Been gone so long

Been gone so long because I've been doing nothing worth reporting.

Since I'm still doing nothing but playing in the dirt (the neighborhood community garden just got a whole lot of dirt that needs pushing around. I'm no gardener, but I can push dirt. Each according to his abilities, each according to his needs, eh?), reading and writing nonblog stuff ... which sucks, by the way. Thanks for asking. ... I thought I'd drop a couple of quick hits here so you'll know I'm alive.

Two days ago, I was walking down 2nd Avenue at 95th Street and a well-dressed gentleman came toward me saying, "I was sitting on the toilet and my butt started hurting. 'Oh, my butt, my butt, why does my butt hurt?'" By then he was close enough for me to see the Bluetooth in his ear so I didn't have to answer him. Small favors, dear Lord and thanks for them.

A week ago I passed a guy sitting on the sidewalk behind a cardboard sign. "AM HUNGRY. AM HOMELESS. PLEASE HELP." I would have asked him what I could do to help, but by then I was close enough to see the cell phone he was talking on.

Everyone who knows me knows I'm an animal lover, provided those animals are bigger than a bread basket, so I was torn yesterday when I saw a yorkie fighting his harness and the large bald gentleman walking at quite the clip talking on a cell phone. (Ah, themes!) At first I thought the little thing was trotting, but upon closer inspection I saw that it was skidding along on, almost skipping like a flat stone on a calm pond, back legs firmly planted against the forward motion of the gentleman. I was going to laugh ... but then I thought maybe it was being hurt. Then I realized it was just being a yorkie. It could have walked if it had been in pain. It wasn't even trying. It was just being cantankerous.

So, there was this really big black guy walking toward me on the street this morning, a scary guy with a ragged scar on his face, one dead eye and hands like Kitchen Aide mixers. He was walking a damn yorkie. "Oh, yeah, tough guy," I thought, and suppressed a smile. I didn't need a yorkie up my ass.