Wandering the upper west side for a couple of hours. Feeling melancholy. Remembering the things I used to do around here. Stores where I bought radios. Crosswalks I walked over a thousand times because I had nothing else to do. I don’t get nostalgic. I get old. And lonely.
I had a moment of… something. A homeless looking woman asked a passer by if she could spare any money. A well dressed, immaculately made-up woman standing nearby made her disapproval of the situation obvious from her expression. She said nothing. I turned and saw her profile. All that makeup as she sustained her look of disapproval a blob of snot emerged from her nose. She was unaware of it, it seemed.
I saw myself in a mirror at the Trump Tower. I thought “I look like a fucking slob.” I do but today, maybe on account of the gaudy décor raising vacant hopes of uplift, I felt the slovenliness represented how I feel about my sorry excuse for this life. I wondered if anyone remembers me the way I remember occasional individuals from this part of town, and anywhere. Do they talk about “that
