After about 25,000 steps walking yesterday I slept well. Without intending to I got to this workplace over an hour early. Now what do I do? The subway was surprisingly crowded for 5:28am. Not even a seat available as there always is on the later trains.
Yesterday I wandered around the Hunters Point South Park Salt Marsh. It’s funny how “South Park” appears in the name of this decidednly non-animated-tv-show location. I made lots of video but it may be too much for me to process. I also recorded my trek up the East River Esplanade and revisited the outside of what was my 5th apartment in New York, on East 78th Street.
Nothing is really happening in my life these days. I walk virtually the entire day when I am not here at this office. Even here I manage to get in 15,000 steps a day, though many times the count does not reflect this because I often fail to keep the phone and its step-tracking mechanism on my person. I walk so much when I could do many other things. But the sweating feels good, and the transit from my constipated apartment to anywhere else seems necessary.
I had been trying to make connections or even friends through some neighborhood groups online but it’s proven futile. One of the “Buy Nothing” groups, which are sometimes described as places where you can make friends or new connections, is anything but. I’ve given things to people and the transactions were so brief I do not think I will recognize those people who I gave stuff to should I ever see them again. The encounters were just “Thanks.” I might still give some stuff away in this way. But it’s proving to be unsatisfying. I also find some of what is being given away to be strangem if not suspicious. Does someone really want or need a stranger’s twice-used stick of deodorant? I can’t complain about the phat headphones I got. But that was unexpected. I was not intending to receive anything from this group but the offer looked too good to ignore, and apparently there were numerous parties who said they would take it but they never showed up.
So after three days of flaneur-esque passages of time I am back at the office where nothing that happens has any meaning to me. It’s a dead-end job that opens no doors. I was assured upon arrival that this was a fast-track position to advancement should you desire that. But I’ve encountered no indications that this is true. I have a lot of anxiety and there is a wellspring of sadness I am trying to ignore. Sadness and a feeling of failure. I’d read somewhere that one way to make a job like this meaningful is to befriend someone at the place. I’ve tried but there’s really no one here I can be real with. There is one dude, kind of a cut-up whose oast, similar to mine, included some barfly years, is sick with a bunch of conditions, including cancer. He’s been out for weeks but our once-easy conversations had trailed off in recent months and started to feel uncomfortable. Another gentleman is very nice, though I detect on occasion a prickly, ready-to-anger undercurrent to his pristine facade. There was one woman I tried to talk to but she seems like a bitter shrew. Hah, I just laughed at what a nice guy I am talking shit like this. It’s out of frustration.
I discovered an old collection of calls I recorded when the free chat lines were still active. I don’t think I ever spoke in those calls but I may have. I’m going to radio-fy them, use them to create another radio station under the WSBJ.com Entertainment Network. New York is a single-party consent state when it comes to recording phone calls, so it’s all legal in that respect. I have not played those calls back lately but I seem to remember discussion confirming that everyone knew the calls were being recorded by whoever owns those things, they just didn’t know I was also doing it. And it’s been a number of years since the calls were made. I doubt anyone involved remembers any of that shit anymore.
There was flash-flooding in a few spots in NYC last night. I live in an area which, according to City information, would basically never flood. There are a couple of ponding spots but the area is just elevated and drained enough that only the most apocalyptic rain condition could cause any kind of flooding. Media makes subway waterfalls and that one spot in Park Slope that always floods make it look like the entire city is underwater but really it’s all very isolated.
Yes, I feel melancholy and alone and sometimes even worse these days. On the Esplanade this week I recalled, with a crunched gut and squeezed brain, the night I came so close to killing myself. I will sometimes snap out of a reverie or a good thought with the memory of how close I came to not being here anymore. My body could do this to itself. I don’t want to but there have been times when it seems too easy to let it happen by mistake. My body my choice.