With the cold being what it is I’m not getting my hour-long daily constitutional like I usually do. I made it as far as the Trade Fair today but couldn’t deal with the elements. I did something that made me feel good, though. I said “Happy New Year” to strangers passing by. Most responded in kind, in that rare spirit of camaraderie that everyone can agree on. Last time I felt that was on Eclipse Day, when for that brief span of time everyone came together around something innocuous, even meaningless in universe of things, but beautiful in its singularity. New Years is, I think, the one holiday everyone can agree on. It is not entirely without its historical and cultural biases but on balance it is a politically free reason for people to come together.

I think of 2000 once in a while, when it was like New Years celebrations were on steroids. Almost every nation in the world got its chance to take the stage to show off something unique about itself. It was like a worldwide Parade of Nations that is done at the Olympics, but without the inevitable infusion of politics that linger over the games.

This was a New Years of nothing in particular for me. I ended up sleeping until 2pm, which is stupid, but it was not on account of partying ’til the sun appeared. I don’t know why I slept so long.

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OK, I went out in the cold anyway, with layers like I don’t remember ever wearing in New York. It is cold enough to be dangerous, as the grim discovery of the 39-year old woman in Flatbush indicates. There will probably be no media follow up to that story but I’d be interested to know exactly what happened there. I get a sense from just walking around that the cold impairs some people’s ability to think straight. I start feeling some mental tailspin myself and have to wonder what goes through the minds of those delivery dudes on their illegal e-bikes and motorcycles. They always drive like assholes but it seems like they get especially brazen when rolling through these kind of elements.

I went to college in Ohio, so I know what cold is. You never really get used to it. Holy hell, though, I overheard someone yesterday saying that she had just returned from the Polar Plunge at Coney Island. I don’t know why she would make it up but I looked for it online and found only references to the Polar Bear Plunge, which was today. She said she did this yesterday. Maybe it was a WARMUP. Haha. Or maybe she just did it on her own. She said her feet still felt like they might fall off. I don’t think I would ever do that but I can see where that might be on someone’s bucket list. I’d like to go skydiving but jumping into that kind of cold water sounds like it could be lethal. As if jumping out of an airplane couldn’t be…

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I started writing a podcast piece called “Sally’s House”. Sally never existed. She will be a composite of real and imagined people I’ve known, with only the more positive and/or innocuous characteristics drawn from real people. That’s how fiction works, right? In the story Sally seemed like she should be a horrible person. She is unabashedly hypergamous but a complete failure in all her attempts to marry into money. She could joke about it but only when she was drunk or fucked up on cocaine.

Actually, reading over what I already wrote I think I might take a pass on “Sally’s House”. Not enough truth in it for me to make it believable. Wait, what?

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Looking at pictures from my trip to Tampa and thinking damn, I grew up in one ugly ass area. I guess the parks and such are passable, Hamner Tower in particular is quite nice, but so much of the surrounding area looks like architectural roadkill. The subdivision where I grew up actually isn’t all bad, but some of the older properties look like shit today. Actually I’m going to make this a separate story here.