In the Thick of It

save the internet from our government

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Woolsrake) — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 10:56:00 +0000

Congress is currently pushing a law that would end the free and open Internet as we know it. Internet providers like AT&T and Verizon are lobbying Congress hard against Network Neutrality, the Internet's First Amendment and the key to Internet freedom. Network Neutrality prevents AT&T and Verizon from choosing which websites open most easily for you based on which site pays AT&T or Verizon more. Network Neutrality would insure that Amazon doesn't have to outbid Barnes & Noble for the right to work more properly on your computer.

Grammy-nominated musician Moby made a goofy, yet poignant new video about the very real attack on Internet freedom that is happening this week in Congress. Watch the video.

Learn more and sign a petition telling congress that your Internet is not for sale to the highest bidder.

april snow

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Woolsrake) — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 16:05:00 +0000

It's April 5th and it's snowing in New York City. Big, thick, pillow-fight flakes against a piss-yellow sky that would have sent me scurrying into the storm cellar if I were back in Kansas City.

This morning has been an ass-backward morning on several fronts. While shaving, I cut the mole next to my nostril, which did not stop bleeding for about 20 minutes. On the way to the subway I stopped in Starbucks and the girl did not put the lid on my coffee cup correctly. I didn't realize this until I was halfway down the side walk, coffee stains dotting my pant leg from the knee down. Then, as I hurried down the subway station steps, I discovered a train with its doors open waiting at the platform, and I dashed through the turnstile and onto the train as its doors closed, only to find I was on the wrong train.

Nothing is quite working right, stopping me in the middle of normal daily functions and forcing me to pay attention to things that I otherwise wouldn't even think about.

When the snow started to fall, instinctively I reached for the phone to call my Dad to tell him about it. But I caught myself before I picked up the receiver, suddenly aware of one more thing I would usually take for granted.

fly swatter

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Woolsrake) — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 19:13:00 +0000

I want a fly swatter today. My boss is buzzing around my desk with stupid questions about printing PDF files, emailing TIFFs and a whole bunch of other shit that has nothing to do with my job or the state of my soul. More than once I've wanted to pick up a book or a newspaper and bean her.

Projects come across my desk. Lists of courses. Deadlines. Text changes that are important to the administration.

I accept them with a smile and a "no problem." But inside I'm weary. My heart takes short halting breaths and I think to myself, "I don't care. I can't care at all."

This is all to be expected. I'm very willing to cut myself a break. Just wondering why my buzzing boss doesn't get it.

P.S. Thanks to everyone, both in Blogger and LiveJournal, for your kind words to yesterday's post. They all mean more than you might realize.

in memoriam - my dad

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Woolsrake) — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 19:42:00 +0000

In loving memory of my Dad
April 25, 1916 to March 24, 2006

Thanks to many who wrote with concern after my previous post at the time of my father's congestive heart failure a few weeks ago.

My sweat old Dad died in his sleep in the wee hours of Friday, March 24th (typical of my father who wouldn't want anyone to fuss over him or have to hurry across town to his bedside).

I gave the eulogy at his wake, which was an incredible honor that I am grateful to have been entrusted with and yet I am heart broken to have made it all. There are stories that I will post about the wake and the prunish priest that I came head to head with at the church and my Dad's sense of humor and the touching ride to the cemetery... but these will have to wait.

I'm back in the surreal world of work and responsibilities and useless tasks and people biting their nails over web lists and meeting dates and traffic and contractors and my heart is back in Kansas City looking for where it might find the one it lost.

I will stumble back into posting here in my blog as the days roll forward.

dad's heart

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Woolsrake) — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 16:04:00 +0000

Many of you are aware that I've been dealing with my dad's health issues for sometime now. He's a month away from turning 90-years-old, he has Alzheimer's, his knees have given out, his eyesight and hearing are failing, he has type 2 diabetes and he was recently diagnosed with skin cancer.

Last night he was rushed to the emergency room with congestive heart failure, a condition that would have killed him years ago, but now they treat it with medications that flush the congestion out. So he's been filling catheter bags all night.

My sisters tell me that, despite all that, my dad is in his usual humorous spirits, doing his George-Burns-style shtick with the nurses. I swear, the man could be in excruciating pain and half conscious and he would still be joking, which at this point I will take. As I've said before, as long as he's joking I still have an important part of him with me.

Anyway, as you can imagine I'm distracted as hell by this today, trying to complete some pressing projects at work and searching for any kind of cheap flight back home to Kansas City this weekend, which are all in the $900 range. So if there aren't any posts from me for the next few days, you'll understand why. When things calm down I'll report more.

But in the meantime, here are a few older posts about my dad:

the wisker on my earlobe (August 22, 2005)
warranty (Oct. 25, 2005)
working-class heirlooms (Nov. 3, 2005)

street hazards - fresh direct

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Woolsrake) — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 15:14:00 +0000

In the race for most dangerous vehicles on the streets of New York, moving into third place behind taxis and take-out delivery bicyclists is Fresh Direct trucks. This morning I was almost clipped by one that was trying to beat the light to make a turn. The company must pressure its drivers to make as many deliveries as swiftly as possible per hour, because I see these trucks flying, careening and darting around narrow residential streets in the City as if they were on the open road. I am surprised we don't hear of fatal accidents on the news on a regular basis.

where's six feet under when you need it? - texting in traffic

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Woolsrake) — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 15:16:00 +0000

Six Feet Under ended too soon, if only because there are so many more opening minutes out there in the world. (For those of you who have never seen the show, someone always died in the opening minutes of the show. The writers got more and more --and sometimes overly-- creative each week coming up with a quirky kind of death, an interesting set up or a goofy twist to keep the viewer guessing.)

Since last Friday's commute home I have witnessed three different instances of people text messaging in dangerous situations: a guy in Chelsea texting as he crossed a very busy 8th Avenue, a girl texting on the steps up out of the subway station during rush hour (dangerous if only because the angry mob behind her on the steps nearly dragged her up to street level and lynched her), and worst of all, on the New York Thruway, yes, a driver texting as she was driving!

