This Rogue’s Town . . .

It is often in tragedy that brilliance is forged; not brilliance at it goes towards intelligence, or brilliance in the "jolly good, that’s brilliant!" sense but something more . . . luminescent, something that really edifies the spirit, that allows it to pass more ceaselessly through the challenges at hand and the encumberances it would otherwise shoulder.  That’s the type of brilliance I’ve had to embrace this week with brutal, blinding clarity.  And while I certainly welcome it whatever the circumstances, this brilliance-per-tragedy unfortunately does not prevent you in any way from all the while doing the mind-numbingly stupid. 

Like, say, heading into Midtown rush hour traffic yesterday on the bike . . . WITH ONLY ONE CONTACT.  Let it be known that I’m perilously myopic without my lenses and, unfortunately, biking with glasses is not an option for me.  And surely there are times when a little loss of depth perception never really harmed anyone.  Of course, not anyone is going to try to turn against the right of way into oncoming traffic regardless of how many pedestrians are in the intersection. 

In any event, I should be fortunate that the gentleman whose Nissan smashed up my front tire didn’t accelerate any further.  Otherwise, I might have found myself ass first in the median in the middle of EAST 34TH STREET!!! I guess I should also be fortunate that the bike shop was a mere four storefronts away when this happened and that they were able to replace the wheel almost instantly . . . to the tune of $213.  Fortune favors the bold . . . if by bold, you mean "not stupid". 

The spirit of the moment was best captured in the phone conversation that followed with Melissa:

H: So, you’re not gonna believe what happened

M: What?

H: Bikey got smashed up

M: (GASP) HOW?!

H: Well I was trying to turn onto third avenue, and because there’s so much contruction on 34th street you can’t use the bike lane.  And the light turned as I was trying to make the turn, but I had to cut across both lanes of traffic in order to do so because I was biking down the median.  Then the car at the front of the lane accelered. hiting me at low speed, but enough to completely smash up the front tire. So, I walked the bike over to Sid’s and . . .

M: What a minute.  I don’t understand what you’re telling me . . .

H: Sigh . . . okay, it’s

M: ARE YOU FUCKING TELLING ME YOU GOT HIT BY A CAR?!!

H: Sigh . . . yes

M: Jesus christ, Hani . . . I can barely handle any more external drama in your life, let alone yourself

True dat. 

A couple of hours later, I went in to see Jeff.  There was no one else there in his room.  He had the breathing tube removed from his mouth a few days back and now is breathing through his throat.  I told him about the bike. 

"I got hit by a car today, Jeff", I said, "I guess it’s the new black."

And today, I got a ding letter from the firm I sacrificed two entire years of my life too; whom I figured would do me the common courtesy of sending their "Thanks, but no thanks" via email. 

Fucking brilliant . . .

Hospitals have amazing views, I’m quickly learning.  Take Rush-Presbyterian in Chicago, where my mom was admitted a few weeks back.  Her room overlooked an atrium strangely evocative of an Embassy Suites, complete with a lessee Au Bon Pain where a more ordinary comissary would otherwise be.  The bereaved, concerned, related, well-wishing can feast on assorted bisques and sandwiches baked in parchment while they wait their turn for visitation.  But around the corner from her room is a series of windows looking east towards the skyline. 

Chicago is a decidedly tractile city; it’s principle approaches run North and South.  Lying West is an endless mass stretching on into infinite prairie while East is functionally non-existant; a lake.  There otherwise would be nothing to see from the East save for endless freshwater and, on a clear day, the Indiana Dunes.  Unless, of course, you happen to already be West; standing somewhere perilously between hustle and hearth.  There, at least from the hospital, a beneficiary of decades of careful slum-clearing, you can see the complete sweep of the city from the West: a three-pronged skyline anchored by buildings known more by their sobriquets than their actual names.  Signifying the North Side is "Big John", the John Hancock Tower, broad-sloped and gregarious; a gaggle of upscale residential towers and hotels begging for the privilege to be so associated.  In the middle, "Big Stan", officially now the AON Center, nee Amoco, nee Standard of Indiana.  More understated than Big John, it has the advantage of a more prime lakefront/parkside location.  Its gaze is panoptic: taking in the entire city and not just component parts thereof.  It doesn’t get along well with the folks on the street.  Best known among the three is the unembelished Sears Tower; a close cousin to Big John.  Sears is the most out of place of the three, and the city’s symbolic gateway to its long-blighted South Side.  Sears has often struck me as particularly lonely; a purely corporate edifice with no endearing qualities of its own other than pure, aggrandizing mass.  For this, I suppose, it has no true nickname.  The irony of all of this-greatly reduced depending on how much you know about Chicago-is that neither John Hancock, Sears, nor the successor in interest to Amoco are located in either of these buildings, but they are so clep’t all the same.  Here, from this hospital window, is Chicago: a city that thrives on familiarity where the substance might otherwise fall short. 

