The Cooties

My adorable nephews gave me cooties again. Last week I visited, and here I am a week later still sick. I thought it was a cold, but it could be bacterial. I’m going to my doctor tomorrow.

Though they flipped around like normal three and seven year old boys, I was constantly blowing the three year old’s nose, and the seven year old had the remnants of something from the week before, but he managed the snot better.

During my visit, I couldn’t teach the older nephew to play chess without the three year old flailing his arms at the pieces, with a constant stream of snot coming out of his nose. “Let’s make him ‘King of the Chess Game’,” proclaims my brilliant older nephew, with the idea of sitting his little brother in a chair above us, telling him that as ‘King of the Chess Game’, his job was to move our pieces. It worked for a bit. I counted three times that I had to blow ‘The King’s’ nose. The whole time I’m thinking, “Whatever this is – I’m getting it.”

On the “benefits” of being sick… I got a personal reply from a reputable journal saying “…this isn’t a standard rejection.” They praised my story, but can’t publish it at this time. They said I should send other work. If not for being homebound, and motivated by the “praise,” I might not be bothered to finish this other story that I started last year.

Another “benefit” of being homebound – movies. The first one — Sharknado! I’m a fan of absurdity, and in the movie, there were sharks climbing stairs, sharks on the highway, and of course, sharks in tornado funnels. And the ending – sublime ridiculousness! And I seriously loved Tara Reid and Ian Ziering (Pronounced eye-on – even better!) in this movie.

The second movie that I saw was Shampoo – totally sexy but deeper than that – and Warren Beatty was hot, of course.

I only saw the last half hour of this third movie. I don’t know if I could have handled the whole thing. I saw it in ’89. Glory with Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman, is about the black 54th regiment during the Civil War. While netflix reviewers mostly gave this movie five stars, one person gave it one star saying, “Man’s inhumanity to man was too much for me. I saw only about fifteen minutes of the film.” I relate. The last half hour that I saw included a pre-battle talk that Broderick’s character gave to the men. I’m thinking, “No don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry…” Finally, tears came, but what caused the gusher was the background music slowly infused into the scene – the Harlem Boy’s Choir — that did it! Thinking of my nephew’s sweet little voice didn’t help.

The final battle scene – hard to watch but riveting. Here’s that snippet from the Harlem Boy’s Choir – you’ll see what I mean:

How’m I gonna get to Katmandu?

My hiatus is almost over and I’ll be back to work — yay!  Maybe I’ll even buy a new outfit. While I’m glad to be getting back to work, I had looked forward to my break this year, though I still didn’t have enough money to go to Greece or Katmandu, or Morocco.  Ah well.

During this break, I did have time to read the hell out of the newspaper. As a young woman, I read the New York Times, trying to learn something about this “crazy world” we all live in. That was quite a while ago, the era when blackened finger tips were common from newspaper ink. This predated online periodicals. I buttressed that with historical books and a subscription to the New Yorker, where I read really long essays about this “crazy world” we all live in.

In my thirties I realized that politics was a game of power that escaped my idealistic mind-set. I became preoccupied with trying to establish a life as a writer (which never happened). I was disenchanted with the job that I had, and overwhelmed generally by life. Fuck the newspaper! I proclaimed then, and stopped reading it.

I had been slowly getting back to reading the paper.

During my hiatus, I bought an on-line subscription to the New York Times, tired of being shut down after reading the ten free articles they allow you to read on-line per month.

While it’s been illuminating, I still would like very much for us to be running around naked and sharing things, though I know it’s ridiculous. People are people after all, and a lot of us want to kill each other just because – oh and a lot of us aren’t very smart. So I suppose this is the best model we have for now.

It’s just that with my “colorful” personality, I like using pretty colors to outline my prescription for life. Politics still escape me, though it’s been the same for thousands of years.

Oh but come on, the world’s so small now. That means there’s a better chance to communicate new ideals. The United States is a great country, leaders of the world, we could easily champion a new way of life — with our eyes closed! The young folks could then etch out the details, how it’s all going to work out — and stuff. Yeah.

Noam Chomsky referred to the market system as barbaric. Mm hmm. And I’m infected. I participate in this market, and have certain expectations as well, having been weaned on the teat of capitalism. I’m off now to shop for my new outfit. And later I’ll figure out how I’m going to get to Katmandu. Carry on!

The Bum Couple of Inwood Farms

*My friend calls this neighborhood Inwood Farms – hilarious.

The bum couple in my neighborhood think they’re the neighborhood’s honorary bums.  People coming home from work stop to have forty-five minute conversations with them.  During these conversations they pause to wave or to say hi to people.

I think people talk to them for a cheap show of magnanimity.  Look at me everybody. I don’t have problems talking to bums.  I talk to Frank the bum but never this long.  I dare these people to invite Mr. and Mrs. Bum to their homes.

The man said hello to me once because I made eye contact.  It irritated me.  He looked wounded when I didn’t continue to speak to him or his wife.  I think they silently scolded me with their little puppy dog homeless faces.  Nothing against bums – I love Frank, and the other bums are cool.  Hell I might just be a bum myself at the rate things are going in this country.

For a long time they lived in the 207^th Street subway station.  Transit workers played chess with the husband by the elevator.  People stood around watching.  I love chess.  I played naked chess with my computer, listened to death metal and ate olive oil toast every night before blogging.  But never would I play chess with that bum.  Number A:  on the subway station benches he had biblical placards.  And Number B:  one said Halloween was the devil’s holiday.  So you take up space in the subway station, proselytize AND put down my favorite holiday.

They live on the benches by the park now.  The husband plays chess on the park wall.  Sometimes there are two or three games going at once.  You’ll find the wife waddling back home sweet home with a cart full of groceries during the games – maybe she’s got hors doeurves and crudite in there for the boys.

Sometimes when it rains they’re hidden behind rain slickers, garbage bags and two gigantic umbrellas.  If you didn’t see two pairs of feet underneath you might think there was just a heap of crap on the bench.  They must get along really well to be able to sit so close.

But I’ll bet that husband could show me some mean chess moves.  He reminds me of a guy I was infatuated with who also played chess.  He and his wife are tall and heavy.  This guy was too, with a deep voice and big feet.  I joked that the bum couple reminded me of me and this guy.  He was in financial trouble and I had taken this job making half the money I used to make.  I had some strain myself.  So we’d be together – broke.

I said to someone, “I think I hate them because I’m afraid I’ll become them.”  But no, I just don’t like them.  Sue me for not liking a downtrodden married bum couple.  It’s far more evil to use bums to demonstrate your bullshit magnanimity.