What New Year's Eve is All About

Happy New Year!

Great, glad to get that formality out of the way.

It is this time of year, in this city, that makes me wonder why I don't live in a cabin near the middle of nowhere, Montana. They're all out there, the crazies, lurking about, searching for new hosts to infect.

Lucky me, I found myself, vulnerable, in Times Square this afternoon. My favorite place on earth!

Doctor's appointment. Nothing routine, nothing earthshaking or noteworthy. Good doc sent me to Rite Aid to pick up a prescription. Two blocks away. Quick and easy, right?

No. Not quite.

I should note, for all you non-New Yorkers, that it snowed throughout the day. And that ordinarily annoying throngs of tourists looking for a Starbucks became exponentially more annoying in our charming winter wonderland. They walked, five abreast at least, and because of the inclement weather, could not see in front of themselves, and because they could only orient themselves in relation to the M&M Store, found themselves disorganized, confused, discombobulated on 8th avenue and 49th street; their maps flew out of their gloved hands, under their Ugg'd feet.

Ugh is right.

All I wanted was my drug. All I got was a healthy dose of insanity.

Alongside 15 other irritable people, I stood near the back of the store, the pharmacy pick-up window/counter/corner. I leaned against a stack of 12-roll toilet paper packages and observed. My prescription wouldn't be ready immediately.

A large-ish white woman of 65, Roberta, shifted her weight between her stubby legs and cane. Next in line, and yes, Brenda, one of the pharmacists at the cashier asked for her name.

"Roberta Roberts. Yes, I called it in earlier today. Two hours ago. Yes, you should have it. Oh, it's not done? Why isn't it done? I called it in two hours ago or so. I was told it would be done. Wait a second, who did I talk to? I demand to talk to the person I spoke with."

Brenda said nothing. She rolled her eyes.

"What, you're just going to stand there? You're not going to do anything for me? How dare you. How dare you stand there and not find out who spoke to me." Her cane fell to the floor.

"Ma'am, you're going to have to talk to someone at the other window." Brenda. Done with this day 20 minutes ago.

"Where is the other window?"

Brenda gestured to the "Drop-off" window about 15 feet away. Roberta looked to the window, stumbled a bit over her cane (Who put this here! Who moved this!) and turned back to Brenda. No steps toward the window.

"I'm not moving. Whoever talked to me can come over here. I'm not going anywhere."

Meanwhile, Yessica, the other pharmacist with the dreaded task of confronting customers, tended to other patients. Matthew's prescription was ready.

"Sir, I'll take you over here" -- pointing to the register Roberta loomed before -- "just swipe your card here." Yessica meant business.

Matthew did his best to contort his body around Roberta's wide frame so that he could swipe his credit card and be on his way. Roberta didn't seem to care that he was ready to leave. It was as if her feet were cemented to the floor.

Somehow Matthew completed his transaction, though he may have pulled a muscle in the process. After he left, another pharmacist spoke to Roberta about her pills.

She told her a story about her health insurance, how she needed the pills today December 31, before something kicked in or kicked out, or erupted and spilled lava into Times Square. Wait, those are my thoughts.

"Yeah, you should have the blood pressure medication and the clonazepam. Clonazepam, I need my Clonazepam. Lately, I've been needing it more and more."

Clonazepam, I know what that is.

As if hearing my thoughts, Roberta called to the pharmacist, "Clonazepam is also known as Klonopin," because, obviously, they wouldn't have known what medication to give her. Oh, Clonazapam ... fancy birth control?

This lady NEEDS her Klonopin.

Brenda took the next customer, another contortionist, as Yessica picked up Roberta's prescription and directed her to the register next to the one she's been guarding for 20 minutes.

"The prescriptions come out to $13, ma'am." Patient but impatient, Yessica stared at Roberta, her white plastic "Happy New Year" top hat tipped slightly, reflecting flourescent light beams.

"Wait! Wait! Wait!!! I have this." Roberta unplucked a bottle of dishwasher detergent from the crook of her arm. She could have easily stole it, but Roberta and I are not the same person.

Yessica rang it up. "Your total is now $17."

"NO! NO! NO! You have to take it off! You shouldn't have done that! Why did you do that! I have a coupon." From the depths of her left coat pocket, Roberta extracted 900 scraps of paper.

Yessica called for a manager. Brenda stepped out for a drink or hard drugs.

Roberta found the coupon and gave it to her.

"You don't have to undo it now. You don't have to. Don't undo it."

Yessica canceled the manager request. The manager also stepped out for a drink or hard drugs apparently.

"Okay, ma'am, you're getting a little bit fiesty now. I don't know why you're acting that way. Just hold on a minute. You don't have to get so riled up. Your total is now $13.89."