Manhattan’s Bellevue is no less gifted in this regard.  Occupying a superblock of medical facilities on the East Side of Manhattan, its principle structure is an 18-storey cube taking in views of Midtown, Queens, Brooklyn, Downtown, the entire Island.  I was telling my friend Jeff tonight how lucky he was to have this view from his room, from where you could see all of uptown from the Empire State Building on Upwards.  He heard me, I have no doubt about that.  I also told him that he might want to take the opportunity to look around the corner of the floor, where the rooms face the East River.  Manhattan bends ever-so-slightly just north of 23rd Street.  Before I started detouring my runs down Ave C., I took the path that led through Corlears Hook, past the ConEd Station and through that park they so unfortunately named for John Lindsay.  He was mayor when they built the hospital.  His name is on a giant plaque by the information desk, along with that of Abe Beame, the man who replaced him to equally disastrous effect and Percy Sutton, the man who sought to replace Beame.  Before you even get to the ICU, you’ve got a mini-political history of this mad, mettlesome, extravagant city.  But up here, Jeff will see something decidedly more placid: a city that sparkles, a city in constant motion.  A city as much at home in Long Island City as it is on Sutton Place, both stretches connected by the massive illuminated steel trusses of the Queensboro Bridge.  I ran across that Bridge, it hurt so much.

There will be a view from this floor of Bellevue, from which the city is no longer linear, where Uptown literally unfolds: one block peaking out past the other.  The U.N. complex, still stunningly austere for all its midcentury kitsch, anchors this view; an elegant marble slab signifying all that is wrong, right, and mad about this world. And down below on the FDR, downtown heads wearily home to Uptown, Westchester, Nassau, Suffolk dare I say. Here from this hospital window, Jeff, is New York: OUR New York, all that is right, wrong and mad about this world.  The birthplace of my dreams, the proving ground for my mettle, the repository for all my hopes, the mise-en-scene for every heartache, triumph, and countertriumph that have defined my callow, insignificant life up to this point.  The place where I met you.  You’ll love the view when you get to see it, of this I am sure. 

I came as soon as I heard; I’m not telling that for you to know, but to make sense of the situation.  The initial phone call from a partial stranger, the follow-up email. What i did afterwards was pretty inconsequential: suiting up to pay you a visit a few blocks.  Even seeing you, hooking up to so . . . so many . . . machines . . . my only emotional references point the first three episodes of The Sopranos this season . . . it still didn’t hit me.  Here was Jeff, quiet for once; all that is wrong, right, and mad about the world. 

I’ve come home now, a few blocks away.  On my desk is sheet of scratch-paper; the back of what used to be a ding-letter. Clifford Chance, not the firm I interviewed with Friday morning when we last spoke.  It’s a few random scribbles, all leading up to write now.  Notes from the phone conversation I had with that partial stranger/friend of yours.  Scattered thoughts, nouns, sentence fragments like:

Coma

Friday night

Hit by a drunk driver

30th and 5th

@ Bellevue

Broken bones

Head trauma

Actor’s Federal Credit Union

Actor’s Fund

raising money

visitors are welcome

11:00-8:00

Mother (I remember you said her name is Marge) in town

His brothers, Ric and Greg

10th Floor

I worry about the awkwardness because we know none of the same people, but I have met a few tonight and we have become fast friends.  I might have mentioned how this is not the first ICU I’ve had to spend time in in the past month.  Of course, you already knew that.  Otherwise, you wouldn’t have checked in with me last week so ask how she’s doing.  Better, I will find out this week.  It’s a heavy time for me, Jeff.  I’m being tested in ways I often feel I’m not built to handle.  Yet not once have I asked myself in the past few hours, "Why now?" as I had nearly every moment I was in Chicago.  Not once have I pondered placing this into the greater drama of my life.  I have, for once, suspended, my bottomless capacity for self-pity.  Maybe one day I’ll understood why you were able to do that for me.  And I might not tell you about it, because you won’t have to know.  Right now, I just want you to wake up, so you can at least enjoy the view. 