Wouldn't you be pissed off if you were assigned to be guardian angel to one of these idiots? I see would-be dead people all the time in the City, wondering how they've lived into adulthood. In fact, there is plenty of material all around me for this to become a recurring post.

fuzzy memories - mugsy

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Woolsrake) — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 06:42:00 +0000

I've mentioned before that my early years of high school and in Jesuit seminary were very closeted and I spent quite a bit of time watching and pining for handsome hairy chested men who were unavailable to me.

Rick "Mugsy" MacDermott was one of these men. A thick, furry, working class Baltimore Irishman living in a religious community with a dozen uptight, neat Missouri valley seminarians, Mugsy took pride in being the fly in the ointment, the turd in the punch bowl. He'd walk down the hall shirtless, bare feet landing hard on the tile floor with a "thwap," balls swinging in his boxers, scratching his ass, farting, and laughing raucously at his own jokes. His torso was long, his waist low, situated firmly on top of thick tree-trunk legs. His chest was naturally muscular and covered with a dark coat of fur leading down to a thick, curly "happy trail." Even when he shaved his big jaw in the morning, he had a gruff by mid-afternoon. Without exaggeration, his bedroom looked like the aftermath of a tornado.

The thing was Mugsy truly was a loveable oaf. His heart was stationed squarely in the right place. He chose work assignments that put him in the heart of people in need, volunteered extra long hours, played guitar at parties (at a time when playing guitar at parties was really cool), and showed up for other peoples projects even if they didn't mean that much to him. His laugh and his warmth were infectious.

So I had a mini crush on him. I had bigger crushes on other guys, but Mugsy's look and personality really drew me in. I had always hoped for a peek at Mugsy in the shower, but it never happened. I do remember, however, many a night sitting on the toilet before bedtime, hearing his bare feet "thwap-thwap" down the hall into the restroom, past my stall and over to the urinals and then the blast of his piss stream. It sounded like it had tremendous power behind it; more than anyone else's I've heard--like a fire hose. I'm surprised it didn't chip the porcelain. And my imagination went wild. I had no other knowledge than that, from which to imagine what was swinging in those boxers whenever he padded down the hall, but that was enough.

Once, during a community meeting Mugsy sat across the coffee table from me with his massive hairy legs up on the table. I was distracted through the whole meeting by the sight, overwhelmed by the feelings I was hiding from everyone (or thought I was hiding from everyone).

But as the meeting ended, I pulled up some courage and made him an offer.

"Mugsy," I said, "you've gotta let me do a drawing your legs."

I was known for my drawing and painting skills, so this was not such an odd request, just one I had not made of Mugsy before. To my surprise he was flattered and happy to oblige.

I got a couple of really nice drawings out of it.

And as for Mugs, from what I hear he's still a Jesuit, teaching high school, while most of the rest of us that were in studies with him have gone off our separate ways. And I still have the drawings of his legs, somewhere in storage.

i can do that for you, finale

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Woolsrake) — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 15:18:00 +0000

Got a call from our lawyer yesterday.

After reading over our response and counter claim to our former contractor's summons, our former contractor's lawyer called ours and said, not that they wanted to settle, but that they wanted to drop the case completely, vacate the mechanic's lien, and leave with their tails between their legs.

I am shocked that it's over like that. And I'm relieved.

Our lawyer asked this morning if Bob and I celebrated last night. But we really didn't. We're the kind of guys who feel the bittersweet nature of a moment, even when we've won. I'm happy we're not giving another penny to someone who lied to us, cheated us, couldn't make things right when they were going terribly wrong and cost us thousands more to make up for her errors. On the other had, I don't wish her harm. I just want her to go away and stay away. I want to be assured that it's over with, and I want someone to tell her that she really shouldn't ever do this again.

And I won't feel completely relieved until everything is signed, filed and finished. I've seen too many movies where the villains pop back up when we think they're dead.

But am I grateful, yes. And am I feeling hopeful about all of this, yes! Coming home from work last night, as I walked up to the apartment door and put the key in the lock, I felt a lot more like the place was my own.

dame tatum o'neal

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Woolsrake) — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 15:36:00 +0000

I'm nearly as shocked as the next guy about a few of last night's Oscars. And until the chatter quiets about who deserved what and whether or not Crash was really the best picture of the year, I can't help but wonder about the value of winning an Academy Award anyway. After all isn't it only the buffs who can name the best picture by year or know that a certain actress won the year after she really deserved it for a previous film? Aren't there some great actors and directors who have never won?

Well, just watching movie previews over the past several years I think I can come up with an answer, at least the answer that Hollywood marketers would give. Once an actor or actress or director has won one of those little gold statuettes they have a new title permanently attached to their name: "Academy Award Winner." Whether they are being introduced in a movie trailer, a red-carpet entrance or a late-night talk show, after winning, the formal title "Academy Award Winner" precedes their name.

It is the closest thing American culture has to knighting our heroes and heroines. Instead of Sir Elton John, we now have Academy Award Winner Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Her majesty's subjects have Dame Judi Dench, we have Academy Award Winner Reese Witherspoon. Even in the unlikely event that he would never make another movie, from here on out, we will never again hear George Clooney's name without "Academy Award Winner" as its prefix. Even Tatum O'Neal and Kim Basinger are introduced with this title. I'm thinking it needs to be added to all paper or online forms, as in:

Select one:
Mr.
Mrs.
Ms.
Dr.
Rev.
Rabbi
Academy Award Winner
other: _______________

And despite the debate of the last few years about the Golden Globe and film festival awards stealing some of Oscars importance, you tell me how much mileage "Golden Globe Winner Paul Hogan" should get. Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep won't be selecting "other" and writing in Golden Globe Winner since they already have been knighted with the coveted "AAW" title. And as for those who have won the Golden Globe but not the Oscar, not even Jim Carrey would throw that one around, certain that the reader would sneer, "oh, yeah, right sure."

No, the movie trailers get longer and longer all the time, just to allow time enough for "Academy Award Winner" and even "Academy Award Nominee" to be recited in front of each of the actors names. Seemingly, the more knighted actors in the cast, the more serious a film it must be. And as a new freshman class of recipients was added last night, while the ball gowns were still hanging over the back of powder room chairs, the movie ads already began to toss the titles around, not only for the movies that these actors won for, but their next one and the next.

take two porn videos and call me in the morning

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Woolsrake) — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 17:42:00 +0000

(Warning: depending on your relationship to me this post may border on "TMI.")

