I had a sinus infection for maybe 10 days. It is gone but the lingering side-effect of clogged hearing endures. I feel nearly deaf. This will pass I just have to get it taken care of since i cannot seem to deal with it myself. I am hearing so much music inside my head, the Musical Ear Syndrome phenomenon that some people do not believe exists. It does exist and the inside of my head today is a whole lot of poeple singing, chanting, clapping hands and playing drums. Another side effect, one that I was actually able to take care of, was yesterday’s skull crushing headache, which rose up out of nowhere while I was (harmless, I thought) eating strawberries. Nearly blinded by the pain I slipped across the street to 55 URBAN MARKET and got 2 of the Advil’s marked for sinuses. Those things worked wicked fast. I went from virtual migraine to peaceful in less than 45 minutes. I never take those kind of pills, though. This is the first time in I don’t know how many years I took a pain killer. It did not restore my hearing, though. Some kind of drainage needs to occur for that to happen.
…
4pm and I face the seemingly enviable dilemma of having nothing to do here at the workplace. It happens sometimes, at most workplaces, I would assume. But I’m not calm. I take idleness as a curse, or a stigma, or an albatross. My poor hearing situation is making me insane. And joy, I lose another hour sleep tonight as I continue to transition into the new work schedule. Tomorrow may suck. I don’t know.
I meant to scope out the E train station at the World Trade Center. I might be able to use that on weekends, it turns out. I don’t know if the E regularly goes through Steinway Street on weekends but it did today and I should have taken it, it might have been 10 or more minutes faster than the R, which has the advantage of leaving me right at the elevator that goes to the passage way to Fulton Center. I do not have to cross Broadway this way, which had been key for me because the bikes on Broadway have no regard for human life. But then I discovered that people actually bikle and scoot in that passageway connecting the Oculus to Fulton Center, creating a potentially even more dangerous scenario should they skid and slip on that non-traction-friendly surface.
SOmetimes when anxieties are fueled like this and I can find nothing useful to do I pick up the phone and leave myself a voicemail, like in the Payphone Radio days. That would almost always ease my mind somewhat, make me see that my troubles are not that furious. Typing does not seem to have that effect anymore. Did it ever? Or did it just expand the circle of white’s center of attention?
A somewhat interesting interaction occurred last week. Crossing 31st Street on a busy, crowded night, I spotted a cell phone on the road. It seemed, to co-opt a term from biology, freshly dropped. The screen was still on as if it had been in mid-use.
I debated if I wanted to make this my problem. I have had many satisfying and, yes, even joyful encounters with people with who I was able to reunite their cell phones. I remember one guy who simply could not have been happier if it was his wedding day, or if he had jusst welcomed his first born.Another guy was kind of a thug, saying “Fuck, man, I appreciate the fuck out of this.” But he was appreciative.
I thought about picking this one up, imagining the ensuing hour or so it mi ght take to connect with the phone’s owner and arrange pickup. I was too tired for this. Yet I followed my instinct and began to choreograph the maneuver to pick this thing up without disturbing the flow of a busy pedestrian troop.
Alas, as I had sensed from the start, there was competition. A man much taller than I knelt down and grabbed the phone, pitching it into his bag or coat piocket, I don’t remember which. Something about the gruffness of his gesture suggested to me that his intent was not to reunite the phone with whoever lost it. I think he intended to keep it or hold it for exortion or something opposite of what I woul dhave attempted.
Not my problem, right? In this mment what are my responsibilities? For all I know the phone could actually be his, though the circumstances made that unlikely. Was it somehow on me to ask him what he intended to do with that phone, which was none of my business? He did not look like a nice guy. I did not need to talk to him.
I entered the nearby liquor store and thought we had parted ways. Not quite. He checked in to the shop and, seeming to be a regular there, got his usual shots of something from behind the counter and quickly left the place.
At this moment I noticed a woman in front of me, interrupting herself mid-sentence, to ask her boyfriend “Where’s my phone?” He made a glib response, to which she continued, in a blood-curdling, spine-snapping tone of voice, “No, really, where the fuck is my phone?” The boyfriend seemed blissfully aloof to her suddenly growing crisis. She rifled through her bag with a sudden spastic energy, not finding the phone and announcing “I’m going back outside.”
At this point, what did I have? Nothing useful? I could tell her that I suspect I saw the dude who picked up your phone on 31st Street under the el. Is that useful? I could have added that the dide had just been in the store, standing not 3 feet away from her before he left the place. Is that useful? I don’t think so. Anything that drew me into this little drama was unnecessary and would have provided no useful or concrete information to pursue.
She would most likely be out of luck. The dude who grabbed her phone did not seem like the sort who might stand around at the spot where he found it awaiting the person who lost the phone. I wouldn’t do that myself since it would make it look like I stole the phone.
I exited the liquor store and looked around for both of them, the woman who lost her phone and the dude I had reasonably good reason to assume had found it. Part of me imagined a gleeful scenario in which they somehow connected with each other and reveled in the magic of kismet that brought her phone back to her through his largesse and magnanamy of consideration.
I saw neither of them, but noticed as her boyfriend emerged from the store, laughing about something. This was totally not my problem, but I suspected it was about to become his. That sound in her voice, how abruptly it changed from what I only passively overheard as congenial chitchat to a certain kind of horror, exposure (the phone appeared to have no passcode), and a gut-thieving loss.
I have absolved myself of any responsibility in this. I had no useful information and would only have made matters more irritating by offering up useless observations: I saw your phone on the street. Who cares? I think I saw who picked it up? Who cares? Maybe these observations would have offered some kind of solace to her but I don’t see how.