Grammatical New York (It's probably just Symbolic)

Before I came to the city, it was a quote.

The New Yorker would say,

The Times would say,

Bruce Vilanch would say... "New York."

But it was really just a high tilde. I knew it was on the keyboard, but I had no use for it.

When I arrived, the Taxi Driver with his mohawk and song of redemption only gave me an ellipsis...

I was begging for something more.

Was I left with anything more than questions?

I travelled ^Up and was met with FLASHES! and CELEBRITIES!

Exclamations and slurs [in brackets, for context].

I kept moving around the city, in tiny expanding circles. .oO

finding the $money tied to the percent of stock% quotes and digit@l interaction.

But my classes were telling me to be a CAPITAList & have more than one identity/understanding\of the world. I can be more than one thing.

I = so many things, but where am I? Do I need to be here?

Why is there so #much death. and focused melancholy if this place is the end-all, beat-all?

Where do I go from here?

Is this place a period.

No, I can leave.

sometimes it's a comma or a semicolon.

A pause is domestic, so that's LaGuardia,

but a harder pause is international, so that's JFK;

I'm still not excited, though. As if the Giants and Yankees fans were saying with a big colon: New York. That's the answer. That's the example, por ejemplo.

I'm +ing all of this up, I'm taking it in from an m — to an n – to a -

But, I believe now that I understand this place.

this place is an asterisk. (*You do what you want with it.)

I can drag my feet and sing the blues

There are at least a thousand lives on the street at any given moment in New york City.

This is an addendum to the teeming masses:

I round the corner and there is the saxophonist. He's playing a variation on a jazz standard but who knows where his hands have been? A passerby watches and weeps to himself, letting only his woman by the arm know that he has emotions, to the rest of the world, he's as brittle and as hard as ice. The policeman strolls down. She's aware of the complaints against her kind, the boys in blue, and she doesn't want to lose her badge, but where else is safety? Where else, in this damn city, is security but with the police force.

Two men are smiling. They aren't facing the hate that they faced back home. Now they're just faces.

John Mayer is playing at the Beacon this very moment, Fuse is streaming the feed over its doors and windows. It makes the man standing and staring at the screens feel like he's missed the world. He has a family, but the pictures are in his wallet, and that's far away.

The young woman glides in her heels, she can't smile. She's been trained not to.

And the homeless man in the wheelchair gasping out pleas for his brothers and sisters to lend him a helping hand, almost a croon. It's common to see actors like him on the street. He used to be off-Broadway, he used to sing at all the functions, but like all actors, now he's just playing a caricature of himself.

Vignettes never tasted so Sweet

I think the funniest thing I have ever written is "Drugs are for stupid potheads that smoke 2 much weed."

It's not funny that Scott and I fully believe Yishia in 5F1 is a Jedi.

There was a floral ceramic bull somewhere on 7th, when I was walking home. The revolving door was not locked, but there was a sign lodged in, securing the security guards shooting the shit inside. I stared at the bull. It can't be from Portland. No. That's silly. It's a bull, too. This is the other side of the world. There is a ceramic bull inside an office building. Masculinity, ignorance, futility. This is the other side of the world.

Chase Bank was in lights on 7th, too, except 'as' was blotted out by broken circuits. Chase Bank was then labeled "CHE." I laughed uncomfortably loudly.

I wonder if people that are used to New York take it for granted. No, know they do, but I wonder how many people do. There are unscalable buildings all around me. We have built buildings taller than mountains, just glass edifices covering metal skeletons like Reese's Cups. We have made a competition of building garbage higher and higher. Our nation is probably in the lead. This city is in the lead.

You are in the lead.

Midnight Running Club

At one in the morning, Troutdale has put a wet pinch on the wick.

The light is above porches or

streaming out of windows,

the illuminated television turned down low as to not wake up the parents

(or the children).

A stray flashlight is carried with blue batons,

dancing around in the pitch and puddles,

waiting, watching for any disturbance.