My doctor gave me a scare on Wednesday, telling me he had cleared his schedule for two p.m. on Thursday for me to come in for ultrasound on my prostate. Needless to say I didn't sleep well Wednesday night. He doesn't communicate well and didn't explain why he was suddenly giving my prostate so much attention. In fact, this was a change from my usual experience with him. For the past three or four years my last-minute appointments have been relegated to the attention of his physician's assistants and I have had to wait weeks for him to see me for scheduled check ups. But suddenly on Wednesday he wanted to see me himself, A.S.A.P, and I had nightmares of chemotherapy, prostatectomy or orchiectomy (words that aren't naturally part of my vocabulary).

As it turned out, my prostate is just a little enlarged (the official term is benign prostatic hyperplasia or BPH) and the only reason he had cleared his schedule so quickly was because I had given him shit last week during my annual physical about how hard it was for me to get an appointment with him instead of with one of his staff members. I almost slugged him.

At any rate, the treatment options that he described are simple to choose from:

take PROSCAR and risk impotence, loss of sexual desire, decreased ejaculation and breast enlargement and/or tenderness, breast lumps and nipple discharge. Oh and quite possibly pregnant woman would not be allowed to shake hands with me.
change my diet, and follow a stringent nutritional regime.
masturbate more frequently.

Hmm. Let's see. What should I do? That's a hard one. And where do I get the prescription filled for that third option?

smudge wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Woolsrake) — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 02:01:00 +0000

I had completely forgotten that yesterday was Ash Wednesday until my commute home last evening. But then there they were, the brigade of smudged foreheads, marching through the streets of New York with big sooty thumb prints smeared above their brows. And once again I was amazed to see them, as I have been each year.

From my very first year in New York, when I was working as a priest at Francis Xavier parish in Chelsea, I have suspected that the Ash Wednesday ashes themselves mean far more to most New York Catholics than any thing else about the season of Lent. In fact, New Yorkers go about Ash Wednesday like no other Catholics in all of North America. What seems like every New York Catholic, practicing or peripheral, comes out to get ashes on Ash Wednesday without exception or excuse. It does not matter whether they stay for the whole service, or faithfully fast and abstain from meat (which is the only requirement for the day), or even plan to give-up something for the rest of Lent. They may not intend to so much as step foot inside a church again until Easter. None of this matters; the ashes alone are important. They will lose a whole hour of their pay check or hire a baby sitter just to be there, even for five minutes, so that they can get and wear those ashes proudly up and down the avenues, on the subway, at school, or at work.

Who knows why wearing the ashes is so important. They don't seem to ask that question of themselves; not even if they listen attentively to the scripture passage that is read just before they receive the ashes, in which, ironically enough, Jesus sternly warns them not to go around with ashes on their heads "the way the hypocrites do."

Having grown up in the Midwest where only the Catholics that wanted to would show up on Ash Wednesday voluntarily, and then wiped the ashes off their heads in the parking lot, I am perplexed by New Yorkers. I'm especially confused by why Catholics who are barely holding onto any other parts of their faith choose to go out of their way to get these ashes and walk around with them on their faces all day.

Maybe, as a once-a-year phenomenon, the ashes themselves have never worn out their welcome as did the repeated catechism lessons or early morning communions that so many parochial school children were forced to endure on a regular basis in the past. Maybe like Christmas and Good Friday the ashes have managed to retain some mystical symbolism from childhood, and so grown-up Catholics are drawn to them as much out of nostalgia as duty.

Or perhaps it is ignorance. Perhaps, a vast multitude of unenlightened believers shuffle in each year to submit themselves to this caste-marking totally by wrote or out of fear. Perhaps they even imagine it to be a grievously serious sin not to leave the ashes on all day, and in turn, spend each hour right up to bedtime agonizing over whether they should stay awake until midnight to wash their faces or wait until morning.

And then again, it might possibly be a social thing. Some might fear facing their parents or running into friends on the street without the stamp that verifies they have faithfully done their Christian duty for the day.

But most likely, it is simply a New York thing. Most likely of all, the ashes provide these New Yorkers a way to show that they are good Catholics in a city where people wear their ethnic and religious pride, not just on their sleeves, but directly into one another's faces. And, therefore, by wearing them in public, they feel as if they have linked themselves to a group identity and proclaimed its far-reaching presence to everyone else in one united gesture.

Whatever the reason, my most striking Ash Wednesday memory happened in my first year in New York. I was setting up for the noon service at Francis Xavier and already feeling frustrated with mayhem that had already occurred before the day was even half over. Suddenly I heard the insistent click-clack of heals tromping down the center aisle. A woman dressed for office work and clutching her shoulder bag to her side came rushing toward the altar with the determination of a mounted police officer, her tall mound of curly black hair bouncing to the rhythm of her stride. When she reached the altar, she asked if I could give her ashes right there and then because she could not stay for the service.

"Oh, I'm sorry," I spoke to her as gently as I had when explaining the situation to everyone else throughout the morning. "We have to stick to a schedule. We can only distribute ashes during the service or there will be a steady line from now 'til we lock the doors tonight. Services or no services."

As I was speaking to the woman, I noticed some of the people in the pews itching to line up behind her if I so much as reached for one of the four little glass bowls of ashes that sat on a table near the podium.

"But Fatha', I can't stay," the woman pleaded, her heavy New York accent as thick as her curly mane. "My lunch break's nearly ova'! I have 'a be back in ten minutes!"

"I'm sorry," I replied feeling trapped. "There's nothing I can do. If I give ashes to just one person now, we won't be able to start the noon service."

"But Fatha'," the woman bit her nail and stared over at the table of bowls, "what am I gonna' do?"

"Look," I sighed barely containing my exasperation, "if you want to, you can go on over to one of those little bowls and take some ashes for yourself."

She responded simply by staring at me in horror.

"I'm sorry, that's all I can offer you right now," I added as calmly as possible.

"But Fatha'," she whispered, "would it be the same thing?"

"I'm afraid so," I whispered in reply.

The poor woman took a step back, clearly unable to fathom my offer. In the end, she did exactly as I expected. She went to a seat in the church and waited for the service. The image of her own thumb in the ash bowl or her head without ashes was apparently far more terrifying than the wrath of her boss.

star gazing part 2 - score!

