Mind speeling, reeling, for no reason except morning mental mas, mental stramble. Looked around on the subway car today, express train roaring past stations, stationary light bulbs turned to streaming screams of light. I asked “Where am I? How did I get here?” Questions I’ve asked myself since October, 1990, not continuously but at will, at my leisure. Wait, what? None of that is true. The question is fair enough of anyone, I think, in any circumstance, be it mundane, traumatic, momentous. Mementous? People spell memento wrong. There was a restaurant on Queens Plaza called Momento. A passable greasy spoon for grub despite its awning caked in pigeon shit.  I briefly became enough of a regular there that all the wait staff placed my order before I even sat down. Those are the comfort zones of my days. It’s something I miss about the 181. The angry, sullen workers there knew me by first name, and they respected me. I sat next to the woman on the train today, the one with whom I’ve never shared a word but I know plenty about her. Her tattoos, her mental health struggles, her face. Officially I shouldn’t know what she looks like but I know everything save for the bottoms of her feet. She stays masked up, as do so many people around me. In fact I was just chuckling a bit yesterday about three women who work here. With masks on they all look fundamentally similar. Not identical, mind you, but similar enough that I, without ever speaking to any of them, could be excused for mistaking them all for each other. They are all about 5’2″, long dark hair, baby fat around the butt, and all with a nearly identical gait: spritely, purposeful, the walk of someone with places to go, people to see, hearts to break. They all looked cute to me. I would guess they were Italian, which I say based only on their physical resemblance to the Italian woman I so earnestly boned last year, from around February to May. That resemblance feeds nothing into my observations about these women except for the presumption of Italian heritage. As for that, and as for the notion that all three of these women resemble themselves, well, all that went away when the masks started coming off. It’s amazing what a difference a mouth makes. One woman looks 20 years older than I might have guessed. Another looks about how I had imagined, with a certain perturbed chagrin permanently locked and lorded. Another is, dare I say, staggeringly beautiful, with a thick European-sounding accent and contoured cheeks that make her every spoken word look like searching, introspective pursuit. Her voice is like magic to me. All told  not one of these women resembles the Italian nutjob from last year, not physically and certainly not in terms of personality. The masks off also revealed some men I’d talked to to look nothing like I ight have expected. Crazy moustachios, no lips, massive lips, pursed lips of seeming paranoid expectation. I, for one, think I look better with a mask. Conversation on Wednesday turned to all kinds of revelatory/confessional outlay. It was what I once read about as a cultural phenomenon of sorts: The Case of the Familiar Stranger. You lay it all out to someone you just met, never knew, and will likely never meet again. The stranger on the Amtrak train. The person stuck in the elevator with you. A dentist waiting room companion, briefly a “companion” as you share the wait, an unexpected commonality that leads to opening up all anxieties and concerns with no consequence because you will never meet again. You will suffer no silent treatment, no demotion or loss of credits earned across months of relationship-building. For me I think anyone could be a stranger. Everyone is a stranger. This woman and I had it all for just a day, I told secrets I’m still unwilling to publish under my real name. She did the same but asked a lot more questions than what she revealed. We planned for blowjobs at the cemetery and handjobs at her church. It may still come to pass but if it does not I feel released with the afternoon’s expulsion of sexual desires and goals. Our connection destructed. I communicate almost entirely through self-destructing interfaces now. There is no trace of any correspondences with the Italian woman, for instance, not the Japanese kleptomaniac from pre-pandemic (and a little bit beyond). I never knew until she had been deported and was on her way to the airport that she was a compulsive shoplifter, and a real pain in the ass for Flushing-area storeowners and ICE. I also learned, when changing sheets a couple of weeks later, that she was a bedwetter. I’d say I know how to pick ’em but she and the Italian woman pursued me like it was their assigned duty in life. I said it then I’ll say it again, I don’t know what these women half my age see in someone like me. But I wasn’t going to say no, even though I probably should have. In the end I did say no to the Italian. I sometimes regret letting  her go but I don’t care. Life is long and there are beautiful women awaiting my vigors. Where am I? Why did I get here? Why did I voluntarily and of my own volition accept this assignment, this duty? I’M HERE. I’M HERE. HERE I AM. I SAY THIS WHEN I AM HERE ON THIS SPOT BUT ALSO WHEN I AM OVER THERE. HOW CAN I BE THERE WHEN HERE IS HERE, AND BEING THERE IS HERE? IF HERE IS THERE AND THERE IS HERE THEN WHERE IS NOWHERE? I WANT TO BE NOWHERE. IS THAT REALLY WHERE THIS IS? AM I NOWHERE? WHERE AM I? I’M HERE NOW. I’M WITH ME NOW. This is some of the singsong memoryshit that still churns up from a bad relationship that ended in… was it 2016? The years all run together but the crutch of our relationship was the stuffed animals. We anthropomorphized them, treated them like our children, like family. It was fun at first but got out of control. I still have a large bag filled with Wookiees, Angry Birds, random stuffed animals and plastic toys. I could donate it all to a daycare center near me.