Reliving The Childhood

I got that shower in today.

Nice, hot, long. I still had to get into retread slacks but the rest of me was either new or clean. I was at 89%. I would say 95% but the pants are a large part of the attire. I was up early and moving fast. I went upstairs for my meds and got a pre-pack, which were short several pills, as usual, but I've been through trying to get all of your meds before. Time is wasted as people flip through pages of a large binder, mark this and check that and dole out your pills in the slowest of speeds.

I just don't have the time for that shit. The walls were closing in on me. I had to get out and get some fresh air. I was hitting the bricks before I knew it. The rush of the cool air felt good. I was wearing a new cotton tee, a poly-cotton pullover and a cotton jacket which had me cooking in my clothes. I hit the Way and head uptown to Starbucks. Once there I blogged.

The problem is that I don't have an article for the online magazine just yet. I'm stuck in real time. I'm without any leads, any avenues, anything. I'm just swinging in the wind. It's making me more and more anxious as time goes on. I've got only a few days to come up with something. I didn't work on my screenplay, neither did I do anything in the handbook. I loafed around today. I hate doing that because it feels like a waste of a day. I read webpages and expanded my mind and my thinking and made myself sick. There is just but so much learning you can do in a day.

I then played 2124 and had the highest fucking killrate I've ever had. 15 CK's (Confirmed Kills). Prior to that, 11. I was seriously kicking ass. It made me feel good for a change, and then I went out and had a knish for the first time in a lifetime.

I was once told that knishes were outlawed in New York for health Department reasons. That the places that kept knishes were nasty and filled with rat droppings and lice and flies. For this reason, they were outlawed in New York. But here I am, walking past a streetside vendor and there, sitting right on the mini barbecue that they have on top of their little carts, was a single knish. Now if you are not aware of what a knish is, it's a simple potato patty, fried hard on the outside, soft an yummy on the inside, lightly seasoned. It's a joyride. I stopped and asked for one, and the vendor produced one right out of the little heater drawer. I asked for him to split it and put hot onions inside for easier consumption. In moments, this heavenly dream was in my hands. How long has it been since I've even smelled one of these miniature feasts?

From the first bite, I was teleported back to my childhood, running about with no pants on, chasing a ball, but instead handed a knish. I smiled a toothless smile and bit in as best as I could. I was then an older child, chasing friends in endless circles, until I stopped for a knish and bit in deep. I was a teenager, playing in my first handball game, and handed a knish afterwards, and chomped down hard and hungry.

I experienced all of these things from one delicacy. I wanted to go back for another, but I realized that such emotions, such thoughts were fleeting. There is indeed no going back. I licked my fingers and marched back into the library after stopping for a hot dog. I feel full, sitting down in front of my baby and typing away, IMing and emailing.

Soon the announce- ment rings out over he PA that the library is closing. I pack up my shit and make my way to the Madison Avenue Starbucks. Once there I chill. I have to say, that I've been in Starbucks so much that they awarded me with a free Gold Card. Can you believe that shit? I'm a gold card club carrying member of Starbucks. I go up to the counter and hand over my card and another girl, not the cashier, offers me gold club membership for twenty five dollars. I told her I have one already. I've spent so much there, that I was made an honorary member.

Some fucking shit, huh? I feel like Groucho Marx. I would never want to be part of any club that would have me as a member.

My brother and I drink coffee and read and bullshit, and pass the time away. We pass the time away, as if we are going nowhere. Time is moving but we are not. I work on the Homeless Handbook, racing through the chapter. I'm trying to stay productive, stay busy. One threat to the sanity of the homeless is the idle passing of time. Day in and day out, moving through it without progress, without an aim or an objective. Time becomes a duration, and the days become a long, drawn out hum, one sliding into the next.

Here, I believe, the mind slips away. You are suspended, like a fly trapped in amber. You are unpro- ductive and you SCHNAPP. Just like that. You accept that there will be no change, day in and day out. You become numb, you feel yourself dying within. It's a slow death, like blood draining from the body.

I fear this. I don't want to be unproductive. I don't want to SCHNAPP.

I fight my fear, the best way I know how.

I buy a one pound pack of strawberry Twizzlers.

Hobobob