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Woolsrake) — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 16:01:00 +0000

Last night at the bodega near our home, Bob found himself near the end of a long check out line behind almost a dozen NYU students, each with their arms full of those "fresh-squeezed" orange juice bottles, fruits and veggies and other munchies. Behind us was a woman, somewhere in her late 50s, blond hair falling loosely, haphazardly around her face, no makeup, and wearing glasses. I was more concern about not making her feel like I was cutting in line when I caught up with Bob, than anything else about her. In fact I stepped over near the door and waited while Bob moved slowly closer to the counter.

I looked back at the woman behind Bob and thought she looked something like Jessica Lange, though age and lack of make up were playing their part to foil my attempts at quick glances. Then finally a very handsome middle-aged man with a ski-goggle tan stepped up behind her. It was indeed Sam Shepard, no camouflage, no question about it.

I looked away, counted to ten, then slowly made my way back over to Bob who was finally at the cashier's counter. I whispered, "You have to pay very close attention to what I am about to say. Standing behind you in line is one of your favorite woman in the whole world and her handsome husband: Jessica Lange and Sam Shepard." (Of course I should have said "common-law husband," but he got my point.)

He nodded as if I had told him to get extra quarters for the laundry, and waited to look back until he had stepped over to the door to put on his gloves.

So, I have now seen two of my all-time-favorite actresses within a few blocks of my home, Meryl Streep and now Jessica, and I haven't said a word. The impulse to speak to these people is overwhelming, but I don't want to disturb their lives. Years ago I saw another Jessica and her equally famous husband, Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn, on 6th Avenue in Midtown. I actually walked up to them and said, "Thank you for your work." They were polite and appreciative and I exited quickly. I've also described my exchange with Ed Harris in a previous blog post. But recently I have felt like I should hold back. Possibly a good impulse, but why did it have to happen with Jessica and Meryl?

Bob and I walked home like giddy school girls, debating whether or not I should have spoken up, practicing what we would have said, politely, inconspicuously: "Excuse me, I don't want to intrude, but I think you are one of the finest actresses of our generation and I want to thank you for your work." We repeated it as if we wanted it to come effortlessly next time we spotted a star, which will probably be the likes of Kathy Griffin or Clay Aikens, and the parts about the "finest actress of our generation" and "thank you for your work" will fall out kind of ridiculously.

Hopefully, I'll simply have some wit and grace about me, and judge wisely to keep my mouth shut if it's appropriate.

a punker chick on astor place

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Woolsrake) — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 15:32:00 +0000

Last evening as I came up out of the Astor Place subway station a young punker girl was begging off the exiting subway riders.

"Can I bother you for 10 cents?" she asked in a clear sweet voice.

It went through my mind to reply "save your change, you're already bothering me for free." But I don't particularly like the idea of teasing anyone who is begging, even if she is clearly less in need than others. So, I kept my mouth shut and walked toward the corner.

As I waited at the light, however, I began to feel guilty (as only a good Catholic boy can) for the smart ass comment that had never even left my head. I rumbled through about 75 cents worth of change in my pocket, stepped back over to her and emptied all of the change into her cup. Her sweet needy expression changed immediately. She growled at me like a mad dog, then purred, then laughed maniacally. I rolled my eyes and walked away.

It's been sixteen years since I first encountered the loser neo-punker kids that have hung out around St. Mark's Place in the East Village for over three decades. Even when I first arrived in the late 1980s they felt like an anachronism, dressed to the smallest detail in punker-gear that had not changed in the slightest from that of their predecessors from the 1970s. Never mind that the kids in the late '80s were babies when the punker movement started and that the kids on St. Mark's today were babies in the late '80s. The gear and attitude are identical. They are way too closely related to the Goths, Renaissance Faire participants, Trekkers, and Rocky Horror Picture Show crowd than they would ever admit. They're the branch of the Society for Creative Anachronisms that don't have day jobs.

Begging has always been a part of their modus vivendi. In my early East Village years there was a punker girl with an albino rat under her coat who begged on St. Marks, sometimes by herself, sometimes with a skinny pale mohawked boy or two. The girl would politely ask passers by for change, and if they refused, she would thrust her pet rat into their faces and growl, "then do you want to kiss my rat." Tourists would scream. Natives would wince and walk around her, dully annoyed. Either way she had the affect she had intended.

Today the East Village is far more developed. Most of the students living in the area have trust funds paying their $3000 to $4000 a month rent. Second-generation yuppies push giant strollers down narrow sidewalks that once were full of artists, druggies, and "fencers" (dealers in stolen goods). And fewer of the original ethnic markets and head shops are still holding their own against the franchises. But these young punker wannabees are nevertheless drawn back to the area, and despite that they are as annoying as a junior high student who has only recently discovered black nail polish and angst, I kind of like that they are there. I'm just going to have to get my game face back on.

satan's handiwork

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Woolsrake) — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 19:00:00 +0000

The hand of Satan is alive and well in Senator Rick Santorum's commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and Bob and I personally witnessed the expanse of his power over the Presidents' Day weekend. Apparently, while Santorum was off divining homosexuality and natural disasters, Satan was undermining human goodness by far less predictable means. Driving through the suburbs, country roads and antique malls of Eastern Pennsylvania we saw with our own eyes the following insidious tools used by the Prince of Darkness to destroy our American culture and way of life:

Suburban Housing Communities: a multitude of identical houses, with identical off-white siding, punctuate what once were pastoral hillsides, in tight, treeless rows like giant tomb stones. Apparently, Satan does not want individuality or creativity, and is stipulating the sameness through developers and community boards. Most Demonic Feature: giant two-car garage doors looming forward from the front exterior of each home nearly obliterating any other recognizable front entrance feature of the house.
The Cell Phone and the Automobile: Satan has sent the cell phone to make traffic even more deadly. Every bad driver we encountered, from the slow poke in the passing lane to the idiot pulling into traffic without a glance in the mirror, was on his or her cell phone. Most Demonic Feature: hands-free headsets. This is Satan coming as an "angle of light," convincing drivers that not using their hands to talk on the phone frees up their brains as well.
Strip-Mall Cuisine: it is damn near impossible to find an old-time dinner these days, much less a restaurant that doesn't think of wings as a salad and fries as a side vegetable. Most Demonic Features: the endless repetition of Olive Garden, Ruby Tuesdays, Red Lobster, TGI Fridays, Dunkin Donuts and any Chinese restaurant with "Buffet" in its name.
Post-eBay Antique Malls: there is nothing there there. Senior citizens have found a way to avoid the high cost of self-storage units by simply dumping everything they don't want in antique malls. The malls are now full of nothing more than discolored afghans, dinged up wagon-wheel coffee tables, church or bank calendars from the early 1990s and hand-painted garden art (e.g. the wooden jigsaw cutouts of the woman bending over or pipe-smoking yokels leaning on the porch rail). Most Demonic Feature: those scary dressed up porcelain dolls that these old folks bought in five easy payments from a Reader's Digest advertisement.
Wal-Mart: Entire hillsides have been deforested, not just for the Wal-Mart itself, but its parking lot the size of a small town and the symbiotic clingers, like dollar stores, car washes and fast-food restaurants that ring the lot. Most Demonic Feature: the small road that connects the Wal-Mart lot to a similar giant parking lot for Home Depot, ringed by a small video store, gas station and a one-hour photo hut.

