i caved on my principles today and responded to a reporter. i ignored a reporter as recently as last week, and even felt a little bad about it, but i got over it. once in a while i respond by saying that you should probably contact other people, and i offer contact info, but this usually results in a useless expenditure of my time, responding to further inquiries, giving more information, and in the end the only party who benefits at all is the reporter. so, all out ignoring of the inquiries works best.
but this reporter got me at a sour moment. it’s a sad day in NYC payphonery when the only fully-fucntional rotary dial payphhonne in Queens has been removed, “upgraded” to a push-button creature that seems to work erratically.
i was really, truly sad about this. it’s not the phone itself or any use of it that i enjoyed (though i had used it a few times). it was the secret. among virtually anyone who might care about the matter i found that only i knew of that phone’s existence. i feel like i lost a friend… but i’ll get over it. i just thought it was enough of an event that it might be a good time to reach out through a reporter.
he writes for a magazine that i don’t think i’ve ever been in, so that’ll be fun. that is, if it all works out. if it comes to pass. if it reaches fruition. if it fruits (pronounced “froo-itz”).
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otherwise a dreary, dumpy day. i rebuilt a new top page for sorabjiland. it’s too much. too long.
i’ve felt lonely and solitary these last few weeks. it is not a good feeling. it is like a sadness raining down on me. a sour, poisonous sadness. i don’t remmeber when i first had this vision of myself as an old man, but it might have been in high school. i imagined myself alone, but at peace, and comfortably sitting in an easy chair. my feet were white from lack of sun, and i settled in to the recliner chair to read and keep warm under a blanket of some sort. there was a smile on my face, and through my mind passed mercurial memories of past wives, past lovers, and the financial and emotional carnage they had inflicted on me. for all that my accommodation was comfortable and my future was secure, much better off on my own than under the adversarial cloud of marriage.
i am not old enough for the scenario to play out just yet, and i will probably never be married, but i do see myself growing old alone. will i be happy with that? will i even care?
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Christ it’s dark in here. I can’t see a fucking thing.
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typing now under the light of the dark screen. i type white text onto a black background, so the most light comes when i type enough words to fill the screen. it’s like i’m typing to stay warm, as i rub my hands over the hot embers of these words.
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i think i know what i’ll do about the page bloat of the new top page. iframes! yes. that will solve the content and page size issue. genius!
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people either don’t listen or they won’t shut the fuck up.
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i found myself on streetview at Slaughter Beach, Delaware, today. maybe i’ll buy a shack there. i liked what little i saw of Delaware in 2005 when i drove up Route 13 from FL to here. like any place that is seemingly off the grid, though, it is mighty expensive for what you get, this due entirely to its proximity to NYC. any place within a stone’s throw of NYC is way expensive compared to similar places in flyover climes.
then i looked at Pennsylvania. lots of space there.
where will i go? what will i do?
that was a line from an episode of Benson. it made my mother laugh so hard i thought she’d cough up a lung. in that episode of Benson the Governor hired a robot to do some work around the mansion. mostly cleaning and tedius stuff. but the robot didn’t work out. s/he was too cold, and not commuincative with the human beings at the place. so it was left to Benson to tell the robot that s/he had been let go. “You’re fired.” the robot went a little nuts, panicking, turning around and saying “Oh no! Where will I go? What will I do?” i don’t remember what Benson said in response, because my mother was laughing so hard i could not hear myself lightly chuckle.
for whatever reason she thought the idea of a robot having an existential crisis was just mad, mad funny, funny in the way good comedy targets anxieties and squeezes them, wrings them dry with laughter.
