Little Fish, Big River, Bigger City

Day 255: Sculpting A Fine Day

It's one of those perfect fall days again, perfect for pumpkin carving despite the fact that Halloween is long over and according to retailers I should either be decorating a Christmas tree, buying Valentine's cards or purchasing fireworks for the upcoming 4th of July. I decide to live in the now and carve the mammoth sitting on the trunk which takes up an inordinate amount of space in a 300 square foot apartment which seems to be doubling as training ground for someday living in the cramped quarters of my dream sailboat that may never be a reality but has yet to dissipate in its desire.

Elle's store is having a huge sale in conjunction with the Soho Stroll today and I've been commissioned to come up with a work of art in the form of a large orange squash. Carving a pumpkin is one of my favorite art forms in that I feel it's a tiny slice where I actually excel. I break out the requisite tools of my chosen morning trade - Xacto knife, metal spoon, newspaper, plastic garbage bags, glue, moss, incense, kitchen knife, and one blue stone. I feel a ton of pressure in being a centerpiece for a store which caters to people like Will Smith, Usher, Britney Spears, various Hobbits, actors, singers, and lofty billionaire's wives who drop $15k without flinching for a skirt, a jacket and a pair of boots while sipping Mimosa's as the limo idles out front as their bichon Frise gets a French Manicure on the Upper East Side.

I begin to carve freehand as the inspiration guides me. Soon, an eye is finished, a nose is exposed, and wisping strands of carved hair emerge from the uniquely scented gourd. Four hours later, I'm gluing the last seed to the face and placing the blue stone into the iris of the lioness I've created. I carry her downstairs, run back up to retrieve my best friend, and spend the next forty minutes hailing a cab brave enough to cart the three of us to Wooster Street in Soho where mayhem has long overtaken Elle's floorspace, thanks to sponsored raspberry vodka and lox on crevettes sprinkled with minced mint leaves, creme fraiche, and caviar. In the meantime, the dog and pumpkin receive multitudes of compliments from passersby until a fellow dog owner/cabbie pulls over to gladly relieve me of $6.50 and a really long walk with a heavy Jill-o'-lantern.

As I get to the store, I see her first as I always do...This statuesque goddess of high fashion who eternally transcends everything and everyone around her like the sun is unmistakably the sky's ruler despite multitudes of puffy clouds floating horizon to horizon. I love the simple truth that no matter where she is, she is unavoidable to the eye. One of my favorite pastimes is to simply watch her from a distance in a ballroom of hundreds as she parts the crowd en route to retrieve another Cosmo while turning heads, creating a wake of involuntary stares with her natural magnetism despite super models and dignitaries nearby. This is somehow my girlfriend, for now...The thought never leaves my mind that this could be more fleeting than a summer night's comet trail which quickly sparks the dark sky before being lost to fleeting memory when one awakens at dawn and smells the proverbial coffee.

She's delighted with my artistic efforts (thank God) which in my mind would never measure up to expectation and in fact, fell far short of my own hopes. I'm off the hook and free to shop. I never understood clothing and the art inherent therein of dressing in something other than what can be purchased online at TheGap.com. At one point during the summer, we conducted the wardrobe review of which the results were summed up in a word, uttered repeatedly - "crap!" Everything was soon replaced save some sentimental items such as my Georgetown Hockey jersey, AxL Snaks t-shirt which I'm only allowed to wear on certain Elle-absent occasions. Additionally, one Hawaiian shirt survived which was actually approved being that it was a Tommy Bahama gift from my friend Tom who clearly has more taste in clothing than myself.

I found several items in the "now affordable" range due to the fact that they were 80% off, being last year's line which I could get away with wearing this season in certain instances combined with Elle's consulting. We set them aside to purchase later when he wasn't battling the line of people now creating a Disney-ride like line zig-zagging like a starving Anaconda around the displays in her store.

Eventually, AxL and I break free and quietly soak up Soho's flavors on a perfect afternoon walk home. Upon arrival, he sleeps and I scrub, dust, mop, clean, and drop-off/pick-up wash and fold laundry around his snoring skeleton. The day is gone and I head back to finalize my wardrobe additions with a now drunk Elle and staff who found relief in the remainder of the donated vodka bottles. Unable to play catch up to their state of mind, I depart, favorite book in hand, and catch the Canal Street subway to Hell's Kitchen. I stroll through the streets until I reach Pier 94 slightly after the unmistakable scent of horses reaches my olfactory center. I walk in and find myself easily able to purchase front row seats for a song. I partake of the open bar in the Olympic Club tent after watching several of God's most beautiful creatures warming up in the ring before entering the main arena filled with painfully high fences sporting potted evergreen sideburns. I'm at the "The Nationals" aka the 121st Manhattan Horse Show's Open jumping competition. I can't believe it's not packed, in fact, it's sadly empty.