Right, complete the transaction. Give her the damn pills!

"Wait wait wait!! You have to undo it. I can't pay this way. I can't. I can't pay with my card. I have a card, see, and I can't pay for the soap with it." Roberta held out her MasterCard.

"You can pay in cash, ma'am, for the soap."

"Oh." Five minutes passed as Roberta fished out $0.89 from her change purse.

"Thanks. Your total is now $12." As Yessica said this, she started to put the soap and pills in a Rite Aid bag.

"No! No! I need that to be double bagged and give me the pills." Stuffed them into the pocket of myriad curiousities.

Roberta couldn't figure out how to swipe the card, as if she had never been to a store in the past 5-10 years, as if she had never been to this very Rite Aid or harassed these very pharmacists ever before. Yessica swiped the card for her.

Finally, five hours later, Roberta left and we all felt the store's atmosphere deflate. Ahh. Sanity.

I hope you didn't run into Roberta before she took her Klonopin. Drink and take pills responsibly.

Addendum to "I'm Yrs: Wedding edition"

Not to put a damper on celebrations and unions, but remember one very important thing:

A baby changes everything.

This is our fate, I'm yrs: Wedding edition

A lifetime passes as the 1 train pauses at Times Square.

I've just run from the 7 train hoping hard to board the next swift boat uptown. I've got an appointment to keep and am already thirty minutes late as I catapult my body between the open doors.

A thirty-something man, Clark, ushers his sixties-seventies parents, Paul and Joanne, onto the train. I'm catching my breath and listening to music loud enough for everyone to hear. (Secretly, I always hope my Shuffle lands on "Lick it" by L'il Kim or 1 of 2000 Britney Spears I carry with me.) They stand close to one another for a moment before asking a non-homeless bag lady (Fifth Avenue boutiques represent!) to make room for Paul whose liver spots and creek-like wrinkles show in subway light. We begin to move at last.

Before Paul sits, Joanne kisses him a few times on the cheek.

She holds his hand, steadies him as he sits down. He's not the most fragile older person I've seen on the subway, so I smile as they do this, at the thought of this display of synchronized care as if nobody's watching. Clark smiles too. Then, the man, seated and content, grips his wife's hand, he kisses it, and then she kisses the top of his head.

I stop paying attention to the stations we pass, focus on them. I see love, LOVE, love. For Paul and Joanne, it is clear that this is life, this is everlasting. I see Joanne standing there, holding Paul's hand, and the look of safety, pride, and comfort filling his face. They're sixty or seventy years old; they're a young couple of twenty-five.

I'm writing about this -- a topic more sentimental and warm than anything else I choose to spend words on -- because I have friends who will soon take vows, who will soon forge new bonds based on what they've shared and what they've yet to shape.

For you, I am sending my deep, heartfelt wishes that, when some unsuspecting, skeptic like me sees you in the subway in five, ten, twenty-five years, they'll see Paul and Joanne.

True Story: Santa Hates Apathetic Postal Workers, too

Location: Bryant Park Post Office, 43rd Street between 5th and 6th avenues

Time: 9:30 am

Santa wanted to mail a package to one of his most favorites, Sunny.

Sunny lives in Brooklyn, so Santa thinks, Ho, ho ho, First class for Sunny!

Santa sauntered up to the automated postage machine to avoid the line accumulating with many-parceled-people wearing grim faces. With his bulbous fingers, Santa typed in Sunny's zip code and rubbed his velvet-covered jelly-belly, pulled at his thick white beard a bit while waiting for the computer to print his postage.

But then, a message flickered: No more postage tape. Use the postal clerks to mail your package. Can I help you with anything else?

What the fuck, thought Santa, as he pulled his small package from the scale and filed into the line. No, I don't need anything else. This year's holiday stamps are ass.

Three people ahead of him and machine-head clerks winding down, Santa shifted his weight atop his heavy black boots, comfortable. Last year, Mrs. Claus bought Santa a pair of Earth shoes.

Then his turn came!

A balding man wearing glasses sat behind a scale and a computer. His dark blue cardigan hung loose over his blue-grey official shirt, and together, the shirts melted onto his body, a figure from a wax museum. Peter, his name. Various stamps--First Class, Prority--sat around him, waiting to be held. Expressionless he said hello to Santa. As if he didn't know who he was.

"Ho ho ho, Mr. Postal Clerk, I'd like to send this package First Class."

"Does this package contain anything perishable, fragile--"

"No, no it doesn't. Just First Class, and I'll be on my way. My ride's waiting outside. You know the parking situation on this street."

"Very well. Does this package contain anything perishable, fragile--"

"No." ... A robot?

