors and several panels of drywall in our basement.

My apartment is a one-bedroom that, for some odd reason, has three bathrooms, which is pretty darn convenient I gotta say, despite how odd it is.

The front bathroom was the one that everyone used because it was so nice.

The back bathroom, was essentially just used for emergencies all these years.

After all, it didn’t even have a working radiator, so it was effectively unusable three months outta a year.

It was a huge waste of space.

This is what it looked like when Alison was here.

2009 – The mirror was bronze, so it was so dark that it was practically unusable.

Whoever thought that pink and red was a good colour scheme for a bathroom probably wore parachute pants as well, because – like the pants – it definitely didn’t stand the test of time.

Always told Alison that it would be the room that we renovated together.

But, as you know, that and so many of our beautiful plans never came to be.

We had already had the old bronze mirror replaced by the time we started demoing.

In any case, when the Firecracker moved in, she wanted to leave her mark here so I said that, if ever there was an occasion, we’d fix the back bathroom.

Me: Alison always hated it and I’m not a big fan either.
Her: OK, well, maybe we can start small and save up money to do a complete renovation as some point.

Well, the other day, we had dinner with the ABFF and she had just done her bathroom and had a ton of tiles left over.

She offered them and her guys’ contact information as well.

One thing led to another, and before you knew it, the Firecracker was demoing some of the red tiles.

But that actually wasn’t the very first thing we did.

The very first thing I did was take down the cheapo shower curtain rod that Buckley and I bought some quarter-of-a-century ago when we first moved into it.

That’s me holding it in the main picture above.

See, he and I lived in the building since 1997 and in that apartment since at least 2000 before we bought it in 2004.

In any case, the ABFF’s people took over the demolition and made quick work of the bathroom.

That was the start of a three-week (insanely dusty) project that I’d been waiting to do for 25 years, and it went from “touching things up,” to doing a full gut-reno.

They just wrapped it up last week, but I’m beat so, I’ll tell you more about it in the next entry.

Location: the bathroom, admiring it
Mood: drained
Music: I’m on the outside, looking for a reason to change (Spotify)
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Tags good things, New York City, NYC, self-improvement

personal

Mother’s Day 2025

A lotta distractions

The weekend wasn’t bad. Had a lotta distractions to keep the kid – and myself – busy.

The Firecracker’s dad’s in town so the Firecracker mainly spent time with him, which was good so I could focus on the kid.

The kid mainly did his own thing on Saturday but my college buddy, Ricky stopped by late at night to catch up after meeting up with our buddy, Ox, around the way.

Rick and I are probably the most athletic guys from our group of friends but that means that he’s got back issues too.

Me: I’m walking around most days at a 2-3; it jumps up to a 5-6 when it rains though.
Him: I’d kill for a 2-3. I’m walking around most days at a 7.
Me: Jesus Christ, how do you manage that?

Evidently, just like I did when I went to see Bryson and the Frenchman – case-in-point: Like me, he just lay down on my floor as we caught up.

Similar to that time where we randomly met him on his roof, the Firecracker and I agree that random meetups with good friends are the best.

Then, on Sunday, the kid and I woke up bright and early to head down the greenway on my scooter and get carbs in Chinatown.

There were a lotta carbs – scallion pancakes and fried dumplings – to be had before we headed back uptown.

Then we hightailed it back to catch the train to go see my mom and my sis.

The kid got to play with his cousins; I even hopped on the bike and rode with them to the local grade school for them to play for a bit.

While we were gone, my mom made dinner for us all; she didn’t know the Firecracker wasn’t going to be there, so she made the Firecracker’s fave dishes.

Me: Mom! It’s Mother’s Day. I wanted to take you out or at least bring food for you.
Her: (shrugging) It’s fine. I wanted to cook for you all.

That’s my mom.

Afterward, the kid and I went home and met up with the Firecracker, who was hanging with her family the whole weekend.

Another Mother’s Day Weekend/Alison’s Birthday, done.

Just have to get through the next few weeks and I won’t have to think about May again for a whole year.

Location: 6PM, picking the kid up late from school
Mood: damp
Music: open the door. Oh, it’s my love (Spotify)
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Tags family, friends, good things, New York City, nightlife, NYC

personal

Alison would have been 46

Post author By Logan Lo
Post date 2025/05/11
No Comments on Alison would have been 46

I’m able to pay, for now

A little while ago, the Professor dropped me a line.

Him: If you’ve seen the HBO series Westworld there’s a line where a female robot is about to get her mind wiped again – to spare her from feeling the pain of her child s death – and she cries out “Please, no – the pain is all I have left.” I thought that line was quite powerful.
Me: (sighing) Yeah. Thinking of Alison and my dad is always painful but it’s better than not feeling anything at all, I think. Sometimes, I think differently, but for now, I agree.

There was also a NY Times Article that my brother sent me that had a subtitle that read, If grief is the price of love, I am unable to pay.

For now, I’m able to pay it.