I call Elle and force her to stop calculating the day's tally and restocking the shelves in order to join me. She gives in despite the stubornness of her Leo personality. I gather up a couple glasses of complimentary champagne and stroll outside to wait. I strike up a conversation with "Noel" the limo driver. It turns out that he puts a knife through my stomach and heart with is story of how he became a limo driver. He had been a security guard at Tower 2 of the World Trade Center. On September 8, he married his love and on September 11, he went in a bit late to work as the boss was cutting him a dash of slack on a slow day. He arrived and asked his co-workers if they wanted anything for breakfast as he headed out to get his own before starting the work day. They all joked with him about taking too long as he stepped into the elevator. He bought some coffee and a bagel and was walking back to work while listening to a Hispanic radio station when the music was interrupted with a news report. He ducked into Playboy International where his brother worked at the front security desk to see the TV just as the second plane hit his Tower 2 in the precise place where his co-workers resided. The moment he watched four friends perish before his eyes, his knees went weak and he collapsed. Meanwhile, his wife fell apart at home and it wasn't until 11 p.m. that night before he could get out of Manhattan to his cousin's house and notify family that he was okay. The next morning, he read his own name among the deceased as no one had known he departed for breakfast instead of being at his post.

I stood clutching my chest and stomach while alternately pulling my hair in flustered disbelief as he finishes his story and Elle's angel-pillow lips touch my cheek and pull me from the imagined horror Noel endured somehow to allow me to cross his path and relive his story this evening. We bid him goodnight and God bless as Elle's velvet fingers and the bubbling champagne pull me into the world waiting inside. We're now in her utmost delight and her demeanor innocently reverts to a childlike passion for fine equines. She purchases a poster for her office and a program before gathering refills of bubbly and taking front and center seats as the competitors take their final walk on the difficult, twisting and seemingly impossible course. As the first horse begins to glide around the ring and easily attack the first jumps, straight up and over five-foot high obstacles, I'm lost in the awe of the delicately powerful dance taking place. I had watched horse jumping shows when I was a "cowboy" in farm country during my single-digit years of life...but now the beauty of it sinks in like a hot, clean knife through key lime pie.

Considering that I find it nigh-impossible to inspire "Powder" my cantakerous morning steed to even trot, let alone clear a fence, the spectacle is inconceivable. We watch the competition get increasingly impossible as riders drop out and fences are raised and repositioned. In the lead is Nina ridden by none other than Georgina Bloomberg, the mayor's daughter. She easily scored perfect runs in the first three rounds while beating the competiton's time by large margins to win the overall event depsite the fact that her father appeared to be oddly absent. I asked Elle if it was "normal" in this world of the mighty rich to just send your daughter off for the evening to win The Nationals while "dad" was elsewhere and she confirmed my disbelief that it was not the usual case. If nothing else, it didn't matter because here is a girl who could sit at home on overstuffed pillows overstuffing her face with Swiss chocolates and instead, she's kicking ass on the National Jumping circuit against competitors twice her age. I can't help but admire that to hell and back.

We arrive home around 2 a.m. after killing a couple more glasses of champagne at an overly sophisticated (tranlation = boring) after-party in the Olympic tent. Mr. AxL is overjoyed and I decide to toss the food he oddly hasn't touched. I replace it with freshly grilled pancakes, Chinese herbs and liver snacks on the side. He nibbles a bit but sadly doesn't inhale the flapjacks like he's done for the past two weeks. I figure he's tired as we all are after his Soho Stroll. Soon enough, the household is snoring away on featherbeds sculpted by our wearied bodies worn out from a finely carved day.

Day 254: First and 10

This morning, I had a surreal breakfast with a pile of old Amazon friends at Moonstruck Cafe on 9th Ave and West 23rd St. I realized that life seems to be passing me by as I stand in place while everyone around me grows up like normal adults. My friends, Jenny and Adam were there with there one-year old, Nathon. It seems like yesterday they were just getting married but it's actually been about two and a half years ago. Another friend, Jason was there who also has a one year old, in addition to moving to a new house. Lastly, Eugene was there who is applying to grad school for a master's in "film." Why is it that I feel as if I sit around in about the same boat year after year while life goes on changing all around me? It's as if I'm nothing more than a bronze statue sitting idly in a park which changes with the seasons as I do nothing more than provide target practice for pooping pigeons...

