At this late stage of the proceedings, I’m at a loss as to what to say about the fact that I’ve now been updating this blog for sixteen years.
I mean, oh sure, I could dust off the old anecdote about how I started this blog just to piss off a friend and former colleague of mine who had just started his own. He abandoned his after a while, whereas I just …. kept going.
Of course, the concept of anybody blogging in 2021 seems arguably pretty ridiculous. I mean, were I the dutiful trend-follower, I’d be, at the very least, a vlogger/"influencer," by this point, with a YouTube channel and branding and merch all that, but that’s just not my scene. If anything, I am a “bad influencer,” and the closest thing to merch I have is a clutch of dumb stickers, and if you want any of those, you’ll have to walk around downtown Manhattan, find one that hasn’t yet been defaced and peel it off something. Have fun with that.
In any case, my continued gratitude to those of you who’ve actually bothered to read the blog and inexplicably keep coming back for more. And another big thank you to those who have gone that perilous extra mile and left a comment.
You keep readin’ and commentin’ and I’ll keep postin’.
One of the downsides of being a brazenly oversharing chatty cathy like myself is that I while I might excel at turning relatively banal, workaday anecdotes into arguably compelling narratives (witness the recent "Mystery Package" saga as an example of same), every now and then I unwittingly tee up something that, in retrospect, I might have otherwise preferred to keep to myself.
Last week, in fidgety anticipation of both the fearsome prep and procedure of my first colonoscopy (a box I should have checked off three years ago), I took to the blog to post a floridly overwritten rumination on my penchant for procrastination and the mounting tolls of my advancing years. Sensing I might at least coax a compelling cautionary tale out of my experience and/or strike a chord with readers of a comparable age, I set the table, so to speak, for a larger piece about the episode after all was done and dusted. Much like the afore-cited “Mystery Package” story, I assumed, based on the testimonies of friends of mine who’d had colonoscopies, that the second part of the story would be banal and anticlimactic. “You get cleaned out,” they said, “ ya have a nice nap, ya wake up and then they tell ya to come back in seven years.” Sounds pretty simple, right?
Well, not so fast.
Most of that rang true. While a long way from pleasant, the prep wasn’t really anything too traumatic, and not nearly as ….er… explosive as I was anticipating. Fasting is never fun, but at no point did I ever feel like I was going to expire from hunger. I checked in the following morning, got hooked up to an I.V. (probably the worst part, for me, as I hate needles and getting tethered to things), and in no time at all, I was wheeled into “the procedure room.” They positioned me on my side and asked what I did for a living. About a third of the way into my invariably windy explanation of what a director of content and editorial services does for the corporate communications department of a performing rights organization (I’m sure they were riveted), I was out cold.
Next thing I know, I’m waking up in a sort of recovery alcove and am informed that my wife is on her way to pick me up. As I’m gradually regaining my cognizance, my pointedly dispassionate gastroenterologist pops his head around the curtain to tell me that they found and removed “a bunch of polyps” while spelunking in what Coil once called “The Anal Staircase.” This is not the news I was looking for. He then says that I am to come back for another colonoscopy next year. Not seven years. Not five years. Next year.
Now, given the eternal flame of guilt that burns deep within me, I project (probably correctly) that the preponderance of polyps they encountered in my …er… posterior is the consequence of my having not attended to this matter sooner. Had I gone and gotten this done when I was supposed to a few years ago, they could have nipped these problems in the bud (literally) and not had to contend with the “bunch” (technically seven, if I’m parsing their pathology tissue report correctly) that they excised.
I expect to get a more digestible summary of their findings later this week. I’m assured that they removed what needed to be removed, and while I completely understand why they want to have another look next year, I remain a little shaken by the whole experience, especially upon hearing shortly afterwards that my maternal grandmother grappled with (and was ultimately felled by) the same issue.
So, yeah — don’t procrastinate, kids. Get your colonoscopy when it’s time. Spare yourself the rude awakening.
