Tag: observations

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personal

Rando Wrapup for 2024.10

Playing dressup

I need to start doing these types of entries more often as I take pics of things that don’t necessarily merit their own entry but are kinda worth a mention.

For example, I gave away alla my teapots the other day – just stopped drinking hot tea.

I’ve had that blue fish teapot since Cornell, some 33 years ago so I’m a little bummed but it’s a constant battle, trying to keep this tiny apartment clutter-free.

Although, if my Amazon orders keep going as they’ve been going, that won’t be a problem.

For example, here’s some underwear I bought the other day from them.

I opened up a sealed cardboard box to find an empty bag.

How does that even happen?

The kid went off to see Alison’s parents for the long weekend recently.

When I picked him up, I stayed for dinner, which was (delicious) carb city with baked ziti and some homemade garlic bread.

After the kid got back, brought him to a place on the UWS I’d never been to for a birthday party for one of his friends that he’s known since he was like two.

Told the Firecracker we’d hit it up ourselves when the weather got warmer.

Her: That’s great, we need more places in the outside for summer.
Me: Yup, they can play, we can eat and drink.
Her: Perfect!

Finally, I had our Scenic Fights Halloween shoot the other day.

For one of our videos, we needed a newspaper.

Do you know how hard it is to find a newspaper in NYC these days?

Speaking of that shoot, we banged out seven videos in day with no lunch break so I went to the bar near my pad and ordered two entrees and a beer for dinner since I was absolutely starving.

Looking forward to these Halloween videos – they’re usually pretty funny and I get to dress up in all sortsa interesting things.

Hopefully, you’ll check em out?

Location: home, making dumplings for the kid and the Firecracker’s kid
Mood: chilly
Music: We come to life when it turns dark (Spotify)
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Garbage disposals in NYC

Finally installed one for myself

My brother has a garbage disposal and I always thought it was the coolest thing.

Dump alla your organic waste into it, it turns it into slush, and goes out into the environment where it reenters the food chain.

Win for the environment and win for homeowners/ tenants.

Now, while they were created in 1927, they were banned in NYC until 1997 for a variety of reasons.

Even now, they’re pretty rare because people just got used to going without.

However, the rats in NYC may change alla that.

See, Mayor Adams is convinced that the garbage – fulla food – laying around for hours overnight in plastic bags is helping the insane surge in rats in NYC.

I think he may be onto something.

One of his major plans are to deal with the obscene garbage situation in the city by:

    1. Standardizing garbage cans for everyone in the whole city – so everyone has to get cans that look like the ones below with a lid on them.
    2. Making everyone separate out their compostable materials.

Alla this by October 6th, 2024.

This means that I was looking into having this monstrosity in my tiny little NYC apartment.

I’d been thinking about having a garbage disposal installed since 2000, but life got in the way.

But two weeks ago, I had an electrician install an outlet under my sink and I picked up the Frigidaire 1.25 HP Corded Garbage Disposal (FF13DISPC1) for Wally to install while he was waiting for the paint to dry on the other project.

He’d never done one before but was game to tackle it.

Unfortunately, my sink was easily 40 years old, so the drain was rusted tight.

Took us two hours just to be able to remove it, which we did with a specialized tool.

Him: Man, once we had the right tool, it came right out.
Me: I remember my buddy Buckley telling me once that nothing’s ever an issue if you have the right tool.

Since this was the first time he’d ever installed one, lots of things went wrong.

Like this arm was the wrong size and leaked everywhere.

Wally planned to be here to paint and install it for about four-to-five hours but ended up staying 10 hours and had to return two days later to finally fix everything.

BUT, I have a garbage disposal now in NYC!

I think I’m gonna start running tours to show it off with a reasonable $5 admission ticket.

I’ll let you know when I roll that out.

In the meanwhile, here’s a quick time-lapse video I shot of it in action.

It’s 1.25 horsepower, which is about 5X the power of an average garbage disposal, so it chews through most anything but I’m just using fruit peels and eggshells to keep the gross factor to a minimum.

If you don’t have one, definitely consider installing one!