I learned a very important lesson yesterday morning about running a 4-miler in the middle of a torrential downpour: just because it seemed novel and interesting the first time you did it two years ago doesn’t mean it’s going to be a piece of cake the second go-around.  See, if I’ve learned anything throughout my limited-but wearying-experiences as a strider, it’s that mine is not the type of constitution well-suited for running in the freezing cold.  For all my years in the Upper Midwest, I spent much of them either sedentary or wrapped under layers and layers of down; two things not easily transferable to the sport of running.

I avoid winter races for this reason.  The Brooklyn Half-Marathon I ran last month was probably the earliest race I’ve ever run in NYC.  I’ve avoided alot of Springtime races in the past if weather conditions seemed too nasty but we’re almost approaching May now and there is simply no excuse for waiting for the weather to turn.  Besides, what harm would a little rain do? One of my best early race performances was in the middle of a July downpour at the 2004 Run for Central Park.  Then, I almost blacked out trying to edge out this guy I was keeping pace with up till the finish.  It was the first time they played that awful "Hey Baby" song by D.J. Otzee that has been on continuous rotation at nearly every race since(1).  I remember the final strains of that song, shifting for two bars into an a cappella repeat of the refrain sung by a nodoubt canned chorus.  I remember it, for some reason, and I remember the trees, and the rain, and I remember feeling strangely haunted as I pulled into the last leg at Bethesda Terrace.  And then the guy I thought I’d caught up with nicked me from the side as we both crossed the finished line.  Afterwards, we exchanged totally hetero embraces and congrats before parting our ways.  And it was all bygones from thereon.  Just a little rain, of course.  No harm done. 

Now, mind you, yesterday morning brought an otherwise perfectly seasonable 56 degrees to the adidas Run for The Parks, but the rainfall went from refreshing-to-unbearable by the time I was done with the race.  Worse yet, I had biked up to the race and had to bike back home as the rain fell increasingly more heavy.  By the time I showed up to the UU-to hear what turned out to be a terribly ungratifying lecture about The Innocence Project-I was reduced to a shivering mess of damp running gear which once had clothed a man; teeth chattering relentlessly, and all.  This, unfortunately, did not prevent me from approaching two of the speakers afterwards and initiating a probably unhinged-sounding discussion on New Jersey, prisoner’s rights, and Frank Askin.(2)

Predictably, I was a mess for the three or four short blocks that lay between my apartment and the church: fingers ungloved, freezing.  Teeth chattering.  Hoodie, shoes, warmup pants completely saturated.  And then I had to, as always, drag the damn bike, now slick from the past two hours outdoors up the damn walkup. 

I’ve been under the covers on my couch ever since, my sleep puncuated only by The Sopranos, Big Love, and some interview on PBS of Nikki Giovanni by Pearl Cleage.  It made me feel just terrible for all the awful things I’ve done to black women.  The latter, not the former. 

I feel fine now-about the race, not the interview-but I tell ya if I didn’t already have pneumonia I’m fast on my way.  In fact, I think I’m gonna go be useless now just for the hell of it!

(1) and which I admit lies somewhere between "Here Comes Your Man" and "High Enough" on my iPod. 
(2) not that there’s a particularly hinged manner with which these topics can be discussed. 

I had this link sent to me advancing the highly specious notion that whichever song was No. 1 on the charts on the day you turned 18 would be the theme song to the rest of your life.  I say specious only because I absolutely refuse to believe there’s any cosmological connection between myself and a song like "Macarena", which to be fair was number one for pretty much the entirety of my 18th year on this planet.  This, I suppose, is the risk we all run the charts being what they are. 

And to think that if I’d been born a year later, I’d have been stuck with Elton John’s 1997 version of Candle in the Wind.   

Though I guess I can take some solace in the fact that the number one song on the day I was born was none other than longtime iPod stand-by "Hot Child in the City" by Nick Gilder (whom last I checked, people, is still NOT Pat Benatar). 

***You Are Sunset***

Even though you still may be young, you already feel like you’ve accomplished a lot in life.
And you feel free to pave your own path now, and you’re not even sure where it will take you.
Maybe you’ll pursue higher education in a subject you enjoy - or travel the world for a few years.
Either way, you approach life with a relaxed, open attitude. And that will take you far!