For whatever reason, I have always been a procrastinator. I’m not proud of it, but I am aware of it. I am routinely more than happy to put off `til tomorrow that which would be more prudent to tackle today. This dates back to my grade-school years and is arguably rooted in any number of intricate emotional quandaries, if the studies are to be believed. While I’d usually get around to completing assignments and studying for looming exams prior to the proverbial 11th hour, too often I was wasting precious time that could have been more constructively spent.
In ensuing years, my penchant for procrastination has been largely kept in check by my bug-eyed preoccupation with staying gainfully employed. Lose your job a few times, like I have, and you’ll get there, too, although that means an excessive amount of worrying that usually outweighs the likelihood of the unceremonious dismissal I’m dreading. So, while I’m invariably “over-concerned” about impending deadlines and their ensuing demands, I’m less likely to procrastinate in terms of executing the particulars.
This is not at all the case, however, in terms of looking after my health. My approach to that, up until recently, has been a fairly irresponsible one that only involves regular check ups, check-ins and office visits when absolutely necessary. Don’t fix what ain’t broke, amiright?
Yeah, well, that’s not right.
They say that once you cross the Rubicon of your 50th year, you need to have a few things checked out. Probably the most notorious of those things involves having a colonoscopy. For the uninitiated, that’s an endoscopic examination of the labyrinthian interiors of your butt with a fiber-optic tube. No, that's not a shot of it above. That's a still from 1979's "The Black Hole." I couldn't resist. In terms of colonoscopies, don’t do a Google image search for those, …you will not enjoy what you find.
Ultimately, it’s not really a big deal. The procedure itself, I gather, takes only minutes, and better they should find something when it’s actionable than when it’s too late, right?
I’m now 53. I should have had this particular task taken care of three years ago (although more recently they’re saying you should do it at 45). But I didn’t. I chalked it up to being too busy at work (true, but still) or never finding the right time to do it, which is also kinda bullshit. The real reasons are more about trepidation and procrastination.
The prep for the procedure — inarguably the worst part — involves chugalugging two bottles of weapons-grade laxatives over the course of the day before. This means you’re going to want to stay home and stay close to the porcelain, so to speak, for what I can only imagine is a robust afternoon of … well, you know.
In all honesty, I did have every intention of getting this done last year, but then, of course, the pandemic arrived and took a big dump — pardon the strenuously unfortunate pun — over all of those plans.
Once the smoke started to clear on COVID-19 (although I wouldn’t quite count on it being done and dusted just yet), I went back to my primary-care doc and bit the bullet, making an appointment for a colonoscopy at long last.
The timing needed to be strategic. Last weekend, we drove my son Oliver up to Vermont to go back to the camp he had to miss last year. You might remember a series of drama-drenchedposts about his first visit to the place. On Sunday, we put my daughter Charlotte on a bus to her grandmother’s out to the East End of Long Island. With both teens now out of the house, I can focus on the health-positive-albeit-insalubrious mission ahead.
Today is prep day. I had a light breakfast and one cup of coffee. Come 1pm, I am relegated to only “clear liquids.” At 4pm, I crack open the first bottle of the stuff. I’ll spare you the details of what I expect will transpire after that.
The procedure itself is tomorrow morning at 9am. Maybe not a “full report,” but expect any pertinent news later that day.
I wanted to weigh back in the wake of both my last post and on the larger story as a whole, which continues to snowball from being a local concern to now one garnering sensationalist headlines in UK periodicals like The Independent and The Daily Mail. There is indeed a lot of stuff going on in Washington Square Park, of late, but I think it’s prudent to point a few things out.
Firstly, the park in question has gone through myriad iterations over the decades, to say nothing of its fairly grim past as an execution ground and a potter’s field in previous centuries. As recently as the late 60s/early 70s, the park was a fairly grotty hub of desperation, as depicted in the documentary film embedded in this comparatively ancient post, wherein I alluded to 2016’s version as being “comparatively idyllic.” Defenders of today’s version, meanwhile, will be quick to point out the druggy, dirty and edgy version of the park that held sway in the `70s and into the `80s. There is indeed truth to that. In my own experience, I certainly remember regularly walking through Washington Square Park in the `80s, invariably on my way to any number of since-vanished Greenwich Village record shops. The park, by that point, was certainly awash in drug sales, but predominantly just weed (or, more accurately, oregano posing unconvincingly as weed). Even at this point, though, I never felt a sense of menace in the park, although I was also young and naïve. To my mind, the experience of Washington Square Park in the `80s is perfectly captured in the video of “Que Pasa/Me No Pop I” by Coati Mundi.
