Sometimes I forget that people know who I am. A certain level of microcelebrity precedes me, and this causes anxiety at times because I’m out here trying to be invisible. Today I heard from two people who I don’t think I’ve ever encountered. They both seemed well aware of my payphone work, or whatever you want to call it. I responded as best I could, which I actually thought was pretty thorough. One person asked if I knew where the rotary dial payphones were still hanging on in New York. I pointed him to the King Penny payphone on Ditmars, and a couple of others that I’ve heard about from connections. Then someone else asked if I knew anything about Philadelphia payphones. He’s going to film a short scene in Philadelphia this weekend and wanted to know if I had any particular phone that I adored. Um, not really, but I did point him to where the phones I saw there 3 years ago were located. I also contacted another filmmaker, who lives in Philadelphia, to see if she remembers the location of an outdoor Airlight phone booth she sent me a photo of about a year ago. She was amazed to spot it since it was right around the corner from her apartment, where she has lived for many years. She filmed me a couple of times over the last year and a half, once as part of a documentary where payphones serve only as a starting point for broader conversation. The other time she filmed me at Crescent and Broadway, where I was given the gift of an actual payphone by someone who had a owned a route but was clearing his inventory. It was a strange transaction.

But the Philadelphia inquiry had me looking through the photos I took there in August of 2015. There was a lot of stuff I’d forgotten about but I knew what awaited. Photos of my ex-gf. This was the worst trip we ever went on, but yet I’d say we made the best of it. The anger coming from her, when it was not overwhelming to me, was constantly percolating, threatening to emerge. Upon arrival at 30th Street I got screamed at so fucking hard I could not even get a response in. If we didn’t have the uncancelable hotel reservation and if we were not in another city I would have just gone home and left her there. It was the kind of incident that would have been the last straw for any normal guy. But unlike normal guys I have patience and a capacity for empathy, and if that sounds like a positive character trait I find that it makes me vulnerable to abusive relationships. This was an embarrassingly public display of anger, humiliating, and what has never failed to mystify me is how it happened over something that simply did not matter.

So sifting through those pictures in search of payphone locations I found the ones with her in them. Man, she was cute. She really was. I never felt comfortable saying things like that, not with her and not with any woman I’ve been with. I called D. beautiful but she disputed this, saying she would allow me to call her “cute”. It’s not like I was traumatized by this but I never tried to compliment her on her looks ever again. I’ve never been at ease making comments that could be interpreted as impugning the more important elements of a woman’s character.

So between strangers contacting me as the payphone expert they seem to think I am, and with memories not just of the incident in Philadelphia but the real last straw that occurred a few weeks later, I found myself plunged into an anxiety spiral like none in recent memory. I didn’t want to take the panic pills because I’m meeting friends at a bar tonight, and I can’t drink after taking the pills. So I let it spin into a fucking sandstorm in my head. My mind goes white when this happens. I went to a payphone and called in a version of these comments, for posting to the radio stream. I thought calling it in would weaken the anxiety but it had no effect. I was sweating some, and shaking.

To distract myself I did something I’d been meaning to do. I called 311 to report the fact that none of the LinkNYC machines are capable of making phone calls. It’s been like this for three or four days, and my interest in getting it fixed isn’t just to give the company a hard time or make them look bad. I want to show the Gothamist reporter in person how my street theater is done, and I obviously can’t do that if I can’t make a fucking phone call. They did not block my number. I can’t call any number from any of those things, and neither can anybody else. I told the 311 operator that it was lucky I was able to find a working payphone. She laughed some, but she didn’t seem to know what LinkNYC was. I don’t expect 311 operators to know everything but it was all good. She seems to have filed the report with my exact words, which should be clear enough. But seriously, how can the company be unaware that the network is completely unable to make phone calls?

I also intended to call 311 from another payphone, to report that it rejects any coins I put into it. It’s been like that for many months. But it’s across from Ravenswood, and of late there is a virtually continuous presence of restless dudes hanging around there with nothing to do but stand by the fucking payphone. They’re not using the phone because they can’t, at least not for coin-paid calls. But I should be able to get to 311, since no coin is required for the call. They just have to get out of my way.

So I’m slowing down from what felt like a spin cycle. Going out in a little bit. Maybe lay off the booze again. Or maybe not.