Location: a NYC pad WITH garbage disposal and freshly painted doors and gates
Mood: accomplished
Music: I will try to fix you (Spotify)
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Goodnight Ms. Binnie Meltzer

I’m sorry I never told you

In the red bag that my mom brought to me while I was in Flushing was my Junior High School yearbook, that my sister found and told her to get to me.

The reason I was thrilled to get it was for one reason and one reason alone – I wanted to figure out the name of my English teacher.

See, the most influential teacher I had was a Ms. Meltzer and for years I always meant to find her and let her know that, but life got in the way.

Plus, I had no idea what her first name was.

But with the yearbook, I immediately looked for her and was disappointed to find that it only had her first initial was “B” and that led me – well, really, the Firecracker to a search and we found “Binnie Meltzer’s” obituary.

I’m certain it was her.

It made me both happy and sad; happy in that I found her, in a manner of speaking, and – of course – sad that I was too late.

She died in 2006. A lifetime ago.

She was the first teacher that I was always happy to see and that made me think that I had any type of talent for anything at all.

If she was still alive, I woulda told her what a profound and positive influence she was on me – I write because she told me once that I was a good writer and I believed her.

That’s the power of a good teacher.

Goodnight, Ms. Meltzer.

You were an amazing teacher and human, and I’m forever grateful we met.

On a much more mundane note, because of alla my injuries, my sleep’s been crap lately, so the Firecracker suggested that I get some nature – well, as much nature as NYC provides.

To that end, we had a little picnic in Central Park near Sheep’s Meadow, which was pretty great, I gotta say.

Her: Honestly, this is all I really need. My person, a picnic, a park, and my pup.
Me: I could do without onea those things.
Her: Oh, stop…

Location: supermarket for tea, which I forgot to buy despite it being WHY I WENT IN THE FIRST PLACE
Mood: annoyed at myself
Music: I got an open mind so, tell me where you wanna go (Spotify)
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Injured yet again

But not by exploding drinks

The first thing that I do every morning is down two cups of cold green tea to (a) fight cancer and (b) hydrate so I don’t have another gout attack.

Interestingly, since I’ve done this at the suggestion of my buddy Thor, I’ve not gotten a second gout attack since the first one back in March of 2021, which I’m hoping was just a one-off fluke.

In any case, while I was groggy since I just woke up, I heard a super loud POP, almost like gunshot and I swore it came from my fridge, but I didn’t see anything.

But then I looked closely a few days later and saw this in the back of my fridge.

Evidently, my fridge is too cold, and a can of soda exploded when the soda inside froze.

I’m just glad it happened while the kid was away since he’s a lot smaller than me so any potential injury woulda been lined up with his face.

Her: Do not get injured again! I wanna go out this weekend.
Me: I promise nuthin.

Speaking of injuries, the past few weeks has been a series of annoying ones.

Whenever I get injured, it’s usually a white belt that has no idea what he’s doing, and I get injured.

My last injury was when a 200-pound 30-year-old former wrassler fell on me and torqued my shoulder.

Well, that was until last week, when a purple belt (essentially a level-three grappler) caught my ankle and did a belly-down ankle lock, which is one of the more dangerous ankle locks.

Then he twisted it like a nutcase within two seconds of grabbing it.

Me: Jesus! (after 10 seconds of just lying on my back trying to eat the pain) Duuuude…
Him: Sorry about that.
Me: You’re a purple belt?
Him: Uh, yeah.
Me: Dude…that was not cool.

So, I hobbled off the mat and ended up taking five days off.

But I’d promised the Firecracker we’d do something fun for the past weekend and I felt bad I kept cancelling on her.

So, I rested at home all week, icing and compressing my ankle until I felt I was good enough to head out with her over the weekend.

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

Location: a rum bar trying to do something good but having it backfire on me immensely
Mood: irritated
Music: filled with damage, I thought that I could beat my chances (Spotify)
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Husbands are six-times more likely to leave

Shannon deserved better

Me: Her dying has fucked me up.
Her: I can tell. (later) This is a perfect example of you not understanding people. This doesn’t surprise me.

Didn’t know Jenny Wilder, Maggie Malene, Kris Witherspoon, Brenda Walsh, Rene Mosier, or Prue Halliwell.

