Memoirous

Things I miss seeing in Uptown: Rows of posters for upcoming concerts plastered along gray, grimy walls Patients from Wilson Care spilling out in the morning in their pajamas to buy cigarettes The lady in leotards standing at the corner with her boom box, jiggling defiantly The escapee from Weiss Hospital with IV tubing poking out of his hand, his blue gown open in the back for all to see Now add to that list: The Wilson Men's Club The last of the old pay-by the night/week hotels that cater to the down-and-outers. This type of facility is by no stretch of the imagination a hotel or even a club, but offered a bed. I’ve never been inside the Wilson Men’s Club but I heard that men sleep in cages made of chicken wire. That is before there were improvements. Now I’ve heard there are walls—they just don’t go all the way down to the floor. Cubicles. I suppose it’s strange to miss seeing these things. I mean shouldn’t I be glad it’s cleaner, safer (comparably...

This is horrible. Kafkaesque. I woke up with a sudden realization—I’m not a bug. Much worse. I am middle-aged. I expected to feel this way after my parent’s death early last year. I’ve been feeling slower, not as enthusiastic about exercise—something I never went two days in a row without doing. I wouldn’t get into running shoes for anything less than 5 miles. But I suspect it wasn’t this that nudged me into melancholy. Perhaps when a friend mentioned he was having cataract surgery. What! No worries, he responded, it’s outpatient! Or when a Facebook friend from highschool announced that he was retiring from teaching at the end of the school year. Congratulations! Or that a good friend, even younger than I, was gifted with their first grandchild. Mazel tov! These are significant milemarkers. We gauge how far we’ve come and where we might be going next. Where are we going next? I think what I’m feeling is a brittleness, a great uncertainty. That what I once thoug...