"Would you like to send this Express or Priority or with insurance?"

"First Class. It's only going to Brooklyn."

"Okay. That will be $2.70."

Santa pulled out his debit card and swiped it. No cash back this time.

"You know, I tried to use that APC machine to send this," Santa looked up at Peter, busy with his empty stare, vacuous. "Ahem, the machine said it didn't have any tape to print the postage."

"Oh. Really. Well."

Santa waited for him to say, I'll let someone know, or You should tell someone on the floor that it's out, or It's too bad this Post Office isn't run by a group of monkeys on Klonopin.

"Here's your receipt. Have a nice day. Next." Peter's on a roll.

And that was that.

Santa stepped off the counter, beyond the queue, and onto 43rd street. A trail of sparkles behind him, he snapped his fingers and Rudolph & co. skipped out of the parking garage across the street.

He mounted the sleigh and called out to the miserable work-a-day people, "Merry Christmas to all, and may the Bryant Park Postal Station burn in Hell!" He sored, up, up high above Grand Central and then the Chrysler building. Everyone on the street suddenly smiled and jumped for joy, threw flaming trash cans into the Post Office windows and celebrated in the streets.

The end.

I swear, I saw this happen this morning.

Faith Hell and her Follower(s)

Whoa.

So, a baby does change everything.

(link--> post about how amazing this song is. Check out her blogger profile. And it says "view complete profile" at the bottom but I'm concerned about what waits on the other side of the link.)

Brown Paper Bags for All: amNY Revised

Stop me if you've heard this one before:

Two women deliver lunches to homeless people. Two out of six recipients say, "Stop. Wait. I don't eat meat," and request peanut butter & jelly or nothing at all.

Heard it before?

Yeah, I hadn't either. Until today. (A baby changes everything.)

This morning, JA and I woke up willing to serve the world. We strapped on our Pumas, assembled sandwiches (on whole wheat bread, to be sure), and headed toward the 7 train with the explicit purpose of feeding the foodless.

A cold morning, no doubt, but it neither withered our spirit nor softened our spunk as we strode to the subway, with high hopes of finding a particular homeless woman, a small, aging Asian woman, Melinda, who spends her days in the Times Square-Port Authority tunnel.

"She's not there," said JA as we approached the foot of a sprawling incline leading to the Great Bus Terminal.

"Wait, she's up there, I know she is," I said.

"I hope so." JA, who, at this moment is writing about this very event, swung her bag closer to her body as we hiked up the hill.

"She's there! She's there! I can see her on her stool!" I was thrilled and nearly ran toward Melinda, whose head hung low over her kneecaps.

Last weekend, as I walked through this tunnel with bags of holiday cookies to dispense, I stopped by Melinda, knelt beside her, nudged her knee. "Melinda? Would you like some cookies?" She smiled back at me - a wide, brimming smile - and nodded her head. I placed the cookies in her hand and continued walking.

Now, as we approached Melinda, I noticed another homeless person sitting no more than five feet from her. Jeffrey's bag of possessions lay a few feet from him, his legs out and directionless.

"JA, should we give one to him?" A whisper, close.

"Of course." She was certain.

"Hi Jeffrey. I have a sandwich and banana and granola bar here for you. Would you--"

He cut me off. "I don't eat meat." His quick response sent a shiver down my spine and made me step back for a moment.

"Oh. Okay. Well, I have peanut butter. Would you like that?" Searching through a green bag for a brown bag marked "Peanut butter & Jelly."

"Yeah. Are you with a church?"

I looked at JA, who was inching closer to Melinda. "Um, ... no. Thanks. Have a great day, Jeffrey."

He smiled a crooked smile of few teeth. Perhaps he can't eat meat. Then again, Jeffrey appeared as a man of principle, a stalwart on issues of animal cruelty.

JA bent down to Melinda. "Excuse me? We have lunch for you." Fresh-faced, sweet and smiling.

Her pained effort to lift her head said everything. JA and I looked at each other.

"Here you go, we brought this for you, Melinda." I knelt beside her, too. Bony hand extended, gripping mine for more than a few seconds. We looked into each others eyes and I smiled. That smile radiated from her face, and I was happy to see her gaze held high as we left her behind, on her small chair; behind, with her legs bent into acute angles, angles that make her as small and forgetful as possible; behind, with only a sandwich, a banana, a granola bar, and a small juice box to get her through today, the next day and who knows how long.

"Let's go to Washington Square Park," I said, and we did. We found only one homeless person - to my great surprise - asleep under a thick sleeping bag. I placed a brown bag on his stack of belongings and hoped very hard that he wasn't a vegetarian.