But I did see Heather Duke in Heathers on a date in high school. Don’t remember the date much but I liked Heathers enough to watch it again on video.

That pretty much encapsulates all I know about Shannon Doherty.

Well, that and the fact that she died of cancer.

(c) Creative Commons

Was still surprised when she died, though.

Somehow, I thought, with her wealth and connections, she’d pull through. She was just two years older than me.

But I read this news article that took my breath away, which was titled, Shannen Doherty’s divorce from Kurt Iswarienko was finalized one day before her death.

That led me down an awful rabbit hole, where I ended up reading this article: Men Leave: Separation And Divorce Far More Common When The Wife Is The Patient

That pretty much says it all; evidently, if a wife gets cancer a husband is six times more likely to leave than the other way around.

Put another way, if a husband gets sick, the wife is six times more likely to stay and help while the husband is six times more likely to peace out if the wife gets sick.

What. The. Fuck.

That made me so mad that I couldn’t sleep. The inequity of it all.

Because I remember – so clearly – how much physical and emotional pain Alison was in with her cancer and her treatments.

I remember her daily struggles and I remember all these medical people acting as if I was some angel because I stayed with her.

Always thought it was fucked up how many times it was mentioned – to the point that I got irritated and would simply change the subject.

Learned later that when women get brain cancer, their husbands usually leave:

One study from 2009 found the strongest predictor for separation or divorce for patients with brain cancer was whether or not the sick person was a woman. That same study showed that men were seven times more likely to leave their partner than the other way around if one of them got brain cancer.

I stayed for one reason alone, which was that she was my wife. We were a team. Sickness and in health and all that shit. That was the deal. And I knew, in my heart-of-hearts, that she would have done the exact same for me.

She would never have left me.

And it never once occurred to me to leave her. How could I? She needed me. Plus, she was my wife, and I loved her.

Full stop.

I’ve seen this firsthand.

Have a scumbag relative that cheated on his wife and divorced her while she had cancer.

I have zero to do with him and plan on having zero to do with him ever again.

And Newt Gingrich divorced his first wife Jackie when she had uterine cancer and his third wife Callista after she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

All this to say nuthin of Trump and his multiple marriages, rapes, and affairs.

Party of family values, folks.

What a fucking joke.

Think the reason this whole thing bothered me so much is that I knew how much Alison suffered with her cancer and the thought that someone out there in Alison’s situation has to deal with her same horror AND also have to deal with the pain of being tossed like a piece of garbage by the person she pledged her life to makes my blood boil.

Yet another reason why I think the less I have to do with people, the better.

I didn’t know Shannon at all but, man, no one deserves having to deal with the hassle and heartbreak of a divorce while facing death.

Oh, and regarding her ex-husband, fuck that guy.

Location: Zepplin Hall with a relative and the Firecracker
Mood: angry and sooooooo drunk
Music: Some’ll win, some will lose. Some are born to sing the blues (Spotify)
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Goodnight, Olivia

Running outta time

Years ago, I met this sweet, funny, very pretty girl who was just a bit too young for me.

But we got along really well and kept in touch here and there.

She was the girl I mentioned to you here.

The last time we spoke, we said we’d have a playdate with our kids but then life got into the way.

Life always seems to get in the way.

Found out via social media that she just died.

So, like with my friends Bobby and Kirk, Alison, and my dad, I thought Olivia and I would have enough time in life to see each other again.

I’m always so wrong.

We weren’t super close, so I don’t have any details beyond what was listed in her obituary.

So, I’ll be mostly back to normal soon, but her family doesn’t have that luxury.

I have some ideas what happened based on our last conversation, but I suppose that’s between her and me.

It hit me hard, though. Sat down after I read it. It took my breath away.

She was so young; she was a teen when we met and only 36 when she died. Like Alison.

And like Alison, she left a little kid behind, except this kid not only loved her mom, she knew – really knew – her mom.

Dunno which kid is in a worse position, actually.

But I suppose that’s irrelevant at this point.

Goodnight, Olivia.

Everything is so unfair, and I’m so sorry for that.

I wish you could have stayed.

I was 34 in this picture. She was only 36 when she died.