men i would like to photograph - just about to luge my mind

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Woolsrake) — Wed, 15 Feb 2006 22:03:00 +0000

From previous posts, you all know that my favorite sports (for jock-watching) are rugby, Aussie Rules football, wrestling, and weightlifting.

But to my surprise, the Torino Winter Olympics (which usually don't hold my interest because of the predominance of skinny plucked blonds in heavy clothing) have introduced me to a brand new sport: the luge! The men are big, dark and scruffy and wearing skin-tight gear, hurdling crotch-first down a track toward the camera!

Italy's Armin Zoeggeler (top left), Germany's Georg Hackl (middle), and U.S.A.'s Mark Grimmett (bottom with doubles partner Brian Martin) are stunning. (Check out Grimmet with the dark gruff in the photos from the World Cup races).

So in today's post to this recurring entry in my blog titled "Men I Would Like to Photograph" (with the first entries being Italian soccer hunk Angelo Peruzzi, Serbian strongman competitor Ervin Katona, and Portuguese soccer player, Luis Figo) I'm adding the whole damn sport of men's Olympic luge competition.

This recurring listing goes like this: anytime I see a guy that I would like to photograph, I will post his picture here, with a request to anyone who knows him (or someone who looks like him) to pass along my open invitation to sit nude in front of my camera.

So once again, I'm serious about this invitation. If you know Armin, Georg or Mark (or a close facsimile of any one of them) have him contact me through my photography web site. (Caution: photography site may not be work-friendly.)

snow

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Woolsrake) — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 18:30:00 +0000

Over the past 16 years, at the first real snow fall of each season (and any other significant accumulations afterward) Bob and I have gone to Central Park and played. If it has started in the middle of a weekday, we've called one another and meet up after work. If we have woken up to snow on a day off, we've headed out early, camera in hand, bundled like Michelin Men. One year when I had the flu, we still ventured as far as the South-East corner in front of the old Plaza Hotel and caught a 20-minute horse carriage ride around a portion of the park.

Yesterday morning I woke to the wind and the lightening around 6:45 a.m. and could hardly keep myself from waking up Bob immediately. I managed to let him sleep, but even still, by 9 a.m. we were both out in the gusty whirl of heavy flakes, traipsing through the Village streets in powdery snow drifts with the few other daring souls who braved the heaviest showers of the day with shovels, or pets, or cameras of their own. By noon we were in Central Park ahead of the crowds that would pour in a few hours later.

Highlights (see photos): the still green ice that had formed on the surface of the lake in Central Park; the small dogs that couldn't make it out of the trenches trampled down by foot or tires; the multitude of birds that congregated along the paths in the Ramble; the driven Upper-East-Side parents shouting "Good Job!" as they watched their children sledding (as if by simply allowing gravity to have its way, their children somehow made one more step toward good self-esteem and their Harvard acceptance letter).

After a few hours, we had hot chocolate by the fireplace in the Boat House in Central Park. At one table sat character actor Gregory Jbara with his child. At another table, a homeless woman with her bags of belongings stared intensely out over the lake, compulsively clacking her tongue or her teeth rhythmically, incessantly. We watched several groups of snow-coated trekkers begin to sit down at the table next to her, stare curiously and then move away. Of the one family that chose to stay for a while, the two grade-school-age children couldn't take their eyes off of her. They were transfixed, like startled animals, each time the woman would start clacking again. Since our table was behind theirs, Bob and I were tempted to start clacking our tongues as well, just to mess with the kids' minds.

We came home as the snow was dying down in the afternoon and just lounged about in our bed, watching the last of the flakes falling outside the window. Around 4 p.m. we walked along Washington Square North once again, this time amidst large swarms of college students and neighbors coming out to play. We stopped in to see if we could get a "walk-in" table around the bar at Babbo and not a moment too soon, as the restaurant filled up quickly after us. We had our Valentine's Day dinner two days early, enjoyed the pasta tasting menu and some wonderful Italian wine, splurging against our diets and our budget, and then carefully toddled our way back home along the few short icy blocks above the Square, over stuffed and a little tipsy.

All in all, it was pretty much the most easy-going day we've had in over a year. No projects, no worries, no papers to gather for a mortgage company or a contractor or a lawyer. We just played, and relaxed, and hung out with each other and the City.

And my psyche knew it better than I did. All last night I had dreams of gratitude.

star gazing

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Woolsrake) — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 15:02:00 +0000

Since moving back to the Village two months ago, Bob and I have spotted a few celebrities out and about in our neighborhood. The following list isn't even good shameless name dropping, since we simply saw these people on the street or in restaurants, just as anyone else could have. It's not like we were invited to the same party or went on the same private school admissions tour with them. Other than helping Victoria Jackson find a cab and shaking hands with Cory Kahaney, we didn't speak to any of the rest of them. So I won't be slinging the words "my friend" in front of any of the following, but here they are:

Meryl Streep on the corner of 13th Street & Broadway.

Parker Posey in Veselka's on 2nd Avenue at 9th Street.

Scott Speedman (from Felicity) stepping out of a movie trailer on 8th Street near 5th Avenue.

Victoria Jackson (from Saturday Night Live) at the Union Square Theater on 17th Street off Park Avenue South.

Cory Kahaney (from Last Comic Standing) previewing her new comedy review at the Union Square Theater on 17th Street off Park Avenue South.