"We don' wan' any trughble 'round here"

ol' timeys in charge of the police force would say.

I bet I could read about me in the reports in the Outlook, if I wanted.

And Gresham! Lo Gresham!

She turns off at the drop of a hat. She's a gateway

to the East!

and to A&W

and to the Mormon Temple...

But she shuts her eyes in hope that a bagel store will open open them,

or an office complex on Stark.

All hopes, she says,

but tonight, I was not rambling with Joseph in the center of streets,

no we were not Boogie Eyes

like my mother, in her yore days,

I was alone,

or as alone as possible.

All the Mom and Pop Rite-Aids and coffee shops have a light on in front,

reminding you that you are not alone,

that How could you think you were alone?

that You are confronted with opportunity!

that How could you think such a thing?

No one is sleeping, it seems, the boroughs do not turn off,

the crowds shift from one building,

from one business shirt

top buttoned and belt looped

to unbuttoned and belt loosed.

The night is a dazzle, or would be if I was north twenty-odd blocks.

There is no facing the faceless many,

the hurried bunch,

for it's pleasant to hear "Run Forrest,"

because some languages translate fluidly.

Endorphins have done me a load of good

to not forget things like this.

I miss you, too

I've tried to miss no one, Fire on the Mountain, but Brittany resounded a high pitch and I felt the need to remind myself that I am human, and you are a restaurant. I miss what you held, when I was there, it was my friends, or my Dad one time. You had Jerry Garcia on the wall and you housed a country folk band once and I enjoyed them.

Taylor told me about you and I thought you were a mediocre idea, I'm sorry to admit, but you were spectacular, your name was true to your taste. You often left me begging for water and more of your goods.

I miss the atmosphere that surrounded you. It was the good, bike-riding idealist indie, and not the indie that looked like the Kings of Leon but worked at a coffee shop. You left me wanting more of you.

You gave us a better goodbye than the Airport did. I was in the middle of you and I knew exactly what I wanted. I hope you know that we were all sharing a drink. I hope that's okay.

And now, Fire on the Mountain, you are one of the places that is stuck in the back of my mind as a warm representation of Portland, Oregon. I thank you, for that FotM, you are eternally bonded with Tom McCall and The Decemberists and weird donuts and my family and most of my friends and a sense of home that I can tell myself exists everywhere, but truly was invented by you.

Thanks.

Here's a New York moment, for you

There's a Chinese place around the corner to Rite-Aid, above which I live. I dropped in the other night and ordered the spiciest entree, General Tso's chicken. I waited around and read King Leopold's Ghost because Golden Wok is mostly a take-out place so I had time to read. When my food was ready, they asked if I was eating in (at one of the four tables? Are you kidding?) and I said no, but I proceeded to unwrap the bag and sit and to scarf down the food.

The first couple bites were so filling, but right out of the wok, they were, and I pretended to burn my tongue. I started yelling; I started crying and pointing fingers, garbling through hot chicken and broccoli that they meant to burn me. They made me leave and gave me my cash back as I forced tears onto the pork fried rice. I gladly left.

I feel bad, though, because I'm bulimic now. I ate the rest of the food when I rounded the corner back but I didn't keep it down.

I've got to keep my figure somehow.

Cancer Weekly

Cancer is a threat to everyone. Though heart disease, diabetes, and gout will more likely be diagnosed because of my genetic disposition, I can’t be sure. On the upside of the cancer fight, I am more prepared for an overabundance of cells than most. I have heard stories like Rhio O’Connor’s and they remind me of the tenacity and dedication of my father, Michael, and my late sister, Aurora, who were both diagnosed with cancer.

I gawked, as a child, at Aurora’s fight. She had Hodgkin’s lymphoma and decided that chemotherapy was the best weapon against metastasis, and for years, she pressed on, growing her hair and letting it fall. It was too much, though. The chemotherapy didn’t let her live as a person and she gave up on the chemicals. She died not long after.