What Time Of Day Are You?
http://www.blogthings.com/whattimeofdayareyouquiz/

I suppose I owe it to the five odd viewers of this blog(1),to provide a break from the typical dirge of high dudgeon and quotidien tragedy around which I usually wind up theming nearly every single online medium I’ve authored.  And though I can’t chalk it up to any kind of upswing in the current circumstances of my life(2), I feel compelled, for the first time in ages, to write a completely non-Hanicentric bitch blog.  You know(3), the kind I used to write as a second year? Back when I’d write about things like how Interpol and Oneida sound so much alike? Pity that blog is offline now, if nothing else but for referential purposes, but no matter. 

So to whom, you may ask, have I chosen to direct my once-vaunted skills of ruthless trenchany? What playas, as it were, are simply asking for a doubleshot of the hate hold the creamer?

Easy, these two shmucks!

First, the backstory: "Voices Among Us" is this public access tv show that airs on RCN cable in Manhattan EVERY DAY at like 5:00 and 8:00 or something totally unneccessary like that.  It has been on the air since the Fall or, at the very least, they began advertising extensively on RCN since.  And those advertisements, OH MY FUCKING GOD!!! Whoever does marketing for these people has apparently not yet emotionally exited the early ’90s(4).  Early ads featured the show’s hosts, Chris Cain and Adelmo Guidarelli, walking around Manhattan in darkened cutaway shots, to the tune of a really awful jingle, a vaguely latin ditty anchored mainly in circa 1991 pre-hip hop r&b.  The lyrics are mostly inaduble except for the following: "VOI-CES AMONG US! HEAR THE MU-SIIC, FEEL THE RHYTHM." before concluding with a voice clip of the hosts singing a few stanzas of opera. 

Ostensibly a show about opera, theatre, music, and performance, the actual production value of the show is not much better than the commercials.  Chris and Adelmo, whom for all I know are probably very talented opera tenors, spend most of the show talking about themselves and how they met and why they’ve decided to do this show, a point which strangely is never made clear.  The general idea seems to be their desire to integrate operatic styles into other forms of pop music. 

To wit, if you like Andrea Bocelli and you’re really really cheap, then you may very well fall head over heels in love with these two!

After spending nearly half the show talking about themselves, they do a performance either of a piece from an opera or an original piece of music of their own.  Cain and Guidarelli both have aspirations towards pop music, and unfortunately they are both sincere in their desire to act on it.  In what I’m still guessing is their pilot, they belt out a very overwrought, trully soul-less song called "When She’s Gone", whose lyrics suggest is more about codependancy than actually dealing with the pain of lost love.  This was followed by a second performance by former Rent castmember Antonique Smith, a singer clearly more at home in R&B and pop than in opera.  She was a strident and almost suffocated-sounding alto for the original piece she performed, whose name I’ve forgotten.  She then followed up her performance with the type of rendition of "All By Myself" you usually only see in the early rounds of "Idol". 

The show is shot entirely with a hand-held camera in what appears to be dark and incredibly cramped quarters.  If it is indeed the case that they are performing from an actual sound studio, it is probably also the case that the applause heard throughout the show is not authentic. 

So, why rip on a show solely on the basis of its pilot episode? Because it’s the ONLY EPISODE THEY AIR! I mean, I may be wrong in this regard; I’ve obviously not a fan and not wont to tuning in again. But I usually only see this show on whenever I happen to be home and it happens to be taking the place of QVC and it’s always the SAME GODDAMN EPISODE! This again, would not be an issue if not for the fact that they continue advertising the damn thing. And not even the same ad mentioned above but a no-less annoying pitch they’ve been using for the past few months.

A blank screen appears, with nothing but the show’s URL (www.voicesamongus.com) appearing onscrean.  Heard in the background is any of a number of different voiceovers, such as:

"It seems you might find our ads a trifle irritating. Indeed. A good over-the counter topical ointment should take care of that real quickly"

But a show that clearly takes itself way too seriously on the air has no business being cheeky in its advertising.  ESPECIALLY, when the tag listed above is the only clever thing they’ve put out so far.  I mean, there’s more, there’s so much more . . . but . . . but . . . losing my breath . . . running out of Haterade . . . and I think I need to lay down. 

(1) Lovely weather, isn’t it?
(2) Picture a reverse-gender, Middle Eastern version of "The Joy Luck Club" meets "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius". 
(3) Do you?
(4) I mean who would the blame them?

Last night I officially graduated to my late twenties, aware that it was a very long time coming, and then without even the slightest scintilla of regret in the end. That is all that need be known for now . . .

. . . except to figure out what to do with all these t-shirts. 