Mario Batali (Restaurateur with three restaurants and an apartment within a five minute walk of our apartment) he's ubiquitous.

David Karger (from the Today Show and Entertainment Weekly) in Mexicana Mama's on Hudson near 10th Street.

I'm no stalker and I hate to bother celebrities when they're just trying to go about their daily lives. You won't see any paparazzi photos from me. However, I was very tempted to speak to Meryl Streep. She is a true acting luminary and I adore her. But she was huddled with what looked to be her daughter, conversing intimately as they stared from across Broadway at the Union Square Stadium theater marquee.

Still I will confess that Bob and I have connected with celebrities in the past. There was the time that Billy Baldwin caught Bob checking out his crotch, which reportedly was packed pretty damn nicely in his jeans as he walked with his girl friend toward Bob on the sidewalk outside the Arts Club building on Gramercy Park South. Billy just smiled and winked at Bob, who didn't know whether to be totally embarrassed or flattered.

Or there was the time I saw Ed Harris coming out of a shop and before I could stop myself I called out "Ed Harris?" It wasn't a yelp from an adoring fan. It had more the tone of an old friend saying "Ed? Eddy Harris? Is that you?" I didn't say it that way on purpose. It just came out that way.

He turned and smiled quizzically at me with those adorable blue eyes, as if to ask, "Do we know each other?" But he simply replied, "Yes?" This forced me to come up with something nice but unobtrusive on the spot. I ended up thanking him for his work and leaving him to his own life quickly, though I only narrowly escaped my impulse to blurt out how much I loved his muscular hairy chest.

Anyway, these all simply serve as reminders that we're back in the Village. Granted, when we went home each evening to our old apartment in Brooklyn we usually stayed in and watched TV. Maybe if we'd gone out more, we might have seen some of Brooklyn's celebrities, like, um, say, pugnacious Borough President Marty Markovitz or gay porn star Donnie Russo (link not work-friendly) who we did see now and again. Supposedly there are a few stars and several writers who live in Park Slope, and Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams lived not far from our old place in Boerum Hill, but we never saw them.

You just plain see celebrities more often in the Village, without having to go looking for them. So, I'll keep you posted on who's on the street.

winter blues

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Woolsrake) — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 14:24:00 +0000

Even though this has been a milder winter than usual, the sun is still going down before I get home at night, and it amazes me how much its absence affects my mood.

The sun lurks past coldly,
an estranged friend
sneaking by
on the
opposite sidewalk
avoiding eye contact
behind a turned-up collar of
silhouetted buildings.
He hangs in other hemispheres these days.
I must be
last season's affair,
if he thinks of me at all.

The day opens
her doors only briefly,
pulling in her awning
as schools let out,
flipping her sign to "closed"
as the shadows grow long on the sidewalk,
slipping onto the bus before rush hour.
I pass her grated storefront
on my way to and from work,
wondering if she's gone out of business.

The papers pile on my desk,
layers moldering together,
settling
into impenetrable strata,
insurmountable mounds.
I should have raked
them into manageable heaps
and burned them back when they first fell there.
I cannot begin to make sense of them.
They are past their deadlines
waiting as mulch for the crocuses.

plucked priven

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Woolsrake) — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 15:37:00 +0000

Cute hairy-chested funny man Jeremy Piven is on the cover of the current issue of Cargo magazine with his collar unbuttoned and I'm disappointed.

The guy who stopped me dead in my tracks each time he took off his shirt on Ellen's old sitcom and in several movies where he's played the goofy, but sexy side kick, has clipped his chest hair to that annoyingly even 1/8-of-an-inch-all-over length that too many guys have been doing in recent years. The gruff that he has let grow on his chin for the magazine cover even looks thicker than the stubble on this chest.

As I've said before, either let it grow naturally or shave it all off, but the plucked-goose stubble thing has got to go. It's not body hair and it's not smooth. It looks like a mistake or a half-way growth. It looks itchy as hell. It has no significance of its own.

No doubt having turned 40 last year, Piven, or his managers and publicists, has decided that body hair, which was sexy in his 20s, takes on new, negative associates now that he has reached middle age. He looks a little like he's starving himself in the picture and has apparently donned a toupee or plugs as well. I had to do double and triple takes to confirm that it was even him on the cover.

Jeremy, baby, I've got one suggestion for you. Everyone knows when you're faking it. Let yourself be what you are. You're a sexy man because of your energy and humor, as much as your looks. Keep it real! Which in your case is real hairy, real cuddly, and really funny. Uncuddly, unhairy, and unfunny are a dime a dozen in Hollywood right now.

oregon seven, fiave, fiave, fiave, fiave

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Woolsrake) — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 19:23:00 +0000

As Bob and I have notified friends and acquaintances of our new address and phone number, we can tell the dyed-in-the-wool New Yorkers by the way they congratulate us--not for finally owning something of our own, or for the great Village location, or for surviving a year of bad contractors. No, the true old-time New Yorkers have congratulated us for getting a 212 area code.

Area code is an issue for Manhattanites. I remember, years ago before cell-phones introduces the 917 and 646 area codes to the City, when I was teaching at an often-pretentious Upper East Side private school, there was brief talk of addressing the expanding demand for phone numbers by changing the Upper East Side area code from 212 to 718. The parents at the school (and probably every Upper East Side private school) were in an uproar. I actually heard one of them cry out (as if she were being denied food or water), "I pay good money to have my 212 area code!" and several others murmured in distraught agreement.

The issue, for those of you outside metropolitan NYC, is that 212 is the earliest area code for Manhattan and Manhattan only, while 718 has always been that of the "outer boroughs" of Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Staten Island, giving 212 a status that Manhattanites, from Wall Street to the Bowery to Hell's Kitchen to Inwood, could take pride in. The old-moneyed Upper-East-Siders would have been forced to mumble their area code under their breath to the sales girl at Bloomingdales or the Admissions counselor at Brearley had the phone company resolved the issue by expanding the 718 area code to encompass their already hoity-toity "BUtterfield-8" phone exchange.

As it turns out, Bob simply asked if there were any 212 numbers available when he set up the new phone. He was given a few options and selected one similar to 677-5555 because he liked the sound of it. (I made up the 5555 part, so please don't call that number. It won't be me.) Had I been involved, I might have done some quick research into the old phone exchanges for Manhattan before selecting a number.

