i work on a double-digit floor of a building at columbia university. our windows face north and look out over harlem and many up-and-down buildings of many sizes, and off in the distance you get a slight view of the george washington bridge, the hudson river, and the palisades. as views go, it's all right. across the street is teachers college, and a building almost the same height, upon which, last year, they built a three-storey metal air-conditioner thing. this thing lines up rather well with my window, and generally i consider it a blight that is manageable yet mildly difficult to ignore.


picture has nothing to do with text. life is sometimes like that.

so yesterday, mid-morning, we all noticed it was pouring out water. like, a lot of water, pouring out, like rivers, like something was not normal and broken. so we all watched it out the windows, and i decided to try and call somebody. i mean, no one was up there looking at it, so maybe they'd like to know that the thing just broke.

i called facilities, and they said i needed teachers college, so they sent me to the columbia operator, who gave me a local number for tc. so, of course i had to hang up and dial my calling card to call them. this led me to their automated "you have called the college and nothing more" phone menu. i stayed on the line through three minutes of telling me what can be recorded and whose extention i can directly type in. meanwhile, thousands of gallons of water are pouring onto the roof of the building.

so i dial 0 and get the operator. i tell her what's happening and ask if i can speak to facilities. the phone starts ringing and rings like twelve times. around this time, the water starts to slow down, and eventually it's just a trickle. whatever was broken finished breaking.

the tc operator comes back on and says, "um, they're not answering. i'll try to find someone else?" i said it wasn't really that important, and that it just looked like someone might want to know about it. she said, "tell you what, i'll relay the message to somebody."

when i hung up, everyone laughed at or with me, i'm not sure which. "that's funny, josh, no one wants to know. good try, though." bob suggested i should call the fire department.

so the mta has voted to give people a seventy-five dollar fine for walking between subway cars. if i were any good at investigation, i would be able to say whether this fine goes to the mta or to the police, or how that kind of thing works. but i'm not, so i can't.

at each end of a subway car, there is a sliding door that leads to a little platform, which abuts the identical platform and door in the following car. on trains with number-names, which are narrower and shorter than letter-name trains, you can usually use these doors to walk from car to car while the train is in motion. the moment while you're between cars kind of feels like outer space, because it's all dark and noisy and windy and there's a lot going on, but you can't really tell what. it's a nether-region. on the letter-name trains with benches you can also usually do this; however, the letter-name trains with orange seats always have locked doors, so you have to stay in your car until you are in a station.

when i take the train from work, i get on the 1 at 116th and then transfer to the 2/3 (an express train) at 96th. a fun game is to get on the 2/3 at the south end of the platform and then use the trip to 72nd to walk through the train to the conductor's car, which is in the middle, where you can't pass through. then get on the other side of the conductor at 72nd and walk through the train to the northmost car by 42nd street, where you are perfectly poised to alight and go up the stairs to the N. so, walk the length of the train during the trip from 96 to 42.

it's not like i always play this game. but i like that i can. it's approximately as cool as another game--standing at the front of the front car and watching out the clear front door as the train drives through the tunnels. that one might actually be better. regardless, these are just ways to pass time if you're tired of reading or people-watching or going into a daze.

walking between cars has more important purposes, though. for instance, when someone on your car is relieving himself. then it's nice to be able to hop over to the next car.

assuming there are ten cars on a train, then at $75 an infraction, i see that my game i sometimes play is worth $750 of badness. i don't feel 31. i feel 16. fantastic.

dear mta, what the hell is wrong with you?

a few months ago i decided my shoes were unacceptable and threw them away. this act was designed to keep me from changing my mind and wearing them again, since feelings such as the one i'm speaking of--these shoes are as of now no longer acceptable--are very sudden in nature, and there is next to no logic involved, but instead a very frantic intuitive feeling. the previous day, and the previous five hundred or so, my shoes had been fine. then one day they are so bad as to be a poisonous curse, and into the garbage they must go because i don't trust the future me never to ruin my feet with them again. life moves by such decisions, i find. ever choose to get a haircut that way? like, today it has to go! see what i mean?

