Spare Parts

“I am one… “I am love… “I am home…” So ended my unexpected jaunt through the city streets this afternoon. Though it was not in my immediate plan, when I saw how beautiful the day had turned out, I ventured out on a longer than intended stroll to streets and places I’d not been by before. It was then that I came across the lines above and found them to be ripe for writing about. They spoke to me, or rather to the inner being that I sometimes visit within myself when I find beauty in every-day things. The quote is straight from the tall, majestic windows at ABC Carpet & Home off Park Avenue and Broadway by 19th street. ABC is a New York-based furniture, textiles and fabric shop. However if you are fortunate enough to be able to walk up and down the many brilliantly exotic and welcoming aisles full of beautiful intricate and unique items for your life and home, you’ll agree that the store’s description is sorely lacking. Prior to finding that little gem among pearls, I’d simply been d...

If you have ever heard the question, “Can you keep a secret?” then you are fully aware of how titillating a statement it really is. There was even a book by Sophie Kinsella titled, “Can You Keep a Secret?” It is such an intriguing concept, this secret-keeping habit, that someone wrote a book about it! You know that when someone asks you to keep a secret, the first thing that pops into your head is sex. Come on! Admit it! You think that the person is about to divulge some sort of secret sexual escapade they engaged in that could potentially damage friendships or relationships. Seldom is the secret that good, though. Let’s face it. We people prefer to keep secret the things that we are not very proud of. Human nature is what I call that! A more likely scenario is that the secret about to be shared involves some gossip about somebody else’s sex life, marriage, kids, jobs, and such. Still titillating, but not nearly as exciting as if you were listening to the actual person share deep, d...

It is Wednesday afternoon and I take to my lunch hour ravenously. It is not because I plan to eat, but because I need the outdoors. I am shackled to my desk since 8 a.m. and I know it is a gorgeous day out. I want to take advantage of summer’s remaining golden days before the landscape becomes frigid from winter’s ugly frost. The elevator can’t reach the street fast enough for me. I hit the pavement and make my way to Union Square. I feel like people watching today and that is the best place to do it. While I am watching, I’ll get some exercise walking around. It’s a farmer’s market day and a beautiful one to boot, so I am bound to see merchants, farmers and vendors of all kinds circling the perimeter of the park. I make my way, quickly at first, through the crowds of tourists, students and business folks. There is excitement, calmness, and madness all around. These elements are weaving into each other making seamless blankets of chaotic city living. There is so much to see here! Stud...

**Forgive me readers, for I have sinned. It’s been seven days since my last submission. At long last…an entry!** For a couple of days now, I have taken to using the open-aired streets of the City to circumvent that atrocious walk through that dreaded and often talked about 8th Avenue Tunnel. I sort of miss the interesting cast of characters I sometimes find down there, but not enough to endure the stank of it all. Truly, I want to kick my own ass for all of the months I spent trekking through there in all sorts of unpleasantly scented summer weather. Then when it finally occurred to me that – “Hey! Maybe I could walk above ground to get from Point A to Point B”, I was all but sure that the thought reached me by some divine intervention: (Hi, Mami!). So I first experimented with this on Monday. It was entirely too hot and muggy to even consider the tunnel. On the bus ride in I was grasping for ideas in my head of ways to avoid it. Still, I wasn’t comfortable enough, or awake enough, to...

This morning’s walk in from the Union Square subway station yielded only one interesting encounter. Though I am more asleep than not when I am just stumbling in to work, I was able to notice a pair that, given a poor opportunity to come up with a clever description, was truly an odd couple. Connecting them, I caught a glimpse of a deeply sweet and rooted relationship between a privileged boy on the verge of adolescence and his much older, black nanny. He wore all of the outward signs of wealth and well-being; a fresh academy uniform with a navy blazer and a gold school emblem over his heart, a crisp white collared shirt, neatly pressed, a maroon tinged tie with navy details to coincide with his jacket, and clean pressed new khaki slacks. Over his shoulder was a Tommy Hilfiger backpack, slung over carelessly, hanging slack and mostly empty. His skin was nicely tanned like you would see in a Ralph Lauren ad, with a sprinkling of freckles on the bridge of his nose and some on his cheeks. ...