For those of you who aren't old enough to remember where you were when John F. Kennedy was shot (I was in Kindergarten and am thus the last of the generation that remembers), the old phone exchanges were actually words, names representing the areas within a city or county. One would actually dial the first two letters of the name of the area followed by four or five numerical digits. When I started grade school in Kansas City in the early 1960s, my phone number was SOuth 1-5555, which was dialed as SO-1-5555. By the time I was in junior high the letters had been dropped and the number was simply 761-5555 (again, not the real number, so leave those poor people alone).

Movies and music made some exchanges in New York City famous, like "PEnnsylvania-6500," "BUtterfield-8," "MUrray Hill," "YUkon," "KLondike" and "GRamercy." It turns out that our new phone number actually corresponds to a couple of the original exchanges on the mid and Lower East Side: first "ORchard" in the Orchard Street area and later "ORegon" which covered most of the entire east side of Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge at Chamber's Street up to about 37th Street near Grand Central Station. There were other exchanges within this area, and the area around our new apartment had several. "ALgonquin" covered the area around Cooper Square (very near our home), and "CHelsea" and "SPring" were used in the West Village, named more for their neighbors to the north and south than for the immediate area. And of course downtown's own chic area exchange was "GRamercy" for Gramercy Park, just above Union Square.

At any rate, just talking about all of this makes me want to answer my home phone with my best old-time operator voice, "Oregon seven, fiave, fiave, fiave, fiave." But it's also interesting to learn more about the history of this city. Before Manhattanites worried about their 212 clout, they had actually dealt with phone exchange clout. Novelist Daniel Akst wrote of his New York childhood for a Los Angeles Times article:

"New York City, like most of the country, was divided into a variety of [phone exchanges], and they could say as much about you as your accent, which believe me said plenty. 'ORegon' was, well, the wilderness. 'BUtterfield 8,' by contrast, was the much tonier telecommunications precinct immortalized by John O'Hara and later Elizabeth Taylor. 'MUrray Hill' was pretty good too, although there was one of these in New Jersey as well."

I know my "SOuth" exchange growing up told locals that I not only was from Kansas City, Missouri, but from a part of Kansas City, Missouri that had been cow pastures only ten years earlier. My new "ORegon" number may say nothing to 90% of the population of Manhattan, but to those few, I live in that "wilderness" area that developed piecemeal between the Financial district at Canal Street and the land of the Butterfields east of Olmstead's Central Park. My 212 area code may make some think that I've been in New York for several decades, but probably not for long, as other area codes get introduced and filled up and the whole world goes cellular.

If you'd like to do a little research on your own phone exchange, go to http://ourwebhome.com/TENP/Times.html. You can look up your current number, but if you haven't lived there for long, I'd suggest you try your mother or grandmother's old phone numbers as well. It may spark a conversation with an older relative ("older" meaning over 50) about your origins and what people thought about you based on where you grew up.

subway glances

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Woolsrake) — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 17:15:00 +0000

Three men and an attractive blond woman shared the pole on the subway car with me this morning. The three other men were checking out the blond, while I, unnoticed, checked out each of the men: a handsome 20-something who looked uncomfortable in his Wall Street suit; a middle-aged man with a mustache, balding pate and thick hair on his knuckles; and a pudgy pale-skinned schmoe in a jumpsuit with a boiler maintenance company's logo embroidered above the breast pocket. They all stood motionlessly, staring at the blonde who frowned dully at the Poetry in Motion poster above the door. She was taller than all of us.

A small brown hand broke the stillness, reaching around the back of the blond to grasp the pole tentatively. A tiny dark-skinned boy of 12, maybe15 at the most, squeezed between the balding man and the blond, his eyes darting cautiously around the group of us who ringed the pole. I imagined that his prepubescent curiosity had drawn him to move in closer to the tall blond at his back, but I soon came to the distinct impression that he was checking out each of the men around the pole, especially the balding man and me: sneaking peeks up and down our coat fronts, or pants, our hands, our faces and then looking away. He looked a little frightened. He also looked as though he wanted something from us, especially from the balding man with the mustache to whom he moved closer in increments, and it didn't seem to be our wallets. I imagined that his burgeoning sexuality compelled him, and it made me uncomfortable. He was so young and appeared to be from a Middle Eastern culture that might not allow him to speak about such feelings. The time on the subway display read 8:56 a.m., which made me wonder why he wasn't in school already and if he road the trains daily checking out the mature men he found there.

At the next stop, the balding man took a seat and I moved over near the door away from the boy. The boy then spotted a seat next to another man with a dark mustache and slid into it cautiously. The boy's feet barely touched the subway floor and his knee bounced nervously, rubbing against the leg of the man next to him. His eyes darted back and forth from the newspaper of the man next to him to me, his brows knit, his knee bobbing like a piston.

On the boy's bouncing knee thumped a briefcase that I had not noticed when he was standing at the pole. His tiny hands grasped the sides of a big, overstuffed leather briefcase, the kind a Wall Street executive would carry. It made no sense for the boy to carry a briefcase of this kind. It was inappropriate for a junior high student's needs. It was too large and packed full for this boy in particular.

The boy continued to glance nervously from the man at his side to me to the briefcase and I began to wonder if it was instead the briefcase itself that was causing him concern. For months, I hadn't thought of the MTA's worries about packages and bombs on the subway. But now the small nervous Middle-Eastern boy with the overstuffed adult briefcase and a look as though he desperately wanted to ask for some kind of help from the grown men on the subway around him instantly terrified me. As quickly as the man next to the boy could flip the page of his newspaper, I imagined the child being sent on an inescapable mission, set to be discharged exactly at 9 a.m. or as the train passed into the tunnel under the East River, ending with the subway car engulfed in a ball of flames.

The subway doors opened at Wall Street and I leapt off. Many of my friends have gotten off subway cars in a bout of the post-9/11 willies, but it's never happened to me before. The train passed into the tunnel before I could think to notify a conductor or the subway policeman in the car behind the boy. I waited for the next train to arrive and road it anxiously just two more stops to mine.

