Instead I got two huge swatchs of meat, the kind of sausage you might get from a street vendor. I said nothing to object, but thought about how I was going to be eating for a long time and that made it lucky that I got here earlier than expected.
I couldn’t do it. This “meat” was more burn than beef. Like eating pieces of charcoal. The omelette was fine but the sausage had me thinking those somber, sorry words: “BAD FOOD.”
It reminded me of the times I simply could not figure out what I was doing wrong in cooking pork chops. The chops looked fine but anything I did had them come out rubbery and tough, like eating a wad of rubber bands. In anger I’d say “THIS IS BAD FOOD.”
In those days of my attempted culinary masterfulness I kept alternative FOOD on hand, typically frozen stuff. I resorted to it frequently enough — on account of failing to create GOOD FOOD — that I finally just gave up on the effort, settling for whatever is easiest.
The therapist I talked to a couple of months ago called me out on this without me even saying anything remotely connected to the subject. He said “You don’t like food, do you?” I concurred. He had me figured out on some levels but I think he was surprised on others.
I said something like “I like that it keeps me alive but otherwise it’s a pain in the ass.”
That was an amazing meeting with that analyst, btw. I left shaking.
…
Looking out the window over Platt Street. Pigeons flapping from windowsills to rooftop decks. A child jumping up and donw in what looks like a well-furnished corner office. I guess it is “Take Your Child To Work” on this Saturday.
THat looks like the corner office I had at the old Time & Life Building. A couch, an easy chair, a bookcase. Oh, and a desk. I had a love-hate thing with that office, but whatever I felt of it at the time I sure as hell do not miss it now.
…
I just learned that in New York City dialing 988 will not send you to the national suicide/crisis center. It will send you to NYC Well, one of Di Blasio’s little pet projects that his wife managed. I’m not sure if that is a good thing, but then I don’t know what 988 will get you now anywhere else.
I used to call 1-800-SUICIDE on occasion. This was never at those times I was seriously contemplating the act. At the times I was that close to following through the last thing I had in mind was to pick up a phone.
I tried NYC Well. I don’t remember all of what I expelled onto that person who answered but I did talk of the times I came as close as I ever will. She seemed to take me seriously until I got to the part of the story where, after trying and failing, I started to relish and savor the sensation of being alive. Everything felt magical and new, from the innards to the taste of jelly beans to the guileless, innocent, harmless joy of masturbation.
When I got to that suddenly the NYC Well counselor started talking, fast and furious. CLearly uncomfortable, and possibly thinking this was all an elaborate prank (it was not) she asked for my zip code and referred me to a bunch of I-don’t-know-whats, therapists or doctors of some sort.
I was, genuinely, trying to let someone out there know that I was OK, feeling alive again. But I think she thought it was just a prank, that I wanted to riff on a subject that I guess made her very uncomfortable.
I mean, that was my interpretation of the encounter. The telephoneic encounter.
I made the call from a Staten Island Ferry terminal payphone.