My father, on the other hand, had two bouts of treatable, removable cancer when I was nine, and then again when I was sixteen. It was expunged out of his bladder first. The second round, though, was harder with half of a lung removed and chemotherapy on top. He lacked energy and nearly the will to live. Surgical recovery is nothing compared to suddenly not having the ability to taste. He’s still standing, my father.

Rhio O’Connor is a shining example of knowing the facts while ignoring the myths. He outlived his incurable cancer, mesothelioma, by six years and did so with an optimistic fervor, a nose in the books, and an earpiece to the doctors he thought he could trust most. His, Aurora’s, and my father’s fight, I have had to figure my game plan ahead of time. Cancer can strike at any time, as I’ve learned. Preparedness be thy name.

I have health insurance. I am diagnosed with cancer and it’s terminal. Here’s my plan:

First, I’ll find out what kind of cancer it is, how long I’ve had it, what I did to get it, and which are the most common treatments. This information will be most likely found during the initial diagnosis, or a several weeks after.

I will mourn for a week to get it out of my system. All disorders are psychosomatic, in the sense that if one believes that one is sick and helpless, a hormonal imbalance will be created and symptoms could worsen. I will therefore tell myself every day that I will be alive the next day and I will do all I can stay alive, focusing daily on the fact that I exist and how grateful I will be for seeing the sun and smelling the leaves.

I will then find out if there is an easy fix. I will consult my general practitioner for any colleagues he has or had that specialize in the type of oncology that relates to my cancer. I will consult this (or these) doctor(s) about my diagnosis. If I can have it excised, I will, immediately.

My new oncologist will be my center for information until I branch out, elsewhere. The doctor will inform me about the best clinics and hospitals, the medical journals and quarterlies that are most trustworthy, and the names and address of other oncologists. The doctor will also be the first reliable opinion regarding my chances of survival. With names and titles and places, I will begin to make calls to other doctors with a list of my symptoms always at hand. I may travel, but depending on the cancer, the action may be ill-advised.

According to the advice of the doctors, I will begin to look into which treatment will fit my cancer best. Radiation and chemotherapy are not out of the question, but if I can work with my immune system, or use angiogenesis inhibitors, I will. I will try any trial drug, as long as it is advisable under the consideration of my oncologist crew.

I will look into alternative medicine and dietary guidelines to be used as complementary while Western practices are administered. I will read as many articles as exist on the subject of negative synergy between nontraditional and Western medicines so I will be sure that I will not do more harm than good. I will also start praying more.

At this point, where I have intensely educated myself about my cancer, I will have reflected upon why I have this cancer. If my behavior can change so that I will not get the cancer a second time, if I survive (when I survive), I will do all I can to live better because of it. That’s one of the things I’ve noticed about cancer: it has the ability to change the way in which people live and see life. It is the same for many near death experiences, but I believe cancer is a more potent, more powerful wake up call, I will make sure that I change myself.

I will have chosen my treatments and my diet by this time, two or three months after my diagnosis, and I will have much haste to begin. If the quality of life changes for the better, I will continue my regiment until the cancer is gone or I am bankrupt. If I lack the money to support my medical needs, I will write letters to philanthropists, in hopes that one does not take pity, but instead sees the benefit of human life.

If the diagnosis does not improve, or worsens, I will restart the process with my oncologists. If I die from trial drug or a poor synergy or uncontrollable malignancy, it will be recorded so the next person to be diagnosed will know what not to do. I will not die of a lack of hope though. I have no reason to accept that I will not live forever until I die.

My sister died because of not knowing about her cancer, first, and second, not knowing about the other treatments. Chemotherapy is not a be all and end all medical miracle and neither are any of the other treatments. Rhio O’Connor, in spirit, and my father, in body, live on to the testament that rigorous study and edification about one’s disease or disorder can elongate a life. It’s the more one knows that beats cancer.