Of course, by the Giuliani era, the drug trade was pushed out (largely to points east) and actual video cameras were famously installed, some allegedly hidden in treetop birdhouses, if the myths are true.
I don’t remember seeing a striking difference in the park, though, until the mid-2000’s, when they started carving up the space in an arguable upgrade (the crux of the plan being to move the fountain so that it was flush with Fifth Avenue). By this point, I was regularly visiting the park with my kids, them having both spent sizable amounts of time in the park’s playgrounds. As I mentioned here, I don’t believe I was entirely onboard with the renovation.
When Washington Square Park fully re-opened in 2009, it was indeed lovely, and myself and my family resumed our regular visits.
From that point on, I think we all just took the park for granted. There were always going to be elements of it that didn’t entirely play nice with others, but such is the nature of public space. To think it was going to remain squeaky clean, especially given its long history, is kind of ridiculous. Just as there will always be old hippies hoarsely crooning out-of-tune John Lennon tunes there, there were always going to be some shady goings-on if you looked hard enough for them.
The pandemic, however, gave another spin to proceedings, revitalizing Washington Square Park’s former status as a hotbed of a public activism, demonstration and protest and becoming a favored spot for rallies of various causes, most notable among them being Black Lives Matter. Anyone who was shocked or upset by that probably isn’t very versed in the city’s history.
But this spring brought something different. The shady goings-on alluded to two graphs up were no longer especially well-hidden. The drug trade came back with a vengeance, and – as mentioned – we’re not just talking about pot. Crack and heroin took up residence in the northwesterly quadrant of the square (uncomfortably close to the smaller children’s playground). Both the collective trauma of the pandemic and the seeming relaxation of both basic amenities and law-enforcement within the confines of the park sort of morphed the square into a permissive oasis for some and a scary headache for others. Then the late-night raves started.
As far as I’m concerned, I don’t really give that much of a damn what people are up to in the park. But I do take strenuous objection to the hard drugs, the crime, the violence, the proliferation of garbage and the abject lack of basic consideration. As I said in the last post, by all means utilize your public spaces to their fullest potential, but show some fucking courtesy, restraint and respect while you do it. I posted something to that same effect on social media, and swiftly came the “Hey you kids, get off my lawn” rejoinder. More like, “Hey you kids, stop giving hand jobs to crackheads in full view of the playground, shitting in the fountain and assaulting people.”
In terms of the late-night parties, I don’t live close enough to actually hear what’s going on, but I see what the place looks like in the mornings, and I’m just not down with the ensuing melees that have been the result. The bozo behind all that is this idiotic asshole, who is as egomaniacal as he is myopically stupid, … which is saying something.
In any case, this all said, while the park has indeed seen better days (however you’d care to define that), this is not to say that you cannot still sit down and enjoy its green, open pleasantness. I passed through it this past weekend and took the picture below – not the roiling sphincter of acrimony and bloodshed the headlines would otherwise have you believe.
Whether you’re going to Washington Square Park to be your authentic self, let your freak flag fly, commune with the similarly inclined, enjoy the nice weather or because you’re simply trying to walk through it to get to the other side, can’t we all agree that – as it’s a public space – it should be an experience that DOES NOT involve brazen drug abuse (we're not just talkin' weed), prostitution, the threat of violence and late-night, high-volume bacchanalia in a residential neighborhood?
It’s also a complete, goddamn bomb-site every morning with trash all over the place. I’ve lived in NYC my entire life, and even compared to the freewheelin’ 80s, it’s never been as off the rails as it is now. By all means, use your public space, but at least attempt to demonstrate some courtesy, restraint and respect while you do it.