Sometime, this morning, perchance between the first press of the snooze button and eventual wakefall, I saw a lunar eclipse; perhaps a reverse solar eclipse.  I know those don’t really occur, but let me explain: it was night, and then for a few moments it was day again, and then night returned.  There was talk of an eclipse and, indeed, the moon did pass before the sun but not a lunar eclipse in the functional sense.  Night returned, punctuated as it was by sudden daybreak. 

I woke up and googled my way to "dream interpretation eclipse meaning" or some reasonably related sequence, leading me to this piece from India.  To wit:

The natural occurrence of a solar and lunar eclipse in ancient times was looked upon in fear by one and all as a sign of the wrath of the gods on them and an indication of forthcoming tragedies . . .

As per the Swapna Kamlakar, if a person sees either of the eclipses it is very unlucky and brings forth severe ill-health. To even see the photograph of an eclipse in your dreams is unlucky . . .

As per western thought, a solar eclipse denotes temporary failure in business and other secular affairs. There may be certain disturbing occurrences within the family, but nothing very serious. Seeing the lunar eclipse predicts severe diseases. In the near future, after such a dream you have to be very careful regarding your health.

Psychoanalytically, dreaming of an eclipse signifies our fears and doubts about our own success. Others around seem to be more able than us. They seem to be occupying more importance than us which does not allow us to excel at what we are doing. It portrays our depressed state of mind and our acceptance of the fact that we are being overshadowed by others. If we try to analyse the earlier dream psychoanalytically then it portrays the dreamer’s attempt to try and remove the person or the object which is acting as an obstruction to his path of success . . . it shows the person’s subconscious probing him to get over his submissive attitude and overcome the obstacles in his path of excellence. Such a dream also portrays his submissive nature and his inability to face competitions and challenges.

I don’t believe in premonition.  There’s enough scare to go around in my life currently.  Now is not the time. 

Please.   

I picked up the Blue Line this morning at the Thompson Center.  8:15am.  My brother dropped me off.  The state re-instated his license five years ago. 

The "L", for these purposes, is subterranean until Damen, California, Western before descending again around Logan Square.  At Addison, Irving Park, Montrose, it meets the junction.  The Kennedy is backed up to O’Hare, the Edens likely all the way to Lake-Cook.  Yes, the one I made a Neighborhoodie about.  My flight is at 10:25. 

Terminal Three is American Airlines.  H Concourse.  11-B.   It is bright outside for the third consecutive day, the entirety of which have been spent indoors.  Dunkin Donuts is the only breakfast option available devoid of the prefix "Mc".  I order a Butternut and an apple juice before I board.  Some dreams really aren’t worth the deferral. 

The headline on the Sun-Times screams "White Flight in School Sports".  The South Inter-Conference Association has been broken up along racial lines, it seems.  The Homewood-Flossmoors of the south suburbs have parted ways with the Thorntons, the Fractionals, and the Rich Townships to alarmingly discriminatory effect.  State action will have to proven, rational basis will have to be overcome.  No clear discriminatory intent.  I have not slept much all weekend.

The city really never looked more beautiful. 

My mother is dying.  I will be back this weekend. 

What does it mean when . . . okay, perhaps, more context is in order before I get to the call of the question.  The call of the question . . . jesus christ, I better pass that fucking bar exam.  I’m starting to sound just like Conviser now. 

FOCUS!

Yes, what does it mean when . . . okay, so I had this dream.  This afternoon between the hours of 4:00 and 7:00.  You see I’ve been sleeping terribly the past week.  I don’t have a job.  I’ve been sleeping terribly. Just terribly.  I’ve also been trying to unsuccessfully detox from the past several months.  No, not the type of detox that can be sweated off after a few well placed hours in the schvitz, but the kind that requires a daily regimen of selennium husks, aloe, and yerba for several weeks.  I heard about it at the schvitz, not surprisingly; so much impacted stress from retaking the bar exam, falling off the wagon physically, and not watching what I eat may have taken a toll on the ole breadbasket, if you know what I mean.  Nudge nudge, wink wink. 

What? Was I not supposed to spell that out?

FOCUS!!

So, sleeping terribly.  Late afternoon ciesta.  I will be flying to Chicago tommorrow for the weekend.  My Mom will not be at the airport to pick me up.  She’s in the hospital. 

Yes, okay . . . so the dream.  I’m wandering around the Upper West Side.  Conceptually: Amsterdam or Columbus, I confuse them both, in the West 60’s and 70’s before things start to get REALLY lame, you know what I mean? But, in this dream, things didn’t get really lame.  They only got more . . . I dunno . . . college-y.  I was looking for a new place to live.  Nothing unusual there: i’ve grown rather bored with my neighborhood in the past few years.  I’ve thought of moving to Hell’s Kitchen, to be closer to the pool, or around Lincoln Square to be closer to the Park on raceday.  Around here doesn’t have much to offer save for quality healthcare and a multiplex. 