My goals and dreams sit on paper, unrealized. Even this simple task of keeping a journal is massively unfulfilled as the days fly by while I remain a simple nothing, a study in procrastination and lack of achievement. It's been nearly two years since I thought life had taken a turn when I set out to bicycle across the US...yet the task never concluded...I finished the ride and have yet to finish the book and so I remain a writer in my head and dreams but not in reality. I worry that my destiny is one of pure vanilla. That I'll never string together enough efforts to be proud of what I've done with my hours.

As I walk to the corner coffee shop, a bona fide Village place named, Jack's which feels like a real coffee shop, I stop briefly to feel the subway's low rumble coursing through Manhattan's subterranean veins like the days angrily march under my feet like an undetected army conquering time invisibly lost forever as I stand in place.

If nothing else, I've done one thing right - I've done everything I could for a stray dog which happened across my path nearly thirteen years ago. There's something to be said for looking around at everything done and undone and knowing there's a simple, crowning achievement as this furry angel continues to defy the odds and cling to the dizziness of reality by waking up each morning. As of today, he should have been dead for about two months now. Instead, he's been carried when he needs to be carried, he's been incessantly doted over and loved by hundreds on the street and he's eaten like a king when his appetite allows - marinated leg of lamb, Norwegian Salmon, Prosciutto, fresh Hanger steak, filet mignon, prime rib, organic chicken breast, whole wheat pasta, freshly steamed rice, and most of all - blueberry pancakes, the current fad.

I know the end is coming like a subway evenutally arrives through the empty and silent tunnel in a torrent of screeching wheels that are the amplified exponential multiplication of ten thousand fingernails on a chalkboard at once. No matter how quietly he eventually goes, the one thing I've done right will no longer be here for me to assemble each night in my mind as the "I've done good" moment anesthetizing me into slumber.

I guess when that time comes, I'll have to step up to the line and try to put together some plays to gain yardage in some way. The clock is ticking, halftime is over and I feel like I'm trailing by at least 40 points with the ball on my own one yard line. If nothing else, I'm going to keep driving forward in some way, even when I get sacked. Afterall, life is just a game, measured in years isntead of yards...and there's always the chance that I can complete a Hail Mary pass for the endzone one of these days. Until then, it's first and ten and I'm still in the game despite fumbles, incomplete passes and false starts.

Day 253: Good Deeds Bad Duds

The day started off great and ended with a gas...literally. I woke up on my own at 5:30, walked Mr. AxL, made him pancakes, did some work and then set out at 6:30 for yet another English Riding lesson at the Claremont Academy on West 89th Street. I have a feeling that I'm really bad at this whole riding thing because they keep giving me a new instructor and a different horse each time. I try to "tip" well in giving the instructor a $10 at the end of each lesson and the patient steed of the day an apple and a carrot.

Today I felt like I did a bit better on Galloway although he lacked the cranky spirit of Powder. Galloway is a HUGE Thoroughbred with a glowing chestnut coat trimmed with black socks, mane and tail. Completing his stateliness is a large white star on his forehead. Despite being a Thoroughbred, he lacked will to move and I found myself atop an AxL-like horse who had to be begged and urged and begged some more to simply get going. Karen the instructor was also patient as I attempted to "post" by rising and falling in rythm with Galloway's unenthusiastic trot. I feel I'm doing better, but I also feel sorry for the horse who probably wonders just what kind of non-rythmic, out of sync creature has alighted in the saddle. Sadly, I find myself in the predicament of loving something I'm completely horrible at - it's a lot like relationships with women, I guess. I enjoy my time in them, but realize that a whale in the desert has a better chance of success.

After the ride, I find myself meandering southward once again in a frustrating search for a "real" coffee shop. I give up one more time upon reaching Amsterdam and 72nd and take the subway home amid the sardine drones commuting downtown. I'm reading an amazing book, "Winter's Tale" by Mark Helprin which my outstanding friend, Tom, recently sent me. If I were 1/10,000th the write Helprin is, I'd be a best-selling author. His imaginitive gift for storytelling is only outdone by his over-mastery of language.

