It’s a rainy September Tuesday in New York City, and fall is finally starting to make its presence felt. The summer was warm. Some would say balmy, or maybe humid. Whatever you want to call it, I thought it was hot as hell, and I don’t like hot weather.
But now fall has descended upon us with a relentless fury. Rain is forecast for the rest of the week, and it feels like the gods have told us our fun time is over.
I wake up around 12:30 pm on this Tuesday. 12:30 is actually early for me these days.
You see, I’m a writer, and a struggling one at that.
There was a time when I had a completely different career. I worked at the United Nations as a researcher, writer and analyst. But those days are over. Career missteps and plain old bad luck saw me move to Astoria, Queens, from my ancestral home on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, and to lose touch with the UN.
I couldn’t find a job in international relations anymore, so I started a blog, Gen X Chronicle, about two and a half years ago. I cover news, culture and lifestyle through a Generation X lens. I’m also working on a collection of short stories that a literary agent at a top talent agency has promised to read, but she keeps telling me she hasn’t gotten to it yet. Well boo hoo.
I’ve also published several children’s books about life with my shy yet awesome adopted cat Copper.
All of this is to say, my daily schedule is kind of up in the air these days, and it’s totally up to me which area of my career I want to work on. Usually I’m up late writing for the blog, or else writing short stories for the short story collection I’m pitching around.
So 12:30 is an early start time for me. But that’s a good thing, because who wants to miss the whole day?
First I shower, shave, make coffee, and feed Copper.
Then I check my blog’s kickstarter campaign, which I just started yesterday, to see how I’m doing. There is already $1 in contributions, from The Creative Fund. At first I’m psyched that I even got a donation, but when I google The Creative Fund I see that they’re a community organization that supports emerging artists by donating $1 to every new kickstarter campaign.
Well thank you to The Creative Fund. But could you spare about $1 million more? That’s my kickstarter campaign goal, and thanks to The Creative Fund I’m now $999,999 away from my target.
I leave my apartment around 2:45 pm and head east on 30th Avenue. I stop at the Dunkin Donuts near the elevated train platform and buy a large iced cold brew and an egg, ham and cheese sandwich. I eat the sandwich at Dunkin while sipping the coffee, and when I’m done eating I take the rest of the coffee to go.
Truth be told, Dunkin Donuts sandwiches are fairly unappealing. But I didn’t have much food in the house and I didn’t want to go to a restaurant. Thus, DD it is.
I board the N train at the 30th Avenue station and take a seat. It’s fairly uncrowded, which is cool. About 10 minutes later we descend underground from the elevated platform and cross the East River. On the other side of the river from Queens lies Manhattan, and that’s where I’m headed today.
I’ve decided to check out Central Park. I want a little break from Queens, and I haven’t been to the park in a while. It’s raining lightly, but I figure screw it, a little rain won’t stop me from enjoying my day out.
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I exit the subway at the 5th Avenue station at 59th Street, which is just across the street from the southern tip of Central Park.
I enter the park and make my way past the crowds taking pictures of the seals in the zoo and the animal sculptures that whir around a giant clock every few minutes.
I’m headed for Sheep’s Meadow. My plan is to lay down in the grass, rest my head on my backpack, look up at the big-sky view and contemplate life. I mean after all, that’s what writers do, right?
But when I get to The Meadow, I find that all the exterior gates are locked. They must have closed it down for the season now that summer is over.
Damn.
Thinking quick on my feet, I decide to find the largest piece of grassy field I can that’s not cordoned off.
About two minutes later I find a nice spot directly off a path, throw my backpack down, lay on the grass with my head propped up on the pack, and begin the contemplation.
The sky is an austere grayish blue suffused with clouds, and it’s quite forbidding. When the wind blows, rain trickles down from the tree branch that overhangs my position.
I put the light rain out of my mind and just let my mind wander. I think about some ex-girlfriends that I really loved, I think about the two lost UN jobs that were my pride and joy, and I think about New York City.
What a strange city it is. At the same time as there’s a Wall Street hedge fund manager making a $100 million short stock play on his Bluetooth, you have a kid in Brownsville, Brooklyn, who’s wondering whether he’ll have to rob someone to pay the rent since his mother is sick with untreated asthma and can’t work anymore.
The contrasts are just so glaring. Masters Of The Universe riding around from Uber car to high-level office meeting to dance club to Penthouse apartment, their foot never having to touch grimy New York City pavement.
And then there’s working-class people grinding it out every day just to get by. Not to mention the over 60,000 homeless New Yorkers who aren’t getting by at all, they’re just suffering.
I grew up in this city, and I’ll always love it. But sometimes these kinds of contrasts just make me sick.