Location: my head, remembering my possible pasts
Mood: gutted
Music: Let’s hit the road, friend of mine, wave goodbye to our thankless jobs (Spotify)
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The right to be nobody

Just because I can

Him: But it fits!
Me: Kinda. You’re definitely Brittney Spearsing it here.

Clothes that I just bought for the kid last year are already not fitting him.

I remember that, as a kid, I loved this yellow shirt with a red V on it. Wore it until my bellybutton was constantly out, all Britney Spears like.

Think my parents were just happy that I didn’t ask for new clothes, but I always think that Alison woulda wanted him to be put together so I try my best.

My best being a sliding scale.

(c) Getty Images

Him: Why don’t you ever show my face?
Me: Because I don’t have that right. At least, I shouldn’t have that right.

Been enjoying my new gym – it’s interesting rolling with people from a completely new gym because no one knows my game and I know no one else’s game, so each roll feels very different than at my old gym.

Recently rolled with a very talented but smaller female. While I could have easily beat her, that wasn’t why I was there; I was there to get better.

Just because I can, doesn’t mean I should.

In a way, that’s why I don’t put up pictures of my kid where you can clearly see his face.

See, I grew up in a time where you could grow up in relative anonymity.

Never realized what a gift that was until YouTube because – MAN – did I do some jaw-droppingly bone-headed things when I was younger.

Legit, thank god everyone didn’t walk around with a video camera because I would most likely be hated by the world writ large.

In that sense, I feel that it’s not fair or right that I – as someone much bigger and much older than my kid – have the right to take away my son’s chance to be anonymous.

Just because I can, doesn’t mean I should.

He’s a little kid right now but little kids grow up to be adults.

When he is one, he might resent not being able to tell his own story his own way.

If you think about it, the thing that probably pisses you off the most is when someone else tells your story.

Janet? She’s such a slut. Did you hear last Friday, she…

Tom? He’s a loser. When we were kids…

That guy? Lemme tell you about him…

But I have to balance that with the fact that I’m proud of him – so proud of him – and what he can do so I wanna show him off.

And that’s really what it is with parents, isn’t it?

They want to show their kids off, not for their kids sake, but for their own. And that’s not right, I don’t think.

Just because they can, doesn’t mean they should.

So, my concession is that I blur or hide his face and name so that when/if he does want to have a public face/name, that’s his choice to make when he’s old enough to make that choice.

For now, I realize that, just because I could put up anything I want about him, I shouldn’t.

Me: One day, you’ll be old enough to decide who you are and how you want the world to see you. You and your friends are gonna be some of the first kids on the planet that’s lost that right to be a nobody.
Him: (thinking) What if I wanna be someone?
Me: That’s your choice to make. I’ve lived my life. I don’t have the right to live your life as well. You get to decide who and what you want to be. (pause) For what it’s worth, you’re always someone to me. You’re my most important someone.

Location: a pier with four lovely ladies – including the Firecracker – the boy, and a bottle of white
Mood: so. full.
Music: I just wanna be someone. Well, doesn’t everyone? (Spotify)
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2600Hz and a Filet Mignon

Significant but unknown

The NFL Player and my buddy Thor took the Firecracker and myself out to Porterhouse for my birthday again.

Him: I assume you’ll have an Old Fashioned with Rye.
Me: I like what I like.

This time, everyone came with their significant others, which was nice.

We all chatted about the earthquake and the eclipse…

…amongst other things.

Him: Logan always has some random fact.
Me: This is true. Did you know that, when I was a kid, Cap’n Crunch gave away a plastic whistle that oscillated at exactly 2,600Hz, which was the exact frequency of NYC payphones so that if you blew one before a call, you could make free calls anywhere in the world? [ED: I misspoke, it was the frequency for all AT&T phones, not just NYC, because they ran a monopoly on pay phones across the country].
Her: How do you remember all this stuff?
Me: (shrugging) I don’t get out much.

As that article I linked above notes, Apple – and the iPhone you’re most likely reading this upon – would not have existed but for the existence of that whistle.

I love these kinda significant but often unknown stories.

In any case, the dinner, and the conversation, was great, as usual.