My fellow "New Yoarkah's" and I are packed so tightly into the 9 train that my nose is nearly in the crease of my book as I read away cross-eyed and oblivious to the squealing steel wheels on rails below since my iPod is deafingly drowning it out with the sound of JoshGroban's soul-gripping voice.

It's going to rain today and I welcome it so I don't have to carry buckets of water to the rooftop for the hibiscus, orange tree, monte villa, basil, rosemary, fuschia, petunias, impatiens, mums, ivy, and purple pepper plant. As I step through the door, I greet a snoring dog and two hungry fish, the latest additions to the household named after two of my favorite constellations: Cassiopeia and Orion.

I go through the morning's work as rain begins to drizzle then pelt. More pancakes emerge in the dog bowl during a small break around lunchtime. It's a good day...good enough to try and find a good deed. It comes later on as we're walking through the dark, wet evening and I spy a peach colored Vespa lying on her side. I figured a car must have been a dash too aggressive in un-parallel parking since the space behind is void. I walk past then decide to go back and right her. I bend down, easily set her back on her wheels and haul back until the kickstand engages. The smell of gas fills the air as it must have been draining out of the under-seat tank.

We continue our way around the block, greeting everyone in their stores who adores AxL which is pretty much...everyone in their stores in any direction within a two block radius. If only there were cheers for me like there are for this dog when people see him coming at less than full trot down the street. It would be like having my own ticker-tape parade route. While I don't lay claim to such adulation, AxL does and it's good enough for me to simply be his "body guard" en route. By body guard, I mean that he seems to have some sort of senile death wish in that if I don't watch him constantly, he keeps gunning for the street at the optimum coincidental moment that a speeding taxi is arriving with full intentions of having no intention of stopping. We've had some narrow misses of late but the excitement of it all spices up otherwise uneventful walks.

Eventually, we're home and making Round 3 of blueberry pancakes for dinner. There's a strange smell though...as if I had been repairing an old lawnmower engine. It's gas. I look down past the blue flames on the stove burner and see that my thighs are soaked. I touch my jeans and smell my fingers to discover that I'm a time-bomb waiting to spontaneously combust while pancakes sizzle away. Not smart.

I hold a cooking half-time, remove the jeans, hang them over a deck chair upstairs, open the windows, take a shower and go back to pondering the pancakes. What is it with good deeds that a guy can't simply be rewarded in some way rather than doused in explosive fossil fuels?

I figure the jeans are probably a write-off at this point since I'm not sure if you can wash gas out of denim. Oh well. So goes it. I'm still here, the Peachy Vespa is upright again, and AxL is inhaling dinner as the rain pours down outside. I guess that's the "zen" of life...bad and good always balancing out each other like boy and dog.

Day 252: The Richest Moments

I woke up at 6 to one of those perfect dawning skies with clouds trying to be pink, white, peach and golden all at once set softly on a background of gray struggling to become blue. It's a day to once again grab the 1 train to the Upper West Side, iPod, book, riding boots and pants in various hands and pockets and plastic shopping bags.

I've been learning something both new laced with thirty-eight year old muscle memory - English Riding. I'm not sure when I first got on a horse, but from my family albums, I think it was around the age of one. My dad loved to hunt in the day when TV had shows about men shooting elephants, rhinos, and lions as if it didn't matter to the existence of species. One winter, while hunting in Eastern Washington state, he happened across a man named "Curly" who was almost frozen to death. Dad saved his life, so the story goes which I was told and they became lifelong friends after that. Oddly, my dad's life only lasted a few more years so it wasn't much of a run, but it was enough for me to be introduced to ranching and all the glory of horses which have symbiotically intertwined with humans, following in the footsteps of dogs who were obviously smaller and easier to domesticate - I guess.

I get off the subway at West 86th Street, meander up Broadway and over to Amsterdam and fade right onto 89th where The Claremont Riding Academy sign graces the front of a multi-level stable which used to hold a hundred horses but now has just thirty-five gorgeous equines in its bowels. I step through the door and greet Braxton, Baby, and Diane, the resident cats. Before long, I'm dressed and then addressing "Powder," a cantankerous white-gray dapple fellow.

I love taking in the scent of horse, leather and morning air while listening to the faint sounds of a squeaking saddle and tink-tink of the bridle's metal parts. I'm on board and heading around the ring while Dan the instructor fires out orders so fast that my brain soon swirls while trying to direct the parts of my body that aren't used to the nuances of this sport just yet. It's a lot different than herding cows in a western saddle when you're a kid and everything athletic is just natural because you've never spent too many hours at a desk.