JA and I walked past the Picasso sculpture by NYU on our way to Sara D. Roosevelt Park on Houston and Chrystie. How did he do it? How did he build this gigantic sculpture out of concrete? How was it shaped and structured and molded and brought here, to this very place? The thoughts of a well-fed, well-clothed, well-housed person.

At the next part, we ran into a one-legged man in a wheelchair, Raymond.

"Is he doing his business?" JA asked. We walked slower, hoping he would finish.

Raymond gladly accepted our lunch and as we walked away I thought I saw him putting it in the trash. But no! Raymond waved his bag toward a man across the street. "Look at what I got! You want some?"

"Raymond, we can go give him a bag too," I called out and we crossed the street to his friend.

A cigarette heavy with ash hung from his lip. John Jacob stood beside a garbage can, his hands now at his hips.

"Hi John Jacob, would you like a sandwich? We just gave one to Raymond over there and I think he wants to share his with you."

"I do not eat meat." The ash dangled as the cigarette expired. Serious visage.

Here we go again. "Sure, John Jacob, we can help you with that. We've got a peanut butter sandwich right here for you. You have a wonderful day now." Eyes locked on his. Smile. A gaze held, shared for more than a few moments. "Thank you," he said.

We handed our last two sandwiches to a couple of men with parked shopping carts filled with green bottles. "Thank you thank you thank you," they called after us.

And when we were done, we went to Whole Foods. And from there, we baked cookies. We had a normal day. But it wasn't a normal day. All we talked about were the people who we chose and didn't choose to feed; Melinda and her sharply folded knees tucked under her little bench, what little she has, how old she is, and which one of us is bringing her food on Christmas eve; how we value each other as humans, how we assume someone without food would eat anything given to him regardless of its contents, and how wrong we are about the lives of others; how we can't do this every week; how in order to engage in sustainable solutions while retaining the integrity of a respectful, genuine interaction between two people we must dig deep, engage, work hard at working together.

We talked and talked and talked for hours about our morning. A normal day? I hope so.

Good Christian Men Rejoice (for Pro-Life XMAS Tunes)

What's your favorite holiday tune?

I'll answer that question for you. Not "A Baby Changes Everything."

Have you heard this song? Wait - an aside - where have I been? Why hasn't this blog been updated for over one month?

It's simple, my friends: I've left my material in another borough. Queens is a safer place for this little lady and I'm happy to say it. No longer do people sling their unsavory words, their sexual assaults in my path. I am free of this. For now, at least.

And so I've turned to exploring my observations and yours about Christmas music. Times are exciting.

Honestly, have you heard this "A Baby Changes Everything" song?

Here are the lyrics. I'll give you a few minutes to let them sink in. .... Also, here's a video of Faith Hill singing her song, if you haven't tuned into 106.7 Life FM in the past 4+ months.

OK. This is supposed to be a Christmas song. It's on Faith Hill's Christmas album. Hallelluuuuuuujaaaah, Faith Hill's released a Christmas CD!

It's not a Christmas song, unless Christmas songs are meant to discourage abortions. She begins, "Teenage girl, much too young. Unprepared for what's to come. A baby changes everything." Mary has become your typical American adolescent on block, the BC Bristol Palin (thanks JA for the comparison). Faith Hill reiterates, "A baby changes everything." I think I see where she's going with this.

Then: "The man she loves she's never touched. How will she keep his trust." This struck me. Even Mary dealt with contemporary temptations such as keeping her robe on and learning how to balance motherhood, a career, and a needy spouse. How ever did Mary manage without the worldly recommendations from Cosmopolitan and blogs to guide her?

Faith Hill is right. A baby does change everything. I would have never believed it without her song. I might go out and have one.

And then the ending, the most powerful of powerful, mightiest of mighty! "My whole life is turned around. I was lost and now I'm found. A baby changes everything."

Amazing grace, amazing Faith! I, too, once was lost and now am found, was blind and now I see. Or, I once could listen to Christmas music and now I can't because this song sucks so much I might go deaf. I like the ring of the latter better.

How pro-life is this Christmas song? It's bad enough that it's veiled as a message about Mother Mary (when it's really about Bristol Palin and her ilk). Can you believe she sticks you with the hallelujah-salvation-without-abortion-bit at the end? Incredible.

Thanks, Faith Hell.

A baby changes everything is now my new saying.

"How are you doing today?"
"Well, you know, a baby changes everything."

"It's breezy by the corner store. Why is that?"
"A baby changes everything."

...

"I think the potatoes are on fire. The fire is spreading to the greasy pan, and, oh no, it's engulfed the curtains as well."
"Things happen. Like I said, a baby changes everything."

Put the fire out. Disrupt the phrase with everyday usage.