People love being in control. I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I got to see it in action the other day. I was at the bar and I watched someone order a flatbread. They wanted pepper on their pizza and asked the food runner for fresh pepper. The food runner handed the person… Continue reading Control Freaks
Category: People
Excuse Me
Let me paint the picture: I’m on the subway here in New York and it’s crowded but not packed. There’s some space to move around, if one was so inclined, but no seats available. (If there was a seat, I’d probably be in it. I’m not a seat hog or anything but I wouldn’t let such a precious commodity go to waste.) I was just standing there, holding onto the horizontal metal bar, about halfway between car doors…
An Alien at the Movies
A couple of nights ago I was out at the movies—to see Hidden Figures, which was fantastic—and I saw an alien disguised as a 57-year-old man go to the cinema for the first time…
Oblivious
I’m not a big fan of holiday shopping—this last year I managed to buy nearly all my gifts online—but I did leave my apartment a couple of times to look for things I thought people might want. One place I went, and almost immediately regretted, was the holiday market in Union Square…
How did you get here?
Yesterday morning, I was contemplating the events of Tuesday’s presidential election. I wondered what my purpose was in a country that I disagreed with so many people about what was good for the future. It hadn’t crossed my mind that I didn’t really belong in this country (though I’m relieved by how both my current… Continue reading How did you get here?
A Moment of Reflection
Kids love breaking rules and otherwise being rude—I know that was my deal, at least some of the time—but rarely do they have a moment of reflection.
A Normal Human Family
The other day I was eating lunch at Smorgasburg in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. Picnic tables were at a premium but luckily I was able to find a couple of empty seats for my girlfriend and I. As it turned out we were sharing the table with a family of six. A family that was really into being a family.