Today’s soundtrack: I want some steam on my clothes

Today at 7:02pm: Dinner at a diner in Queens.



I made an impulse purchase a smart person wouldn’t have made.

So I’ve got this perfectly serviceable digital camera, an older Sony. My only gripe with it is I can’t take it just anywhere, it’s a little too bulky to fit into a pocket and thus requires a bag.

I hate carrying a bag. I see them as obstacles to me swiftly escaping a terrorist event or random urban calamity. If some asshole decides to light the Six up and we have to bolt through the doors at the end of the car, I’ll have to stop and shed the bag if I’m to knock the slow and infirm out of the way with any kind of conviction.

Back to the camera. Because of the Sony’s size it often remains on my desk while I take simple jaunts to the diner or the corner store--and that’s always, of course, when you end up seeing a U.F.O. or the Loch Ness Monster or a monkey on a bicycle or some other shit you should’ve shot. And you get cameremorse.

So on impulse (and credit) I purchased a Canon Powershot SD-10 Digital Elph, which is one of those cameras that’s so small that if I had to, I could probably fit it in my anus. Well, maybe not, but I bet you could fit it in your anus.


I figured with a camera this small, I really could take it anywhere and be able to shoot fantastic shots at a moment’s notice! I could amaze and delight my friends! Four megapixels, why that’s a megapixel more than the Sony! An affordable 256MB media card? Well my friend you can fit hundreds of hi-res shots on that bastard!

So today I’m walking down 50th Street with a cuppa coffee and I hear this whirring overhead. I look up and there, floating between two skyscrapers, perfectly framed, is a hovering chopper. The buildings are stretching for it like rectilinear glass fingers.

I fumble for the camera, careful not to scald myself with hot coffee (once burned, lesson learned). Whenever I burn myself with coffee this series of thoughts runs through my head:

1) At some point in human history, someone invented or discovered this delicious beverage.
2) This beverage is best enjoyed piping hot.
3) Because you are clumsy, not only are you not enjoying the beverage, you have used it to injure yourself.

I keep digressing. I don’t know what it is with me today, I have the attention span of a Golden Retriever.

So I carefully place the coffee on a nearby horizontal surface, but by the time I break out the “Powershot” and aim it skyward and jazz the power and pull the trigger, the chopper’s gone and I’ve got four megapixels of nothing.

I don’t have any good pictures of helicopters, so my unburned flesh is a small consolation prize.


At the ripe old age of 32 I’ve found that nothing is ever as good (or for that matter, as bad) as you think it is going to be. I read this article in the Times about this psychologist who studies happiness. He said humans are terrible predicters of what will make them happy. If I get that car, if I buy that product, if I date that girl, they think, and then they get it and the feeling a) is less than they’d imagined and b) fades faster than Luke Perry’s career.

I read about another study on happiness in Newsweek and they concluded that people, regardless of calamity or windfall, tend to maintain the same level of happiness throughout their lives, punctuated only briefly by spikes and valleys. In other words a miserable person who wins the lottery will quickly regain their misery, and a happy person who suffers the death of a loved one will again find their cheer.

Interesting, no?

The third and final survey I’ll bring up that had an influence on me was one where they asked people “on their deathbed” what they most regretted in life. People regretted some things, sleeping with their friends’ wives and whatnot, but overwhelmingly everyone regretted the things they hadn’t tried (presumably, sleeping with their other friends’ wives).

That’s when I started taking some detours in life, which I’ve never regretted, though wandering turns into its own addiction. All roads lead to Roam.

Which reminds me, goddammit, I still haven’t made it to Cuba. Must get back on that. Now recalibrating focus: Three, two, one, mark.


I wonder how they only managed to survey people on their deathbed. The survey probably had some margin of error, in other words I bet they got some answers from people who weren’t quite dying yet.


SURVEY RESPONDENT
Hi, I’m calling in about your survey.

SURVEY TAKER
Are you on your deathbed?

SURVEY RESPONDENT
Umm, not quite, but I am dying--

SURVEY TAKER
Well, we’re only looking for Desperate Truth. We only seek answers from those on their deathbed. People who know they’re on the way out any day now. Those are the only people we’ll accept answers from.

SURVEY RESPONDENT
Well, the doctor says I’ve only got a few months to--

SURVEY TAKER
Listen to me--a few months is not good enough. Call us when you put on the last pair of pajamas you’ll ever wear. Ring us up when you see the Grim Reaper parallel parking in front of your building.

SURVEY RESPONDENT
I would think the Grim Reaper double-parks.

SURVEY TAKER
What?

SURVEY RESPONDENT
I bet he doesn’t even use the hazards. Or if he does, I bet he never turns them off.

SURVEY TAKER
Well, you won’t know for another few months, now will you? So do us all a favor and call us then.

SURVEY RESPONDENT
Hey, do you think the Grim Reaper ever leaves the sickle in the car? Like “Well, I’m going to be back in a minute anyway, no sense in hauling it all the way upstairs...” I bet he doesn’t. You know, in case he gets towed.

SURVEY TAKER
I’m hanging up now.

SURVEY RESPONDENT
No, wait! My EKG is starting to flatline, I can see it on the monitor!

SURVEY TAKER
Quick, look out the window! Is he parking? Is he parking?


Me, I might bitch and kvetch some, but I think most of the time I’m pretty happy. It sure might not be what you’d register as happiness, but I feel as good as good goes, and that ain’t bad.

I still hate carrying a bag though. If I was the Grim Reaper I’d leave the sickle in the car.