Hah. Got the corner suite today.  I don’t usually type into my personal void from the work spot but no one is here and no one cares what I do off the clock. I took a panic pill just now, and a BP one as well. I don’t...

Yesterday was spent, unexpectedly, in pursuit of remnants, or archaelogical evidence, of the payphones of yore. Some have been gone for 2 decades. Others disappeared more recently. They are everywhere, though, so long as you...

Someone on the street walks up to you. Or maybe you walk up to them. you don’t know what is in their head, what room they just stepped out of, or what space they are preparing to enter. They might want to enter your space,...

The place I usually get a cheese omelette and a banana every morning decided to stop giving out plastic fork and knife packages that include salt and pepper. I must now request salt and pepper packets. The plastic utensil (now...

There is a woman I see on the subway at least once a week. For a while we would cross paths every single day, it seemed. We enter and exit the train at the same stations, exiting at Fulton Street. At least that’s how it...

pointy words garbageboard buns buggy peanuts stun ape (eap!) 10 hours in the short life of a hemmeroid beestormers too ticklish on the taco truck instant stratification seedful salads she walks with a batter waddle sticks in...

Seems I got a rare gift. 2 days paid leave. Not consecutive days but they end up being that since they precede my usual Wednesday day off.  That’s good information, right? Feeling waves of pitifulness today. Pricklings of...

Yesterday was fun. Impromptu. If I really wanted to watch low-flying planes I would have gone to Flushing. In the Main Street and surrounding areas it’s like you can see the whites in the eyes of the passengers, the planes...

I made it out to the Calvary Cemeteries today. All 4 of them. It was not planned, and the decision to dip into New Calvary was guided by the presence of low-flying planes approaching LaGuardia. They made for interesting video,...

all that shit I just deleted. Nobody reads this shit anymore so my secrets are safe here, hiding in plain sight.  At a coffee shop, after a day spent bolting up to Mott Haven for what turned out to be no good reason. I rarely...

Being at a regular job (whatever that means anymore) has changed my attitudes about time. My experience of time, rather. It no longer feels like a slippery, elastic, uncontrollable material.  And what of the seconds? They will...

…apocalypse of time The nonsense of time The abysm of time The halitosis of time The rhubarb of time

I am always on time. Never late. Usually early. THis is said to be a good character trait. A signal of integrity and reliability. Being thrust into a time-controlled environment for the first time in 20 years has changed my...

There are other reasons to take the panic pill and the bp med. if it stops me drinking i save money. well duh, right? i’m not making enough money at this job. in fact i’m losing money. i expected that but it still...

My goal had been to make this a 6-month gig. Working from the belly of the beast, Lower Manhattan, I hear the voices scurry through. Voices of the concerned, the melancholy, the stranded. A city filled with agonies of all sizes....

…

I’ve been here about 3 months now, in the belly of the beast. Lower Manhattan. I spend my days talking to New York. I did not expect to fall in love with this job but that seems to be what has happened. My plan had been to...

One day to the next it’s something different. Shakes, anxiety, even panic one day. Serenity, peace, even happiness the next. I’m on the latter lurch at the moment. Payphone patrol turned up mild intrigue. Someone...

It has not been the only continuous thing in my life in New York. In fact it is not even the oldest thing. But the 181 has been my permanent and public address since `~1991. Back then I think it cost $24 a year. The price has...

No change, I can change I can change, I can change But I’m here in my mold I am here in my mold And I’m a million different people

I never think there will be enough time. 10 minutes is not enough. But then 10 minutes feels like too much. Time is frustratingly elastic like that. At my job I’ve reached a point of virtual rapture. I love the sounds....

Today I went all in, every pill in my arsenal, to avoid a repeat of yesterday’s snot frenzy. Some kind of mud-dust was rolling in through an air conditioner vent. I sit at this desk frequently but never experienced this...

Starting to love this job, then hating myself for fucking it up at times. Was doing well today until a sinus event and a cough intruded on my performance. Took a break to blow out gallons of snot. I’ve been sleeping with...

What have I learned about my fascinating self after 2.5 months at my first full-time job in 20 years? I don’t know. Is it even worth asking? I knew I’d be good at this job, and I am. I remember one lifer, when asked,...

I’m willing to bet that most people I work with here do not spend any portion of their break time carousing lower Manhattan for payphones and LinkNYC machines. Is “carousing” even a word? Today was a rare...

Bathrooms were separated by ethnicity. It you were “ethnic” you used one bathroom. If you were “non-ethnic” you used another. I did now know what this meant. A black woman directed me to the non-ethnic...

Zany dream last night. An ex from many years ago, who has not entered my mind in I don’t even know how long, made an appearance.  A bunch of people had gathered by a swimming pool. Context is everything but to make a long...

Today should be the first time since working here that I do not make the lunchtime sprint to check on the payphones and the LinkNYC machines around here. It’s been fun but for once I think I’ll take a normal one-hour...

At a coffee shop watching the unexpected-to-me snow blast pouring down. My doubts about the job hve become a little more intense. Most people there would sway it is a job you do not take home with you. Unfortunately for me, that...

Seem to have started exactly what I did not want to occur here at the workplace. Drama. I was not going to say anything, but I felt it appropriate to say that I had an allergic reaction to something. It impacted my ability to do...

Up at 5am today. Sunday. Watching a woman on a live cam. She says it’s her first time doing this. That could be, but most of these camgirls know what they are doing. In a simpler time one might actually make lasting...

Nothing to say but when has that stopped me from saying it… I don’t know. Tomorrow is a day off for me. Still unwilling to consecrate this place with the glory of my fecality, even though I probably should, for...

I think this job, with its regular schedule and such, has changed my relationship with time. After 20 years of rarely needing to watch the clock or think about it I presently find time to feel apocalyptic, or something like an...

Someone messaged me at my radio FB page. I don’t know what they said. Not yet. Listening to humming and whirring of the vending machines in what they call the “vendeteria,” so-called because there is no café,...

I take my breaks by the payphone. That is what I do. Makes me feel right at home. If anyone asks why I choose this break room when the other is closer I will offer no explanation. My payphone past has no place in this...

At work early. Daily debate with myself, made more urgent on paydays: Why am I doing this? I want no career. The stifling, monotonous schedule would make the most growed-ass man cry from boredom. There is a certain joy, I guess,...

For as long as I last at this current job I get Wednesdays and Sundays off. My doubts about continuing at this position mostly involve money. I am losing money spending 60 hours of my week performing this job, getting there and...

At the ghetto coffee shop. Have not been here, to sit down at least, since pre-pandemic. It is Feb 23 2022. I stayed away from here on account of nobody ever wearing masks, and considered staying away for good just to make a...

7:57am 2/19/2022 Sitting at Hestia, Maiden Lane… or is it Liberty Street? 7:57am, February 19, 2022… Yesterday was a first time I’d posted like this, from the small keyboard into the small screen of the aging...

I have not done this in many months, I don’t think. It’s been long enough since I did this that I might find that this email-to-website thing does not even work anymore. Sitting in a coffee shop, pecking into a...

Sometimes I hear signals. See them, at least. I hear nothing now but whirring from the freezer behind me. I grew up in a freezer. It was on the top rack, with ice cube trays and three other children, where I learned to...

typing this at the piano, with no spell check, because i am such a manly man in that respect. 10:39pm as i start. an ongoing epic correspondence with the author of a sheet music reading program has me ready to throw in the...