So Was I, Pal. So Was I.

Today’s forecast is my favorite in all weatherdom: RAW. It is a profound kind of cold, one that soaks me to the bone. Today my feeling of desolation is made worse by the bad idea I had to do some shots at 4am. I thought I might have moved on from that stupid activity. Would like to sleep and be normal in life, returning to discipline and work. I do work but it’s all pointless. I feel like nothing today. Less than nothing. It’s like my life is a debt. Overdrawn. Bouncing.

…

Next day. Not feeling any better, but not any worse either. Dreary winter-like weather is no help, not that I want help from any person or force of nature. This visit down south is probably going to leave me stale inside. I’ll be seeing (if things go as planned) a woman I know from Sunswick. She moved to Tampa a few years ago, and married a guy I knew just a little. Seemed like a really good guy. They work in the beer biz. Tampa has a lot going on in that realm these days. It always did, of course, what with the Busch Brewery and Busch Gardens. But the craft thing has moved there.

This girl and I dated for a while. I mean, we met at appointed times and places in what would generally be described as dates. Things never got romantic but for a little while at least she seemed like she wanted them to. She made comments about age differences and how they make lasting relationships impossible. That was not directed at me, and in fact I sensed later that she wanted to retract that comment after she got to know me better. I think she’s about 35 or 36 now. I see her brother around AsLIC once in awhile.

And then I’ll see Phil, who was in New York… I guess that was over 2 years ago now. Maybe 3. He always sounds so busy.

I’ll be sleeping in my childhood bedroom. I have no nostalgia for my youth, or for anything else. No regrets either, mind you. Who has time for those? I mean I sometimes wonder what might have been had I not been such an asshole toward the girl whose name I can’t remember now. She was, without question, the most beautiful girl at school. And she had everything going on. Straight A student, everybody liked her, not a shred of arrogance about her. I concluded well after the opportunity had passed that she had considered asking me to go to the big dance. I forget what it was called but it was the one where the girls asked the boys to go. Sadie Hawkins? I realized after she asked another guy to go that she had been sizing me up, interviewing me in a way, to see if I liked her or if I’d make a suitable date for this event. And I clearly remember that, for whatever reason, I was kind of a jerk toward her. If I knew she was thinking about asking me maybe things would have been different. But as it happened I think I just exhibited my aversion to painfully beautiful women. What do they need with me?… I must have thought.

I ended up going with a Greek girl. At the dance it so happened that the girl who I think wanted to ask me to go was voted something like Prom Queen or Homecoming Queen. She took the award as an absolute triumph, weeping alost uncontrollably. A stunning triumph to her but one that seemed like a no-brainer to all observers. She was just that awesome.

Well, whatever might have come of anything with her is for nought. When I was a junior in college my mother, without calling ahead of time to warn me, sent a newspaper article which reported that this woman had been killed in a plane crash. It was a small plane piloted by someone she knew. The account of the slow, minutes-long spiral of the plane was horrifying, as it revealed she had to know the entire time she was doomed. The story, which even included her picture, ended with a list of names familiar to me from school. These were classmates whose roles had now been appended with words like “pall bearer” and “honor guard”. It was unbelievably sad. I kept that newspaper clipping in my desk drawer for years, but have no idea where it might be now.

If I sound wistful for this woman I am not. I mean, she was a Perfect Person. Too perfect for me. I’m going to look her up a yearbook when I get to Tampa.

…

I got an e-mail from Alan, a presenter at the BBC who interviewed me at some length a number of years ago. I forgot about the segment until about a year ago, when someone at another web site made reference to it and mentioned me by name, saying it was a “cool interview” with me. The series, called “Don’t Hang Up”, revolved around Alan calling phone boxes around the UK with the intent of talking to whoever answered. Some of the calls were quite poignant, but listening in on them I can only feel the weight of how many countless hours he spent just listening to phones ringing off in the countryside. He has since moved on to calling people at random via the Internet. I actually thought of him a couple of weeks ago when, for the first time since I’ve had the number, I got an out of the blue call at my Skype account. I’ve used that number for years, mostly to record street sounds and buskers through payphones, but have never used it for any other type of incoming calls.

Alas, this call was robospam. But it had me thinking how electric it would be if someone like Alan had been calling, fishing for souls.

So in response I detailed some of the ways I had managed to use these new LinkNYC monoliths for random contacts. My solution, if I say so myself, is rather ingenious. But I won’t detail it here, since I don’t want anyone who might experience my form of “reaching out” to know I am the one doing it. I had not touched that little project in a long time but revisiting it makes me want to do so.

And, coincidentally, I finally watched the CBS segment last night. I was showing it off to some friends at the bar, who genuinely were positively impressed. Keeping my exposure to it at a distance we watched it without sound. I looked fine. This subject came about when one of the two friends said she went to the Letterman show once and they seated her in the very front row. On account of that she said people on the street recognized her, and that this went on for months. I don’t know why she would make that up but it is, I think, a little hard to believe.

Given the context it seemed appropriate to mention my recent appearance, which was followed by no one recognizing me anywhere, though I can’t say I’ve really gone anyplace since then. I know I was recognized a number of times after the first New York Times piece ran back in… was it 1998? No one ever said anything but those looks, those doubletakes were unmistakable. I also looked a lot more dangerous back then, with longer hair and as much of a beard as I could squeeze out of this fat face. A few years later, at Time Inc., I was talking to my newly hired boss when the subject of that story came up. He was unequivocal in his assessment: “That was one of the weirdest stories I have ever seen.” And he did not mean this in any kind of aw shucks or even remotely accommodating way. He really found it disturbing.

Jeez, now I’m wondering why. I mighta looked like a psycho in the accompanying picture but the story seemed pretty tame to me.

Another fond memory is from the second Times story in 2004. A friend from Time Inc., Brian, said he was on a plane waiting for takeoff. He was sitting in an aisle seat. From there he looked up the aisle and saw that every single seat someone had the Times open to that story. That was a better story than the first Times piece, though they both were quite good.

Here I am at the ghetto coffee shop, reminiscing about my past flashes of fame. How pathetic. Actually it’s kinda fun. I was outside the NYPL Main Branch once last year. I saw a guy sitting in a wheelchair, selling his drawings. He had a sign saying he was homeless. I heard him say “I was front page New York Times once. I wanted to say “So was I, pal. So was I.”