English riding is to horses as sailing is to boats. Western riding is to horses as power boats are to boats. In English, you have to be aware of your posture, your legs, the pressure on the reins, the placement of your feet, the squeeze of one calf, then the other against the horses's ribs when he's on a certain foot, the bounce of the trot, the direction you're heading, the others in the ring (because Powder hates all other horses and wants to bite them). In sailing, you have to take in everything at once and work with the boat and nature - the wind, the water, everything around you, the feel of it all. In power boating, like in Western Riding, you sit and steer, period.

I feel wonderful to be both learning something new and doing something rare in this city. Outside is Manhattan and it's subway veins packed with sardine commuters on their way downtown to give up their souls to the big machine called the American Economy while feeling nothing. I sit atop a brilliant white stallion with a big spirit while feeling every step and muscle through the saddle and with my legs. This is my new oasis and soon I'll be ready to take on Central Park, floating above the joggers and families and weekend warriors like a tall ship plowing past rowboats in a busy harbor.

Dan shouts me back to reality as Powder tries to take a chunk out of another horse's neck when we pass. I love his attitude for some reason. He's a New York horse through and through. Too soon, it's all over and I'm back to the concrete jungle or in this case, the concrete suburb of the Upper West. It doesn't quite feel like New York to me after living down in the village and soaking up Soho since February. The Upper West Side could almost be any city as it lacks the history and charm and distinct flavors of the rest of New York. I can't even find a "real" coffee shop whereas where I live, there's an amazing corner of Java tucked away on almost every street. I finally give in and walk into Starbucks which I used to love but now loathe. It's just too damn commercial in every way. It reminds me of the couple from the movie "Best in Show" who shop at The Gap and read mail order catalogs as if they were literature. Mind you, I love the stock in my portfolio, I just hate the non-experience of the stores.

I grab the subway back downtown at West 79th in front of the Baptist Church which seems to be the only redeeming building in this 'hood besides the Claremont Riding Academy that I've discovered up here so far. I call this area "the trying to be a New Yorker's New York" as it lacks the energy and history and flair and uniqueness that Midtown, The Village, Soho, Tribeca, and Downtown all have in spades. I'm probably cursed to move here at some point having said all this as a friend has been trying to talk me into buying his condo on Amsterdam nearby.

I get step out of the subway at the New York University stop on Chrisopher street and am immediately renewed with bustle and lower buildings that aren't made from cookie-cutters. I no longer feel like I'm at a party full of accountants with pocket protectors and paper-plate personalities. I'm home.

I spend the day working only to be rewarded at the end of the day at my coffee shop, Jack's. Jack tells me to check the mailbox. There's a postcard for me. HUH? Yes, there's a postcard for me. It's from Louisa, one of the regulars who reminds me of Kansas and Apple-pie. She has painstakingly made me a unique postcard, coincidentally emblazoned with a pencil sketch of an English Rider racing through the glens. I've told no one I'm riding so it strikes me as one of those things that tells you you're on the right track in life when all things randomly make perfect sense.

I read the back and begin to cry for two reasons. One, because a nigh-stranger has taken the time to do this for me and two, because of the story which goes like this -

"11-2-04 Dear Scott-

When you talk about how many weeks it' been since the vet gave AxL two days to live, it reminds me of my old childhood dog, Sandy, who outlived both my childhood and all our expectations - every winter for at least five years we thought, this will be Sandy's last but every spring he was still with us. He followed me home when I was five, and hung on until the year I graduated from university. By then he couldn't walk at all. He'd always had a ridiculous gait - he'd survived distemper as a pup, and it fritzed his neurological center. So by the time his last winter rolled around, he could only drag himself short distances and relied on my Mom to carry him outside for the day and back in at night. She thought about having him put down, but he still seemed to be enjoying life and as long as that was the case she let him be. But there came a time when she began to think he was in more pain than was worth it, so she made an appointment at the vet's for a few days hence. It was a warm day and the ground was thawed so she asked my dad to dig a hole in the side yard for Sandy's grave. That night when she went out to do the chores and bring Sandy in, she coldnt' find him. SHe looked everywhere, but finally gave up. In the morning she went out looking again, and this time she found him in the side yard: he'd falling into his own grave and, unable to climb out, had slept the night there! Sandy died on his own at home two days later, the day before my mom had scheduled to have him put down, saving himself the final trauma of having to die in a strange, antiseptic place. I'm reminded of his dignity whenever AxL comes hobbling into Jack's. Bet to you both,
Louisa"

It's things like this that make me believe in mankind. It's things like this that make me realize how important it is to write, whatever it is, that it might touch someone else as Louisa's note touched my own heart. It's things like this that remind me to do something nice for strangers and nigh-strangers.

