Waiting to Get There. Usually on the A/C/E in Chelsea, New York City.

  Davie at the beach with my grandparents, circa 1982 Yesterday we attended the funeral of my childhood next door neighbor, Davie. Davie and his wife Sandy had three girls who were roughly the same ages as my brother and me and lived across the street from my parents for 50+ years. And when I say next door neighbor, I mean the kind of neighbor we didn't knock on their door, we just slammed right in their house and made ourselves a sandwich. (Which would have been white bread, butter on one slice, mayo on the other slice, Lebanon Balogna with a dab of yellow mustard and a handful of potato chips jammed in there. But this is beside the point). With the perspective of hindsight, Davie was a skinny chain-smoking functioning alcoholic with anger management issues. He also was always up to something you desperately wanted to be a part of. One halloween he dressed up like Fig Newton and all I remember is his skinny legs in these bright green tights sticking out of a gigantic green fig cos...

I was at a Thai restaurant last night with Tom and Scott, looking over the signature cocktail menu. I didn't see one that really was calling my name. And, of course, I would never order my go-to bourbon drinks in a Thai restaurant. It's too much cognitive dissonance for even me. So I vaguely waved my hand and asked for a vodka tonic.  Half a screenshot of the cocktail menu at Laut Thai. And then I halted mid-sentence.  "Do you have Fever Tree?" I asked in a panicked voice because I was, in fact, slightly panicked.  I would certainly never drink tonic that came out of a bar gun. Tonic from a gun always has that bitter taste of under-bar tube slime and the bubble quotient is extremely variable. Also I don't like tonic from a previously opened plastic bottle. It doesn't fizz properly. No thank you sir. I like Fever Tree tonic from a single use glass bottle.  Anyway, the Thai restaurant did not have Fever Tree and so I changed my order to a more Thai-forward cockt...

 Bruce asked if I would be their witness at his wedding in City Hall and I could not have been more honored and filled with bubbles of joy. It made me so happy to imagine the two of them being able to call each other husband for the first time.  Of course I immediately started fretting about my outfit, which I loved the opportunity to think way too hard about for at least four days. You can't hit up the google for "appropriate outfit for wedding witness" and really get any collective wisdom on the topic. Trust me, I tried. Meanwhile, I have to say I enjoyed the official wedding appointment booking email from NYC probably a little too much: If you can't read this, the important part is this: "Please bring to your appointment: One valid form of ID & One Witness" Is it just me or does it feel like you’re supposed to tuck the "one witness" under your arm and haul 'er into the courthouse in the same sack as your one valid form of ID? I didn'...

First of all, Tom and I were on our own. For the past probably ten Broadway shows either of us has seen, we've gone with other parties who see shows idk twice a month? I mean Danielle's dad used to be on the Tony committee for chrissakes I'm not messing around here. So being on our own meant we had to forge our own path, pick our own seats, keep track of our own tickets, figure out when to get to the theater all by ourselves.... So we get there: Approaching the queue to get in John Proctor is the Villain . Foreshadowing: Notice the color scheme. Right after I took this sort of random photo of the barricade signage for unknown reasons, perhaps I was thinking I'd need an alibi to prove my whereabouts I have no idea, I see something actually photo-worthy. I text out this photo to Danielle because she has seen John Proctor is the Villain two times already and has tickets for closing night in September: A guy in the line is dressed in EXACTLY THE SAME COLORS AS THE MARQUES F...

Oh wow. I just discovered that there's a whole genre of videos, *beloved* videos mind you, featuring somebody just tooling around New York City on foot wearing I guess a go-pro and filming the endeavor. These are like two hours or four hours long. Viewers are putting in some serious time here. I'm equal parts perplexed and also proud of my city, so let's start at the top.  Here's an example of one of these videos: It looks peaceful, I'll grant you. Which is a weird thing to say about midtown NYC. The whole "eyeballs only seeing directly ahead in a little box on your computer" trims down, wildly, on the actual 360 degree possible chaos-coming-from-any-direction of this place. You might be wondering what 360 degree chaos I'm talking about if you're not from around these parts. Here's two examples: 1: Yesterday I was walking down the street and, without warning, a small splash of water dropped directly onto my eyeball. It was a direct hit. I may o...

 So yeah, let's start here:  With some frequency, my mother would ask, did you see my email?  And I would say, nope, I did not.  And my mother would look down her nose and roll her eyes. Oh you young people with all your texting who don't know how the email works. She was so impatient.  For my part, idk, being not actually a young person but a Gen X'er extremely familiar with how the email works, I have managed to collect probably five email addresses over the years. So I just assumed the missing email went to one of my defunct yahoo accounts or something. Besides, Tom always was cc:ed so if it was anything important, he had the deets. If you're quick like this, you might be able to see where this is heading, but let me give you a couple other clues.  My father sent out in quick succession, the following two emails: This email came through without any explanation from my father. Just a big photo. That's my parents heads btw. Pop's into the photographic arts...