Every now and then I have to be at work very, very early. Walking to the subway as dawn creeps up from below the elevated IRT lines. Sharing the subway with a sparse collection of early risers. Arriving at the office and flipping the lights on before anyone else has even turned on the shower.

I’m exhausted at the start. Can barely keep my eyes open.  But damn, if those aren’t the most beautiful commutes.

The farmer’s market wins again. Really, it makes life in the city even better than it already is.

A few weeks ago I saw a cat sitting outside of my apartment building. I looked at his tag and called the number.  Maybe he was lost. No answer.  I assumed it was a “he,” don’t ask me why but he looked healthy. Didn’t look lost either.I pet him and the cat meowed and I left for work. A few days later I saw him up the block. I passed by and said hello and he meowed back. Then this morning I saw him around the corner, standing guard. I wasn’t worried about him anymore.

A beautiful young women boarded the train this morning and sat down in the seat right next to me. Right behind her was a dad and his pre-teen daughter. The dad suggested that the daughter shift one seat to her left so he could sit next to the beautiful young woman on her other side.

He turned away from his daughter and started talking to the woman. They were strangers, but had just met on the platform when he noticed she had some paperwork from a graduate program he recognized. What followed was possibly just normal chit-chat, but I viewed it as a come-on all the way.

The dad was speed talking and never once turned back to his daughter. They lived in the same area and he mentioned that he had a dog and it sparked something in the young woman’s memory. “Do you have that little, black dachshund?” she asked.

He was wounded. “Do I look like the kind of guy that would have a dachshund?” he answered in a tone the demanded an answer.

“Well, no. I guess,” she said. But she was just giving him what he needed at that point.

“I’ve got an 80 pound lab, a real monster.”

I don’t know why the whole thing seemed so creepy. It probably wasn’t, and the guy was wearing a Yankee hat. Maybe it was just because the young woman was so attractive and he appeared so eager. The part that really made me uncomfortable was the way he boxed out his daughter. But maybe she had a book to read. I got up and left them the first chance I got and I didn’t look back.

I returned to the city yesterday after five days in Vermont. Took a cab home from the airport and had an engaging conversation with the cabbie who is from the Ivory Coast. He has been in the States for fifteen years, lives in Harlem, and is married to an American. He told me that some of his wife’s family looks down on him. One cousin called him “a stupid African.”

“This is someone who lives on public assistance,” the cabbie told me. “If you come from a poor country you never think to take the government’s money because it doesn’t exist for you. I have lived on three continents, I speak three languages, but I am a stupid African?”

I asked him how he dealt with the cousin.

“My father used to tell a story. If you are a taking a shower and a man steals your clothes, you do not chase that man because then you will look even more foolish than him.”

Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep, Yeah.

[Photo Credit: Brian Hillegas]

Yesterday morning on the A Train, I gave up my seat for a Sox fan on crutches. I got to work early to cancel all my credit cards and order a new driver’s license for my new wallet. It was annoying but over in twenty minutes.

Quitting time was fast approaching, but I still had piles of vacation work to catch up on. I had made my peace with the Yankees, Rivera, the Red Sox and their nation as I worked. I got a call from home. They found the wallet. Almost everything in it is now useless, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved. I hate to be careless, though I know I am prone to lapses too often.

I jumped down to the 1 Train to go Uptown, put on my music and opened my book in something resembling a good mood. I got bumped from behind as I waited for the train. It was a strong shove, enough to move my feet but not enough to knock me off balance. I looked up. It was the same Sox fan on crutches. So hard to navigate those platforms on crutches.

He apologized needlessly and started to move down the platform but then recognized me from the morning and stopped as I pulled out my earphones. I had an idea to tell him he had starred in a New York Minute, but decided that the minor thrill wouldn’t be worth the voluminous exposition.

We boarded a rush-hour 1 Train and some other guy saw his crutches and hopped up for him. We looked at each other and he laughed out loud.

P.S. The wallet was in the oven.

I stayed up late and watched that game last night. I woke up early and searched the street outside my apartment for my lost wallet. No luck on either end of the candle.

First day of work after vacation sucks, but not as bad apparently as the first day of daycare after vacation. My younger son was a wreck and I was a triple grump when I slouched into my subway seat.

After a few stops a tall, young Black man boarded the train on crutches. He had a large cast on his left foot and a weathered Boston Red Sox smashed down over his head.

I was listening to music but I made eye contact with him when he settled up against the opposite door. I pointed at him and then I pointed at my seat. He nodded and I got up and moved to the side for him to sit. He nodded again in thanks and we exchanged small but genuine smiles.

I reached to my head to adjust my Yankee hat. When my hand touched my forehead, I remembered that I hadn’t worn it today. I wish I had.

I saw a girl on the subway this morning looking at her IPAD. She looked so content. The light from the screen reflected on her face. It reminded me of an illustration of a kid looking at a secret treasure that glowed. I wondered what she was reading and almost envied her happiness but all I could think about what that she was a perfect mark to get robbed.