But, early on, I thought paying it would kill me.

As I age, it’s a bit less painful.

Time just dulls everything.

Yet, when I do feel it, man do I feel it.

But I’d much rather feel it than forget her.

Because pain is the price we pay for love.

And pain is all I have left of her.

Well, that and the boy.

Him: I wish I knew her better.
Me: Me too, kiddo. You woulda loved her.
Him: And she woulda loved me?
Me: Oh, kiddo, she absolutely did. And she’d be so thrilled with the person you’re becoming.

Location: 2017, at least, in my head
Mood: complicated
Music: don’t look back from a hurt like that (Spotify)
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Tags family, human condition, love, troubles

personal

Glazed with rain

They were delicious

Speaking of poems, the Firecracker and I discussed our favourite ones, and we discovered something…

Her: My favorite poem is, This Is Just To Say.
Me: Mine is Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams.
Her: That’s who wrote This is Just To Say!
Me: What a coincidence!

You would be surprised at the regularity that she and I have exchanges like that – a “Wait, me too” kinda moment.

And I told you once that that’s the basis of all good relationships, romantic or otherwise – a shared sense of the world.

And we still share things in the world.

Me: What would you do there?
Her: At Arizona Tom’s? Two step with older guys so they’d buy me a drink.
Me: Kinda like what you’re doing now?
Her: Nothing’s changed.

Poetry aside, it’s not like the Firecracker and I see eye-to-eye on everything, English related…

Me: I think the next thing they’ll try to get rid of will be Alcohol, Tobacco, and Fire…
Her: Wait, did you just say “Ta-bock-oh?” Like “Chewbacca?”
Me: What?
Her: You just said, Alcohol, Ta-bock-oh, and Firearms. It’s Alcohol, Tuh-back-oh, and Firearms.
Me: Well, that’s just ridiculous.

This Is Just To Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

The Red Wheelbarrow
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens

Location: home, worried about the weekend
Mood: concerned
Music: I got sunshine even when it’s pouring rain (Spotify)
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Tags dialogue, discussion, self-improvement, social commentary, writing

personal

Something about Mary (Elizabeth Sawyer)

Post author By Logan Lo
Post date 2025/05/06
1 Comment on Something about Mary (Elizabeth Sawyer)

Feeling it acutely

This little girl named Mary Elizabeth Sawyer was born in 1806 and she led a fairly unremarkable life except for two things:

1. She had a little lamb, whose fleece was white – as white as snow, in fact. And this little lamb followed Mary everywhere.
2. Her friend, John Roulstone, upon seeing this, was so amused, he wrote her a poem about it.

Image via Art and Picture Collection, The New York Public Library.

The poem went:

Mary had a little lamb;
Its fleece was white as snow;
And everywhere that Mary went,
The lamb was sure to go.

It followed her to school one day,
Which was against the rule;
It made the children laugh and play
To see a lamb at school.

And so the teacher turned it out;
But still it lingered near,
And waited patiently about
Till Mary did appear.

There’s some question as to the validity of all this, but I like to believe it.

See, almost everyone in America has heard about Mary, knew her situation, and remembered her little lamb that she loved so much, and that loved her so much.

But I’m struck that everyone forgot that Mary was a real person, with all her hopes and dreams, and people – and animals – that loved her deeply.

Even if the poem wasn’t actually Mary Elizabeth Sawyer, the hope is that Mary was a real person, and this was a real thing.

This coming week will be both Alison’s birthday and Mother’s Day.

Again and like always.

And the anniversary of her death is coming up as well.

Every May I struggle with the void that she left after she died.

As hard as that is, it’s even harder for the kid, who – year-after-year – feels the loss a touch more acutely than the previous year.

Moreover, I worry that she’ll just be a distant idea to him, like Mary.

Like, I picture her in my head like the picture above while I think that my son pictures her like the blurry main picture of this entry.

It’s her but it’s…blurry.

Then again, it’s always good to be remembered in some positive way.

Whether that be in a children’s rhyme or a blog that almost no one reads.

I’ll probably write more later, but I just wanted you to know that the Lo household was thinking about her this May, like we do every May.

And like I always do.

Him: Papa! Did you know that there’s a country called Burkina Faso? Isn’t that a cool name?
Me: It is! Did you know that mommy used to go there all the time?
Him: She did? Why?
Me: She worked for a place called Helen Keller and was always trying to help people. That’s one of the things that I always loved about her. She was always trying to help people – she was such a good person, kiddo. Maybe, when you grow up, you can help people like she did.
Him: I will!
Me: (nodding) She’d love that. She would have loved that. And you.

Location: home, worried about the weekend
Mood: concerned
Music: A few years had gone and come around (Spotify)
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Tags family, friends, human condition, love, relationships, troubles

A grand time with friends

Deer, water, and the UWS

Main Character Syndrome

Soldiering on

Not just touching things up

Wish to God I didn’t know now

A lotta distractions

I’m able to pay, for now

They were delicious

Feeling it acutely