This is neat. I’m using a screen magnifier that turns my cell phone into an 18” display. This phone is, in fact, souped up with specs that are better than my desktop. So this is almost like having a regular laptop. A poor man’s laptop, I guess. I’m taking this to work tomorrow to try and impress a woman I’ve been flirty with, and who I think has been flirty in return. She’s cute and, unlike most of my recent experiences, she’s not half my age.
A reason this screen magnifier matters is that when the screen is at normal small size I make a lot of typos and such because I can’t see it clearly Often I fix those typos when I get home but sometimes I forget. This at least lets me see the screen and catch errors.
I wasted this day, I guess. Or maybe not. I found another piano lying about on Astoria Boulevard. This was not as impressive as a previous find, which comprised two grand pianos lying there in the fall foliage as if they belonged. In fact I almost didn’t see this one, as it blended in with the surroundings better than those grands. This piano was gnarly out of tune but as an instrument it was at least playable.
The piano was salvageable but I can see where people would illegally dump pianos in this manner. Proper disposal through a private carter is expensive. Dumping it in these random spots leaves the job to City Sanitation.
With more imagination I guess you could dump them into the East River, or a lake.
I ended up on Orchard Street for no good reason. Someone had told me there was a monstrous infestation of rats afflicting the outdoor dining shacks along that narrow street. I believe them but spotted no evidence of rats today. I think they said the problem is worst at night, which makes sense. Still, it’s been colder and I would have thought they’d all gone into hibernation by now.
From there I wandered aimlessly, remembering when Allen Street and the Bowery used to be such a scary area, or ay least that is what I was led to believe. Just one street after another, 1st street to 14th, with minimal payphone detail save for confirming that the phones at the Union Square Jobs Center are in fact no longer working. I also passed by the 14th Street subway phones and left my radio cards. Sometime within the past several months one of those cards stayed in place on that phone for at least 3 weeks.
I was feeling melancholy, as I tend to get this time of year. I’ll be working all through the holidays and feel no connection to the spirit of the season. I’m too poor to buy anyone anything but I do have a surprise for the woman who sells me vodka. She calls me “Mr. Snoopy” because of my Peanuts-themed t-shirts. So I bought her Snoopy pin/refrigerator magnet. She’ll like it. I call her “Ms. Happy” because she is impossibly joyful, her life (as much as I see of it) lived in a state of perma-glee.
On 4th Avenue I saw that someone had taken precious time out of their life to post the word “BOOBIES” in their apartment window. Why ask why…?
I’m at a coffee shop where I sometimes leave my radio calling cards on the rack set aside for local businesses and whoever to leave their cards. Last time I left 2 cards. Today one remains and upon my arrival it was turned at a 45-degree angle. Someone had handled it, picked it up, considered it, contemplated, asked wtf, then put it back down with enough hastiness to perhaps not notice or care that it was laterally disheveled. I set it up straight. Good for me.
OK, this screen magnifier is cool but I gotta get outta here. The at-work flirtation notwithstanding I might have something else going on closer to home. I am contentedly at a place in life where I honestly don’t care if women I’m interested in like me or not. Rejection does nothing to me now.