The NFL Player and his wife went to Africa and showed us pics. It was all pretty cool.

The people sitting in the table next to us were also having a birthday celebration, so there were lots of rounds of, “Happy Birthday.”

Like I said before, there are worse ways to turn 51.

Let’s see how this decade goes.

Location: Crenshaw, Los Angeles
Mood: hungry and annoyed
Music: She wore a raspberry beret, the kind you find in a secondhand store (Spotify)
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I finally understand

Just one day

I was in my local supermarket when I ran into one of the cashiers, Lucy, in the produce section.

Her: (walking up to me holding a cup of coffee and put it down) I understand now. About your wife. My…my husband died.
Me: What?! Good god, I’m so sorry.
Her: (nodding) He was sick for a while. I thought he would be ok but…he didn’t let me know how bad it was.
Me: (putting down groceries and giving her a hug) I’m so sorry. We’re never ready, are we?
Her: (shaking head) No. I didn’t think he would go.

I went home, got a red envelope, stuffed a few bucks into it and went back to give it to her.

Her: No, no, I’m fine, really.
Me: (gently) I’m sure you’re fine. This is just for lunch. Make sure you eat, ok?
Her: (taking it) OK. Thank you.
Me: I wanna tell you that it’ll be ok. It won’t be. But you have to keep telling yourself that it will be. After a while, it’ll be kinda ok.

The rest is her story to tell but I was in my own head for a while after that.

Then, I was walking with the kid and he turned to me said the most profound thing:

Flowers may bloom again, but a person never has the chance to be young again.

Assume he learned it in Chinese class (花有重开日，人无再少年) because he certainly never learned it from me.

But then…

Him: Flowers come back. Why can’t mommy come back?
Me: I dunno. I dunno.
Him: I wish she would come back. Just once. Just for a day, even. (trailing off). She can’t come back, not even for one day? Just one day?
Me: Man, if only, kid. If only…

That was a hard walk.

We have hard walks, sometimes.

My kid’s a lot more mature than other kids his age. Sometimes, I think of him like he’s a little man.

Dunno if this is a good thing or not. I’m thinking not.

Wish he was just a kid without alla this weight on him.

It’s too much weight for a little kid like him to carry.

Don’t want a little man. Not yet.

Just want him to be a little kid for a little bit longer.

Location: On West End Avenue, finding myself at a loss for words
Mood: contemplative
Music: been gone far too long (Spotify)
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All lives end; all hearts are broken

Caring is not an advantage

Met up with my friend the other night.

Her: He’s telling me to not fight and he’ll promise to give me the apartment.
Me: He broke the trust covenant where he stood in front of alla your friends and said he’d love you until one of you were dead. You’re both alive, which makes him a liar.
Her: So, what do I do?
Me: When someone breaks the trust covenant, you can never trust anything he or she says. What should you do? Stop trusting him first. Everything else comes second.

That’s pretty much alla her story that I feel comfortable telling you since it’s her story to tell.

So, I’ll end that part here.

When all is said and done, the price of love is heartache.

After all, what is grief if not love with no place to go?

While grief and loss with horror and death is generally worse, loss is still loss and grief is still grief.

Ergo, I do understand that she struggles, even though her loss is very different from mine.

In Sherlock, Mycroft Holmes says something to his younger brother Sherlock who, compared to Mycroft, is the more emotional of the two.

Mycroft said, All lives end; all hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage.

Often think that Mycroft’s not wrong. There’s no advantage in caring about people, in fact, it’s a disadvantage to care.

And yet, we’re all programmed to do so.

Sometimes I think it’s a glitch in our programming and other times, I don’t.

Just wish that, sometimes, I didn’t feel all the things I do as deeply as I do.

But this is the price to be human so I pay it, hoping that I can afford it for as long as I can.

Her: (wiping her eyes) I’m sorry. I don’t mean to cry.
Me: Don’t apologize for your genuine emotion. I’m always just a bad memory from crying myself.

Location: a playground with the Steeles and the Firecracker, eating 20 cheeseburgers and having a diet coke
Mood: pensive
Music: Is this something I should be letting go? (Spotify)
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