I was at Citifield last night. The place was quiet as the top of ninth began, the Mets leading by a run. I was with a friend who was at Opening Day of Shea Stadium in 1964. “It’s quiet because everyone is waiting for something bad to happen,” he said.

Expecting something bad to happen. Which is exactly what happened. An error with the bases loaded turned a 3-2 lead into a 4-3 deficit.

I thought about Mariano Rivera as my friend and I walked through the parking lot after the game. We won’t have him much longer. Maybe another season or two. But the peaceful, easy feeling he gives us is temporary. It might dry up before retires. If only there was a way to bottle it.

When I think back on being a little kid, I think of West End Avenue and 103rd street and I see sneakers hanging from a telephone wire.

Woody and Mia, before the fall:

“I could go on about our differences forever: She doesn’t like the city and I adore it. She loves the country and I don’t like it. She doesn’t like sports at all and I love sports. She loves to eat in, early — 5:30, 6 — and I love to eat out, late. She likes simple, unpretentious restaurants; I like fancy places. She can’t sleep with an air-conditioner on; I can only sleep with an air-conditioner on. She loves pets and animals; I hate pets and animals. She likes to spend tons of time with kids; I like to spend my time with work and only a limited time with kids. She would love to take a boat down the Amazon or go up to Mount Kilimanjaro; I never want to go near those places. She has an optimistic, yea-saying feeling toward life itself, and I have a totally pessimistic, negative feeling. She likes the West Side of New York; I like the East Side of New York. She has raised nine children now with no trauma and has never owned a thermometer. I take my temperature every two hours in the course of the day.”

[Picture via Kateoplis]

Caught this last night. Yoga in Bryant Park. Hey, now.

A woman squeezed into the seat next to me this morning on downtown A train. It’s a tight space and tough to maintain personal borders, but we were both trying our best.

About a hundred blocks after she sat down, I finally glanced in her direction. She was reading the same book as me. Down to the same chapter. I smiled and thought to say something, but I had a Kindle and she was hauling the paperback, so I don’t think she could make the same connection.

An unanticipated loss for the urban eReaders out there.

Last night I saw a girl with red hair on the subway. She must have been seven or eight-years-old. She was sitting between two women in their late forties. The women were in animated discussion and the girl, who was wearing pink sneakers and had long feet, looked up at them. I couldn’t tell if one of the women was her mother or if they were aunts or what. They were speaking in Russian. Then I noticed a man was with them too, sitting next to one of the women. Four Russians. They dressed like they were not from around here.

I watched the girl. Sometimes she was included in the conversation. Mostly, she listened. It reminded me of being a kid, always hanging around adults, comfortable in their company. At one point, they all laughed. I don’t know why. Even the man. It was a brief moment but they all looked so content. I wondered if the girl would remember this train ride when she grew up.

I took a mental picture of them all smiling and thought of what happened in Norway last weekend. I know this is a mad, vicious world. I understand darkness but am grateful for the light.

[Photo Credit: Film is God]

The other day, I hopped on a 1 Train for one stop. I wanted to slide next to the door to make a quick exit because I was running late, but a guy was blocking my path. He was more than a head taller than me and twice as wide. He had a gut, but he wasn’t fat so much as extra-large. I thought of Andre the Giant. If aliens find our skeletons next to each other in a million years, they’ll probably classify us as different species.

I turned towards the other door and standing right behind me was a shaggy college kid with dark facial hair leaning on a fencing sword. He was standing stone straight, both hands folded over the hilt and the point of his epee wedged between his toes in his sandal.

I noticed a lot of eyes drifting between the sword, the kid and the giant. Were we all thinking the same thing?

I got off at my stop, but I kind of wanted to linger and see if a man in black was going to board…

Yeah, it’s roastin’, man. Too hot to type.

But not too hot to dream.

[Photo Credit: From Up North and Jeffreywithtwof’s]

I don’t mind if I rub shoulders with a woman on the subway. Sitting down, a woman next to me, the feel of their skin pushed against my shoulder, it’s okay, you know? But this week, New Yorkers are cranky from the heat. The less touching the better.

I felt bad for this dude. He got on the train this morning drenched with sweat. What a way to start the day.

I couldn’t get started this morning and it is already hot and muggy so the walk to the subway didn’t speed me up any.

When I got to work I said to one of the security guards, “Jesus, hot enough for you?”

“Never mind that, I’m already dealing with bullshit.”

I asked her what was wrong.

“This skinny bitch tries to come through here and I tell her she’s got to get put her bag through x-ray before I can let her in. Dude she’s with says, ‘She’s from the L.A. office, it’s okay.’ No, I don’t care where you from, over here you go through x-ray.”

I laughed and said, “Well, it’s over with so don’t dwell on it.”

“Oh, I’m done. Got to leave room for the more bullshit. My day’s just started.”

[Photo Credit: Penny Anderson]

Spotted on his way to the grocery store.

I love New York.

I’m afraid of heights but have always wanted to take a ride in one of these. Took this picture yesterday up in the Bronx.