I don’t think about her as much as it might seem from these morning rattlings, but the timing does align with her brief, puzzling presence in my present day. She is there, or not there, or there by not being there.

Today I revisited a callow attempt at meltdown, a sugar-energized swish of brain that made it seem unstoppable that something I did outside the routine that brings us together in this space of text, something out of the script and seemingly ad libbed would not just get her attention but rock her world into a senseless quake, a thundersnipe that bites her like a crackling bath towel across her face. 

Today’s effort in this realm failed on account of non-appearance. I think she would have been on the next train. But my game was to board the train before our usual 36th Avenue, and already be on the train when she boarded there. This would shake her to the core, disrupting every sense of serenity and comportment there could have been between us, still officially strangers but I at least know far too much about her to feel like a stranger. 

Strange little theaters we attend, and star in. I imagine her stopping in her tracks, assessing the consequences and implications of the fact that I was already on the train ahead of our usual shared entry at the same spot. She might think I had a dalliance, a conjugal encounter. She might think I moved, and that our passages would become less frequent, or they would change in substance and aloofness.

In reality she would not react in any visible or describable way. Nothing would happen. The theater would be empty of actors and audience.

…

I do this funny-to-me thing. With the LinkNYC machines you can summon a Video Relay service intended for allowing deaf and mute people to communicate with others via a sign-language  interpreter. Sometimes I activate this service just to see who’s there. Someone, usually looking very happy and welcoming, appears almost instantly, a live person on this curbside piece of street furniture. The dream of the video call is here, and it is on the sidewalks of New York City.

Mostly I just summon the video relay interpreters and walk off, hoping someone else will take note of this odd presence of a live video feed of an actual human being on this curbside piece of street furniture. Their faces can look puzzled, concerned, delighted… I don’t know what circumstance leads to what disposition in these individuals but it’s interesting to deposit them into this unexpected square of space. They get paid by the minute so I don’t feel like I’m wasting anyone’s time, at least not completely. 

On Sunday, at the Fulton Mall, I summoned one of these Video Relay translators. She drew the attention of a family of 4, with two young girls trying to understand what they were looking at, and why their own faces were seen on the screen. When you connect to the video really the screen splits, with you on top and the translator on bottom. There is, as widely remarked, a camera just over the tablet screen, and it works, despite lies from CityBridge claiming they were never activated and could never capture your face without consent. 

So by connecting to a video relay translator on this one machine I kicked off a fascination among these little kids, staring into the screen and waving at the interpreter, who likely had limited idea what was going on. I don’t know if they are made aware that their service is offered from New York City sidewalks.

Maybe it is something only I could appreciate, or find amusing. 

..

I feel fine today. I think. Woke up at 2:56am with a savage boner. After checking the time I went back to sleep, jamming the discomfortable erection into a soft sheet where I could not feel it against me. It went away and I slept solid right up until 6am. Sheets and blankets were a bit of a mess, as happens in the bed of a sleep thrasher. 

I rediscovered an old jacket I forgot I still had. It’s the one I wore at the beginning of the 3-year abusive relationship. It was replaced with a Christmas gift jacket that has tattered and decayed over the years. I never liked that jacket but saying so would result in anger and rage, so I pretended it was the greatest jacket ever even when it obviously was not. 

Overhearing people talk about bone cancer. Now colon cancer. Cancercancercancer.

Gotta go.