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To high heaven

August 30, 2004 /

Five service appointments and uncounted phone calls later, Time Warner Cable has classified my digital wire servicing as “complete,” and instead has informed me that a “huge outage” hit New York City last Monday-Tuesday, the aftereffects of which I will be noticing for an indeterminate amount of time this week.

All I know is that I’ve had little to no reliable Internet access since mid-July, and as I type this, my wireless hub keeps blinking into “no access available” for no good reason. When I manage to get through to my Internet connection, things are sluggish at best.

I’m thisclose to moving to DSL for a while. Even its unimaginably frequent outages were more tolerable than what I’m going through this summer.

Please contact me if you have or have not had a similar experience. Oh, and call me on a telephone if you want to reach me with any expediency. Doesn’t look like I’ll be online much this week.

Mostly offline

August 15, 2004 /

FYI: I haven’t had working Internet access since Thursday and will not until this coming Wednesday at the very earliest. The cable lines that feed into my apartment are fried, and despite the widespread existence of wifi, I can’t seem to get anything in my apartment. (I write this scrunched against the hallway window.)

If you need to get in touch with me this week, please be patient with email or give me a call.

Helmut

August 10, 2004 /

My macroeconomics professor told us a great story last class about his brother, Helmut. Helmut was a banker on Wall Street, in a decently successful but nondescript career, when his firm was bought out and mass layoffs upended his job.

Helmut took some time off, and enjoyed it until his wife said, “Helmut, this is ridiculous, you have to do something with your time.” So Helmut got a certification and began driving a school bus. It made him happy, being behind the wheel all day and taking the kids to school and to ball games.

After a while, though, his wife said, “Helmut, you really need a better job, the neighbors are starting to talk about us.” So Helmut shrugged and got behind the wheel of a Lincoln Town Car. Same idea, a little more slick. He could still tool around all day and enjoy it.

Helmut now owns a limousine company with 36 drivers, a 28-car fleet, and a dispatching center. He calls himself an entrepeneur.

Follow your dreams. I’m working on mine.

My grandmother, too

August 8, 2004 /

My father had me read “Are You My Mother?” in the New York Times Magazine this evening, a wistful piece about the author’s diminishing Alzheimer’s patient of a mother. The pieceâcentering around the mother’s ability to remember songs long after she had forgotten everything elseâis a near perfect mirror of my grandmother’s recent history.

Unlike Floyd Skloot and his mother, though, my grandmother has been rather pleasant and good-natured through the later phases of her disease, and even as she dwindled she has left behind memories for the rest of us, things I’m going to remember sooner rather than later, for her sake and ours.

For example: Grandma, age 82, playing Scrabble with me in her one-bedroom assisted-living facility, slowly fading in awareness, but still with a dish of M&M’s on the pedestal next to the table, her hand diving in for a quick fix of chocolate every time she walked around the corner, teaching me rather definitively where I got my sweet tooth.

And Grandma, not wanting to stop driving, until she got lost enough in her Alzheimer’s that we could take her keys without her noticing, and we could count with a laugh the 13 separate dents and scratches her skilled driving had accumulated.

And Grandma contentedly eating the sweets we bring her in the home, even when we make a mistake, like the day we brought her a pastry with raisins and Grandma tossed each and every raisin onto the floor as she ate.

And Grandma, still singing songs and playing the piano, even when she doesn’t know what day it is.

And Grandma, eyebrows raising high with recognition, startledly declaring, “He’s my son!” when the words “Donald” or “Marvin” penetrate her consciousness.

And Grandma meeting my now-wife for the first time, a story that still brings a tear to my eye, as it did the day it happened.

Grandma will be 91 this October, at least ten years into her Alzheimer’s, more than five years confined to a wheelchair at a home, several years beyond recognizing her family, a tiny, shriveled version of her once-strong self, and somehow perfectly healthy and, as far as we can tell, rather at peace with herself and the world. I will see her Thursday, and it will be sad, yet it will still make my day, and I will still smile.

No no no

July 27, 2004 /

Oh lordy please no.

All quiet

July 22, 2004 /

Big school deadlines this weekend and August 6. Expect me to be a little soft-spoken until next month.

In Chicago

July 12, 2004 /

I’m attending Ad:tech 2004 Chicago today and tomorrow at the Sheraton. Interesting stuff so far, and nice to be back in Chi-town.

Favorite sighting so far: Rick Bruner, with his hair combed and slicked back, in a suit. Best-dressed blogger here.

No such thing as a new idea

July 8, 2004 /

There’s a big fuss today about NBC’s replacing New York City’s coffee cups to promote the Olympics this summer. But really, what’s the fuss? The Beastie Boys did this years ago.

My yard

July 5, 2004 /

In the few years I’ve lived in the neighborhood, Union Square has completed an extensive round of renovations. Metal rails have replaced chicken wire fences, concrete plazas have been resurfaced in stone, embedded plaques and sturdy park benches ring the sidewalks, and new plants and trees abound. Perhaps most importantly, though, is the resuscitation of the grass.

In recent years the parks department has done a commendable job with the lawns in the square: it spends 10 months out of the year fertilizing and watering, to the point where, come May, the central areas of Union Square look as good as a proud suburban yard. The rest of the summer is spent battling the masses as they slowly trample the lawns.

As a local dog owner, Union Square is, in a sense, my yard, and I am thankful for the healthy, fenced-in grass. In the wintertime, we let the pooch run free at night when it snows, watching him romp in untouched powder, sometimes with other joyous dogs and their owners, as the cold makes the square a semi-private play area. In the summer, though, the lawn, and the rest of the square, ceases to be ours. Long into the night it is wildly populated, with a mix of people and a palpable vibrance that shouts New York.

I find great joy in people-watching as I pass by the lawns, as I spy groups I encounter daily and one-off surprises: the bums that sleep flat on the grass, some face-up, arms over faces, some face-down like they fell there; the teenagers that lean against the rails and sit on the stone walls; young couples relaxing, snacking, laughing, necking; groups of NYU students sunbathing, the men shirtless, the women in bikini tops, as though water were nearby; the pair of didgeridoo players practicing together; the man emoting loudly to himself, deep in a soliloquy, warming up for an unspecified performance or audition; the off-duty stripper reading a book, her unrealistic implants causing double-takes; the boys with signs rating cute girls as they walk by, temporarily diverting their efforts to rate my dog. (They gave him 8s and a 10.)

It’s not a private, quiet backyard, but for now, it’s my backyard. And despite the occasional spooky moment, there’s something comfortably reassuring about the throngs of people across the street, who serve as a nice reminder that in this town, no one ever needs to be alone.

The return home

July 1, 2004 /

Immigration waves me in way too easily; customs waves me out way too easily. The monorail is rickety—if I were Newark Airport I’d be embarrassed by the herky-jerky speeds and far-from-Disney-smooth track. The NJTransit train is on time, and there’s no line at the taxi stand when I get to Seventh Avnue, two surprising and refreshing occurrences. Ah, but my cab driver is a mess, has an old pre-extended-legroom car with a failing transmission, gets stuck behind trucks and would have blown past 15th Street at 40 miles an hour had I not yelled “This block! This block!” 50 feet in advance.

Welcome back, David.

At least my apartment is just as I left it. The dog is home with me, content and exhausted after a week of nonstop play time with other dogs. I too am content and exhausted after a week of fun. Time to sleep.

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