Now two hours later, nothing tragic on the radio or the web news pages, I can presume that the boy was no suicide bomber and that his briefcase was either an eccentricity of adolescent who was indeed cruising the grown men on the train, or maybe that of his father who had called him to bring it to his office downtown in a hurry, or something he had stolen on a different train, quickly transferring to ours before he was caught. Or a phantom sent to spook us with the daily worries of living in the City.

and the oscar goes to...

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Woolsrake) — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 15:26:00 +0000

I was pleased, for the most part, to see which actors and movies were nominated for Academy Awards this morning. In the same weekend last month, I saw both Capote and Junebug and had the distinct feeling that I was witnessing a couple of the best supporting performances ever from both Catherine Keener and Amy Adams. And this after already being wowed by Michelle Williams in Brokeback Mountain a few weeks earlier. I think the Best Supporting Actress category will give the Best Actor category a run for its money for the most pins-and-needles on awards night.

Crash, on the other hand, is a bit of quandary for me. There were many strong performances in the movie, especially Matt Dillon and a surprisingly seriously bitchy Sandra Bullock. But the plot, oh the plot! It was the kind of plot that Hollywood thinks is clever and poignant, especially when the writers and producers are either young or coked up or making too many films to step back and criticize their own work. Honestly, I am willing to be surprised and moved when lives intersect in a good complex story, but the intersecting in Crash became ridiculous. People in the theater began to laugh long before the last of the intersections were revealed. I half expected to discover that the person in the row behind me and the theater usher had also been at the tables next to me at dinner earlier and would later be the ones who stole my cab and hired me for freelance work the next day. I kept thinking, "Okay, okay, I get the point! As human beings we're all interconnected! Tell me a little more about what that means. Be a little more subtle and nuanced, would ya!"

Then again, subtlety and nuance aren't Hollywood's strong suit. That's why I'm thankful they have Ang Lee (Hulk notwithstanding). Brokeback Mountain haunted me for several weeks after I saw the movie and read the short story by Annie Proulx on which it was based. I am very critical of gay movies. Most of them disappoint me to no end. Gay film makers seem to be too caught up in the fact that they're making a gay film to be self-critical. The plots and characters are often unbelievable or preachy or übertragic. Even when gay characters are introduced into mainstream films that are not particularly gay themed, they are usually cookie-cutter representations of something--the really, really good gay guy, the loveable-but-lonely friend, the perfect adoptive parent, the closet freak, the tragic queen with the heart of gold, the sexy hip lesbian--and their humanity crumbles under the weight. I never believe it.

What worked for me about Brokeback was that the story seemed very, very true for these two men. They weren't icons--not gay icons or Old West icons or early '60s icons--and they didn't have to bear the weight of any of that for me. They easily could have been presented as any one of these, but they weren't. The movie simply made me believed that life happened this way for the two of them and I felt that pathos. This is in part because the short story was written in this manner. And to a large part, it is because Ang Lee, as he did in The Ice Storm, kept it subtle and emotionally controlled. But I think Jake Gyllenhaal and especially Heath Ledger's performances are what made the film honest and true. I have known men out West so much like each of their characters, gay or straight, that there was a knot in my stomach, and the knot would have been there even without the gay theme.

Ledger's subtle performance would be a shoe in for the Best Actor award if it weren't for Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote. I'm just old enough to have seen Truman Capote on television talk shows in the '60s and I was blown away by Hoffman in the film. Even the tiniest details, like the way he moved his upper lift in one moment of the film, made me feel like I had seen a ghost. I believe that Hoffman will walk away with one more award on Oscar night, not only because of this performance, but for every performance he has done over the past decade and half. A true character actor in every sense of the word, his performances in films like Boogie Nights, The Big Lebowski, Magnolia, Flawless, Almost Famous, Cold Mountain, and now Capote, to name a few, are unforgettable. I think Hoffman's peers in the movie industry really love having this opportunity to award him for his talent and hard work, and this performance is very worthy of it.

overwhelmed

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Woolsrake) — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 17:00:00 +0000

I feel like I should lock my office door today so I don't snap at anyone, which is not common for me. I'm the kind of guy who can usually rise to the occasion and ask others how they're doing even when I feel like shit, or hold the door for the person behind me when I'm tired, or think clearly enough to negotiate, even when I'm pissed off.

But today that's not me at all. I'm cranky. I'm frustrated. I'm tired of dealing with coworkers who are lame and bitchy, and legal battles with our first contractor, and all the stuff that's still not done around our new apartment, and finances, and the hole in my tennis shoe that's been soaking my sock on rainy days because I can't get to a shoe store with shoes my size, and....

It could be just that its Monday, or that I'm tired of the diet Bob and I are doing. Or maybe, just maybe, all this would overwhelm anyone on any day of the week or on any diet.

Anyway, I'm still somewhat my usual "people-person" self. Notice that I began this post with wanting to shut my office door so that "I don't snap at any." Here I am feeling miserable and I'm concerned with protecting others from my feelings, rather than protecting myself. Oh, brother!

Hmmm.

Maybe I should go buy shoes at lunch.

man in the mirror

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Woolsrake) — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 15:53:00 +0000

Blog friend and fellow photographer chriskomater wrote about the terror he's been feeling as he is facing the 40-year-old man in the mirror. Relating to his experience, this was my comment to him:

You may come to know the man in the mirror, even if you don't know him as yourself.
I've gotten use to the 47-year-old man in my mirror. He's like a friendly older neighbor that visits me daily. He looks tired to me and isn't aging as well as I hope to myself, but at least he's honest about it. He's kind of world wise. He seems to look into my soul and I have to look away.
Still, it's sometimes hard to leave him in the mornings. I know he'd prefer that I stayed home and talked with him until noon. He sometimes needs me to trim his eyebrows or pluck a whisker from his earlobe and I do it quickly before I rush out for work.

At least, when I finally do leave him there in the apartment and head for the street, I know that I walk with a younger bounce than he does and I'm a little more open and foolishly uncertain about the world than he is. People around me relate to me differently than they would to him, unless, say, the lighting in a restaurant is bad and the young waitress mistakes me for him and calls me "sir." But I quickly rectify her misunderstanding with a laugh and a little banter that he couldn't possibly keep up with if he were there.

I know one day he'll move in with me and I'll have to follow his schedule and his rules. But for now it suffices for me to look him in the eye each morning and ask him if there's anything I need to know before I go out into the world for the day.