FOCUS!!!

So, I walk progressively uptown, though I may have double-backed at some point.  I reach the street furthest West Uptown.  Riverside Drive in real life, but in this dream, the street scheme does not end at the river but is obscured by a series of flyovers, much like alot of Downtown Chicago.  Now, before you start jumping to any conclusions.  Consider the following . . .

Suddenly, I’m at a Dairy Queen . . . on the Upper West Side.  They don’t have those in the city.  They have one in Old Greenwich, for what it’s worth.  But this DQ didn’t seem to carry anything even remotely dairy-oriented but did seem to carry a full line of freshly-baked cookies, not unlike the Ben & Jerry’s on Eighth Avenue.  My brother was there.  His treat.  You follow? Across the street was a Dunkin Donuts, nothing unusual about that.  But it was one of those one’s that carry butternut donuts, something conspicuously absent from the DD’s of this island.  I’ve found them on Queens, by the College.  But none on Manhattan. 

It was at the point I ran into the Friendster with whom I once shared an office (only one fits this description).  Surprised to see him in town from Western Mass, I mentioned that I had just had lunch with another fellow former co-worker.  Whether or not this actually occurred in the chronology of things I’m not longer sure of, but for whatever reason he was wearing two emply pickle jars for shoes.  This did not strike me as out of the ordinary.  In the meanwhile, the daylight had switched to evening.  Dusk.  And yes, you could see the Englewood Cliffs across the Hudson just beyond the wall of flyovers. 

He indicates that he is waiting for a friend of his: who appears only briefly in what appears to be a fit of near self-destructive intoxication.  He is pulled into the door by his friend and I may have followed.  Suddenly, I find myself in an empty apartment which I begin to consider inhabiting.  It is on the West Side after all, and suddenly I declare my desire to live up here, closer to a DQ and a Dunkin Donuts that carries butternut because it’s close enough to Hell’s Kitchen and really who wants to live in Hell’s Kitchen?

Though we share the same initials, which I find most charming. 

The ensuing sequence of events is not clear to me.  Now in the empty apartment I become overcome with a palpable sense of fear; fear either of pursuit, pain, or failure to fulfill an obligation.  It wasn’t clear.  It was suddenly in the hallway of this apartment that I saw massive rust-covered growth, what you’d imagine mildew would look like if it could bleed.  Then written into the growth, as you’d find in any contemporary horror film, was the message: Why did I come here?

I’ve chosen for, reasons I need not divulge, to take this literally, I flee the apartment.  But all of a sudden it’s no longer nightfall and now dusk.  The daylight is warm and amber and I run in fear from the Upper West Side.  Suddenly I find myself back on Lincoln Square, by the Barnes & Noble and the Mormon Temple.  There was a demonstration, a reunion, a festivity, a quincenara, again not clear to me.  Perhaps even an immigration protest.  Everyone, I noticed, appeared to be Filipino/na.  There was an air of tension, scatter, but I felt safer than I was uptown and decide to resume my apartment search anew believing it far more adventageous to live in this area: close enough to my pool, in a beautiful neighborhood and, how if I could only get a job at Weill, Gotschall, a convenient jaunt down Central Park South.  The streetscape is again a near facsimile of Amsterdam Ave . . . or Columbus, whichever . . . cozy, active, nearly every storefront occupied by bistro after inconsequential bistro.  I group of girls in their 20’s walks past me, dressed apparently for a Mardi Gras party.  Many of them are wearing only halter tops. 

The twilight was regressing into a warm late afternoon light, but the contrast at street level was akin more to early evening, almost as though someone had futzed around with nature’s auto exposure.  I’m not sure when I reached that subsconcious tipping point, at which time you realize none of this makes sense and you awake.  Might of been the point where working at Weill, Gottschall suddenly struck me as a viable option. 

Now, riddle me this . . .

I awake.  My apartment is still clean after the prior day’s efforts.  I still am not viably employed. 

A few hours later, I place a phone call to Chicago.  I’m able to speak with my mom from her hospital bed.  She sounds fine, but very exhausted.  I will however, not be able to see her at the airport when I arrive tommorrow night.  I will see her at Rush the morning after I arrive. 

I’ve played "Positively 4th Street" maybe four six times this evening . . .

What does it mean?