I was interviewed by PIX 11 News in a bona fide "man on the street" segment today. Watch me start babbling like a googly-eyed sock puppet at about 00:57. In my opinion, I had more insightful things to say than the particular portion of our exchange that they saw fit to use, but y'know ... whatever.
It’s been yet another crazy-busy period at work. I have multiple complicated projects on the burner, all requiring heaping amounts of deft navigation, thoughtful strategy and efficient execution. Similarly, I'm vainly trying to plot out my family's summer -- from my youngest's second COVID shot through transporting same back to camp in Vermont again and wrangling fleeting vacation accommodations, to say nothing of my wife and I's looming 20th anniversary. While I do genuinely consider the two posts I put up this week to be interesting and worth your time, I’m always looking to post more substantial things than placeholder entries built around esoteric YouTube videos. But, y’know, we all have our things to contend with.
In any case, I wanted to write about this sooner, but I was let off my leash briefly last weekend to meet an old friend of mine I’d not seen in two or three years. Now that restrictions are easing, it seemed like a fine time to meet up, so we settled on a place I’ve been dying to return to since the pandemic first turned our collective existence into a c-grade disaster movie, the Ear Inn over on the western end of Spring Street in SoHo.
A longtime favorite bar of mine, I’ve had more memorable evenings within the Ear’s storied interiors than I can count. It’s arguably the oldest bar in Manhattan, although McSorley’s and Pete’s Tavern make comparable claims. Regardless, I’ll take the Ear over both those joints every damn time.
Despite just being informed by my primary care physician —who I’d also not seen since before the pandemic —that I’d gained seven pounds since my last visit, I ordered a cheeseburger and had a few pints with my friend in that great bar. While it, too, boasts the trappings of responsible social distancing, I am very happy to report that its splendor remains undiminished.
Since about October or so, the company I work for has been letting those of us who’ve wanted to come back to voluntarily work two days a week in our offices, if we’d like. Given the diminutive size of my apartment and the fact that I frequently have two testy teenagers therein vying for WiFi and elbow room, I’ve taken full advantage of this offer. Surprisingly, however, not many other of my colleagues have, and I’ve frequently spent those two days alone in my office, often going entire eight-hour shifts without seeing another human being.
While at first it felt like a step towards normalcy, the prolonged failure to bring the pandemic under manageable control quickly put a stop to any hopes of a return to the pre-COVID routines. The novelty of going into the office swiftly wore off, but I’ve kept going in, regardless.
But, I’ve not been totally alone. There has been a skeleton crew of regulars from various departments that have also been periodically coming in. As such, we’ve been frequently stopping by each other’s offices to say hi and get at least brief, reassuring moments of human interaction. It’s a small enough organization to really know most of the people on staff.
I have one colleague, whom I’ll call Koby for the sake of this post (not his actual name), who has been doing the same as I have. While he’s not a member of my department, I have worked with Koby on a number of different projects. Since I first got here, he has always been the coolest, most inclusive team-member to work with, and we’ve always gotten on like a house on fire. It’s a nice organization to begin with, but I was always stuck by how nice Koby was to everyone. He seemed genuinely invested.
Yesterday morning, it was looking like another day of solitary confinement until Koby popped his head in my office to say hi. He pulled up a chair, and I happily turned away from the frankly yawnsome project I’ve been working on to chat with him. We had the most banal of catch-ups, discussing the usual COVID-related topics and when we expected the office to officially open back up. These were not pressing issues by any stretch of the imagination, but, again, it was nice to talk and remind ourselves of the regular practices we’ve left behind and look forward to brighter days ahead. After a bit, Koby got up to continue his rounds of saying hi to the paltry few other folks in the office. I thanked him for stopping by, and off he went.
Today, I heard that, overnight, Koby passed away. I don’t know very many particulars, but he was evidently home with his wife, suffered a heart attack and died. By all appearances, Koby was young, healthy and spry, with no readily detectable, health-impairing vices to speak of.
I have been in something of a fog all day since learning this horrible news. Mere hours after blithely shooting the shit in my office, Koby crossed to the other side.
Take care or yourselves and be good to each other.
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