That is, after all, what the Bernie Sanders phenomenon was all about in 2016, and it’s what’s behind the recent Congressional and gubernatorial primary victories by young Democrats of color, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez right here in New York City.
It’s a sense that things have gone too far, that inequality has soared miles beyond acceptable, and that white supremacy threatens the very fabric of our nation.
New Yorkers don’t like being told what to do, or how to think, and we tend to shun bigots.
So with Trump in office, these are dark days for us. But as Jesse Jackson famously said at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, “Keep Hope Alive!”
So that’s what I’m doing, both for my city and the nation.
All this ruminating in the park has me thirsty, so I finally sit up, pull out a 50 oz bottle of Poland Spring water that I bought from a nice Arab gentleman at a bodega in Astoria, and take a big swig.
Man, am I thirsty. I take another few pulls from my water, then assess my options. It’s about 5pm now, and the wind is picking up, which means the rain from the tree branch is falling harder.
I could find a new spot, but I figure hey, I’ve had my nature fun, let’s head back to Queens.
I make my way down tourist-clogged winding pathways in the southern part of the park. I emerge on the street at 60th and 5th Avenue.
I descend to the subway station, and magically not two minutes later a W train pulls.
I board the train, pass an uneventful fifteen minute ride east over the East River, and then I’m back in Queens.
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I exit the train, go down the stairs, and make my way to Grand Avenue Wine and Liquor, on the corner of 31st Street and 30th Avenue underneath the elevated train.
What am I buying? Well I’d love to get a bottle of top-shelf Bourbon or Irish Whiskey, but I’m on a writer’s budget, so I settle for a bottle of Evan Williams, which the label says is the oldest distillery in Kentucky.
It might be the oldest, but I’ve had Evan Williams many times, and the aging process sure hasn’t done it any favors.
Still, it gets the job done, and that’s all that matters.
Next I make my way east along 30th Avenue, and when I reach 34th Street I enter Judy and Punch, a dark, divey bar frequented by millennials and all those other folks pouring into Astoria daily after being priced out of Manhattan and Brooklyn.
It’s 6:30 pm now, and there’s a decent-sized crowd at the bar. I grab one of two remaining empty seats at the bar, put my backpack down in front of me, and survey the scene.
To my right is a hot young millennial-type chick, and she’s variously looking at her phone and holding court with two of the young male bartenders.
To my left are two professional-looking guys in their thirties, and they’re talking about real estate and housing prices. One guy whips out his phone and shows his buddy pics of the two-bedroom brownstone he and his wife are looking at in Brooklyn.
It would be a step up, he tells his friend, and definitely more pricey than Queens, but they may just do it.
Their conversation bores the hell out of me, to be honest, because it’s conducted at bars and restaurants throughout the city all day every day between real estate conscious New Yorkers.
Towards the far end of the bar I notice some more dudes, and I finally realize that not only am I older than most of the people here,there also aren’t many women here.
I notice two young Asian females sitting against the far wall. They’re having cocktails, and they seem to be engaged in a deep conversation.
I think to myself, what chance do I really have of picking one of them up? I’m at least ten years older than them, I’m sweaty and wet from the park, and I’m wearing a casual gray t-shirt that definitely does not scream Master of The Universe.
Just as I’m descending into dark mental waters, the bartender makes his way over to me to take my order. I get a whiskey on the rocks and a glass of water. It’s happy hour, so the whiskey is only 5 bucks, which is a pretty good deal for NYC.
I drink the whiskey pretty quickly, order a second one, check my phone a few times, and then decide to exit the premises. Fifteen years ago, or maybe even ten, I would have stayed at this bar later, and tried to hit on the few chicks around, or maybe just gotten shit-faced drunk.
But at 44, those options just don’t hold the same appeal anymore.
I’m single, and I date fairly regularly, but nothing has worked out lately. I’m still hoping to get married, but these days I’m more likely to meet a woman on a dating app than at a bar.
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So I head out, walk west one block to 35th Street, and enter Ocean Fish Market. It’s a fairly small place, but they have a really fresh and diverse selection of fish.
The owner is a grumpy old Greek guy with white hair and a gray beard. Underneath all that attitude, though, I can tell he’s got a heart of gold.
Usually I just walk in there and ask him what’s good today, but this time I already know what I want.
You see, my doctor has told me I have high triglycerides, which is fat in the blood.
He gave me a prescription for it, he told me to take fish oil, and he also said to eat as much as of the bigger fishes as I can, such as salmon. So that’s my plan for tonight.
The Greek owner is occupied with another customer, but the Mexican guy who’s been working there forever is free. I ask him what kind of salmon they have. He says they have Organic Salmon, Wild Salmon, and Pacific salmon. I ask him what the prices are, and he tells me $18.99/lb for the Organic, $16.99 for the Wild, and $13.99 for the Pacific.