I ponder the note and read it over and over as I take the subway back to the Upper West and Barnes and Noble where Mark Helprin is signing his new book, "The Pacific." He gives an entertaining talk and I wait in a long line for him to sign a copy for my greatest friend, Tom who just recently sent me "Winter's Tale" by Helprin. Again, as I read Helprin's first chapter while waiting I'm reminded of the importance of doing what you love in that he writes in the most amazing way that enriches my last few days when I steal the time to read his incredibly imaginitive prose. I'm glad that he wrote what he has written. When I meet him face to face I simply say, "Thank you for writing." His eyes lock into mine and I can see he "gets" what I mean. He signs my books and looks at me one more time in the same way. He pauses.

"Thank you." I know what he means as well as I turn and walk out, hoping to have another day this rich sooner, rather than later.

Day 251: Going Nowhere Fast

It's election day here in America and an incredibly tight race. I just returned home from Democracy Plaza brought to you buy Bank of America (who else?) and NBC. Oddly, the turnout down there was paltry in a city like New York compared to Halloween's throng of 400,000 which prevented me from traveling faster than one city block per hour as I was glacially dragged by the crowd from my doorstep on West 10th Street down Sixth Ave.

AxL is somehow still alive and actually doing well, probably due to his daily shortstack of blueberry pancakes that I make for him each morning. Go dog, go. However his frame is a paltry 47 pounds of skin and bone, down from his average over the year of about 58-64, depending on his appetite. I've grown used to the fact that he looks and acts drunker than Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean. The vet bill for this year is headed toward the $12,000 dollar mark from my estimates which are only estimates because I'm afraid to do the actual math.

While I don't approve of name-dropping, I'm definitely going to name drop on this occassion in that I went to college and have often hung out with John Kerry's step-son, Andre Heinz, who was on the rowing team with me. It's odd to think that an old buddy might be living in the White House but time will tell and there's not much left as the election is winding down, or up...depending on if you're a pessimist or an optimist.

Other news? I believe I mentioned this at some point, but I'm definitely dating a French Spy who is working on infiltrating an underground Al Qaeda network which is laundering money through a storefront on Greenwich Avenue. She manages a high end designer store in Soho as a front and she uses me as a decoy so that no one suspects her of being anything other than a gorgeous fashion plate with great taste in clothes and below-average taste in men (namely, me.) It's not easy dating a spy, but those are all stories for another time.

Meanwhile, I keep hitting "refresh" on my browser while the electoral vote seems gridlocked at 207 for Bush and 199 for Kerry. I'm running on fumes after spending most of last night at emergency with "Mariah the naybah" who was afflicted with an unsettling ailment to which the actual ailment has yet to be discovered. If nothing else, I discovered that an emergency room in New York City is very possibly one of the oddest experiences to this day in my lifetime. A TV show would be overly challenged in doing it justice...it was the human circus running on any number and combination of hard core and recreational drugs with overtones of the right to bear arms laced with with freedom of speech.

For several months now, I've lost the ability to write but never the will. I grapple inwardly to extract it again, struggling against a severe case of textual constipation. However, it's not due to lack of material, if anything, it's more the result of an abundance of material like the eternally cluttered garage of white trash America where the car hasn't been parked in recent memory.

And so I dig in again, likely in a futile attempt to once again aspire to be something more than I know I am deep down which I politely ignore while smiling away as if I were talking to a child with cerebral palsey who is strapped to his wheelchair. You talk to him about hawks and colored leaves and model sailboats and dogs so you don't cry in front of him over the hand he was dealt in life. (Can you tell I often visit Central Park?)

And so I plow forward, after digging in, inspired by Christopher Reeve (and a certain French Spy) as I continue with English Riding lessons tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn. There's something about being on a horse in Manhattan - it's a lot like riding a bike on the freeway in that you're doing something so pure and beautiful amid the impure and ugly varicose veins of life.

Refresh - the vote is still deadlocked - AxL is still not deadlocked - which leaves me - epoxied into a life that seems to be going nowhere fast, and somehow....just somehow, that's okay.

The Ratings -

I don't really like the ratings that much so am going to just settle for skipping them for now while being happy that I got something up here again.