so since then, i've worn old running shoes. and i got to kind of liking it, because i never got around to buying new shoes. seven year old running shoes seemed like a nice idea, so i didn't give it much of a though past that.

but suddenly those had to go, too. overnight, i was ashamed that i could go so long and not have bought proper new shoes and was still wearing things that were not good enough to run in anymore, but were fine for, apparently, everything else. it's like realizing you have a cockroach on you--get it off! the shoes really have to be gone, that very minute.

so today i bought new shoes.

boy, the end of this one kind of gave out, didn't it? don't write on your website at three in the morning.

if you happen to be at a show--we can even call it a "concert" if you like--so if you're at a show, or a concert, and if someone nearby is smoking pot, then don't talk about it loudly with your friends. don't try to figure out who it is, and don't talk about how they're smoking pot, and don't make jokes about one time when you were, you know, smoking pot. because it sounds a little dumb.

why does it sound a little dumb? it's sort of intangible, the reason. it just does. this isn't something you should need logic for. you should just have a sense for this kind of thing. okay? cool. be cool.

summer always comes with a certain anticipation--not just for yourself, in your own head, but for everybody, and in everything you hear from people. there are expectations, as in, it is a time to change something. people have summer plans. people have something they want to accomplish. gonna take a class, gonna do that cross-country drive.

so, you see, summer is like one big long new year's eve. or it's like a three-month-long, overly-sunny 21st birthday. in other words, it's got baggage. it might let you down a little, but it's not the summer's fault, because it didn't build itself up. all y'all did that.

when i was a kid, i never liked summer. i would have rather been at school. don't misunderstand that, because i hated school, but at least school was normal.

i would like to ask a question. is there any advertising that really worked on you? with the full acknowledgement of the shiny, intelligent part of your brain, is there anything that won over your dumb side for no reason, forever and ever?

lemme tell you: the scrubbing bubbles. you know, the little bastards with the electric brushes for legs that run all over your bathtub and scare the shit out of the dog. ever look them in the eye? they're military, those guys. if i have to buy something to clean the bathroom, i have to get that shit. i have no choice. i mean, they have brushes for legs.

but it's just soapy water. come on.

fifth floor over 32 street

sitting on my fire escape has become quite a passtime. in the mornings, it's sunny there, and at night you can hear all the kids playing on the street down below. perhaps, i have spent enough time there to qualify as mildly autistic. like, it's hard to get back inside to answer the phone, so aw fuck it who cares.

That night April met me at the Avenue Pub, where the dim lights colored her face yellow the perfect light amount and lost the individual elements of her hair, abandoned to half-shadow and one with the dark environment. You fill in the details with what you think would be perfect. All perfection is made that way. It's the wonderful secret of perfection.

She rubbed my arm a couple quick times when she sat down and then took up watching the dusty glowing bottles behind the bar.

"Hi," she said after several minutes. We pretended we didn't know each other, and she asked if I was waiting for someone. I said no and asked where she was from. She wouldn't give me her number, but said if we happened to see each other again, maybe she would then. I offered to buy her half a drink, and she looked surprised.

Nathan was busy, and stopped in front of us, leaning on the bar with a hurried look. He spoke with a calm tone, though, and said hi.

"Ever see this girl in here before?" I asked him. "Because I'm new to this bar. This town actually."

He gave me a look and went to get April a beer.

"Is Jamie here?" she asked.

"I think I saw him in the bathroom," I said, rolling my eyes. She knew he wasn't there.

"He's nice," she said. "People probably thought the same thing about you when you were his age."

"Frankly, I was never his age."

"Sure. Your hair looks nice. No really, it's not that bad--have you washed it today?"

I acted put out and told her I wanted the money back for the drink. She knew I was in love with her.