Well then, it’s settled. A half a pound of Pacific Salmon it will be. The guy rings it up and it’s a little over, at .61 lbs. I say no problem, it’s all good, I’ll take it. I mean for 8 bucks you can’t beat it.
I exit the store, make the one-block walk to my apartment, climb the stairs to the third floor, and I’m home.
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I’m hungry now, as I haven’t eaten since the small DD egg sandwich, which was hours ago.
But before I can cook, I’ve gotta deal with the mountain of dishes in the sink.
Maybe it’s me, but I simply can’t start cooking with a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. It just seems wrong.
I get my Google Home from the living room, plug it in in the kitchen, say “Hey Google, play Tyler Childers,” and I start on the dishes.
Childers is a Kentucky Folk and Bluegrass singer that I’ve come to like after watching his videos on YouTube. He started out humbly in eastern Kentucky, but then he was named Emerging Artist of The Year at the 2018 American Music Association Honors & Awards after the release of his debut album, Purgatory.
I’ve pretty much worn the album out, along with all of his earlier, non-major-label stuff too. Even though he’s only 27, the guy’s been playing guitar and singing since he was five, and it definitely shows. His music is soulful, powerful, emotional and raw. I totally dig it.
I plow through the dishes, and twelve minutes later I’m done.
I pour myself a whisky and Coke Zero, add three ice cubes, and head into the living room to take a break before cooking.
Not five minutes later, though, my stomach starts to bark again, and I realize it’s time to cook this damn fish already.
I head back into the kitchen, grab my cast-iron grill pan, and douse it with olive oil. Then I take out a cutting board and lay the thick piece of salmon along it lengthwise. I sprinkle the salmon with salt and pepper.
I test the rapidly heating grill pan by flicking water on it, and when it starts to really pop, I throw the salmon on it.
Now the waiting game begins. Typically I overcook salmon, because I’m so terrified of bacteria that I want to make sure it’s cooked through and through.
But that’s not how salmon, especially fresh salmon, was meant to be eaten. It should really be medium to medium-rare.
The last time I made salmon I overcompensated and made it completely rare, which led to my stomach aching mildly for a few hours.
So this time I want to get it right.
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While the salmon is grilling, I make a dijonnaise sauce in a bowl. It’s just mayonnaise and dijon mustard, but I add salt, pepper, tarragon and lemon juice to give it a little more flavor.
The salmon is really kicking up a storm, with the olive oil and the salmon’’s fatty acids popping off the grill pan and smoking throughout my kitchen. The haze extends into the living room. We got ourselves some cooking go on in here! That’s what I’m thinking.
I sample the salmon once, twice, and then three times, but each time it’s too raw.
Finally on the fourth try I decide it’s cooked enough, with just a slight bit of rare orange color on the top. I pull it off the grill, plate it, and bring it into the living room with the dijonnaise sauce.
I crack open a Corona Light, kick back, and cut into the salmon.
Yum! This thing is freaking delicious.
You see, that’s the thing I’ve come to learn about cooking. It takes a little effort, and sometimes you feel like you’re too tired and not up for it. But if you power through your misgivings, and give it the time it deserves, you’re always rewarded.
Because home-cooked food just tastes better than take out from the restaurants in my neighborhood. It tastes more real, more rich, more robust, and cleaner. A few months ago I made chicken parmesan with angel hair pasta. It was literally better than any of the Italian food I’ve had in Astoria.
So I’m a big fan of cooking. I actually grew up cooking with my brother once a week when I was young. Then I took like twenty years off. But over the past year the cooking bug has called to me something fierce. It’s like if I don’t cook for a few days in a row, I go through withdrawal. Thus, the need to cook tonight.
I return to the salmon, finish it off, lean back on the couch, and take another swig of Corona Light.
Ahhh, that was good.
I flip on the TV and see there’s both a Mets game and a Yankees game on. I’m a Mets fan, but they’ve been out of the playoff hunt for months. And the Yankees are, well, the Yankees. They’re always in the race, but it’s hard to root for them since they’re such a dynasty.
In a minute or two I’ll flip on one of the games, but for now I just sit on the couch in silence, sipping my beer, and reflect on the day.
All in all, it was a good day. Nothing fantastic or out of the ordinary happened, but at the same time, I did things and things happened.
Which is all you can really ask for in life. To have your mind, your heart, and your senses occupied for a few hours, that’s the real joy in life. It sure as hell beats staying home all day and watching daytime soaps, or god forbid, Dr. Phil or Ellen.
I’m grateful for this day, and I’m grateful for many more I’ve had like it. It was a welcome break from the grind of writing and career challenges, and it got me out of Queens for a while.
Who knows what tomorrow will bring?
But for today, at least, I’m happy.
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