Observations

  There was a long delay for the MRI yesterday and I was getting hungry, so I was kind of grouchy when I followed the yellow footprints down the hall to the glass doors of the MRI 1 waiting area.   Through the doors, the waiting area was deserted except for a very young woman in the crimson scrubs of a home attendant sprawled on a chair with her phone, clearly waiting.  She didn’t look up when I sat down next to her, but when a muscular, tattooed young man in the uniform of the hospital’s janitorial service showed up and started gathering trash bags and piling them on his cart, her phone was forgotten.  She started admiring his tattoos, and he told her he was planning to do some on his legs.  “They’re nice,” she said.  “The colors are good.”  “I get them all at once,” he said “I don’t go back and forth.”  He wasn’t just talking about tattoos, he was showing her he had the money for them. I couldn’t hear everything onc...

     Although I never learned to ride a bike myself, the bike safety is an issue close to my heart because my Dad rode his everywhere.     He started after being drafted for World War II.     He showed up for his physical and an old army doctor looked at his legs, specifically his knees – which turned inward – and asked him if he could run.     Dad said no since he had already broken his leg when a gym teacher forced him to run in high school, and was removed from the military.     Before he left, the doctor told him to get a bike to help keep his knees in shape.     It was not as common back then, but Dad biked everywhere.          He commuted to his job at Benjamin Franklin High School by bike, cutting diagonally through Central Park, entering at the southwest corner and exiting at the northeast.     I don’t know if bike fatalities were less frequent back then, or if Mom and I just had ...

       I was sitting at a round table next to Andy Humm, co-hosting Gay USA when we got a viewer complaint relayed to us from someone who thought that Dolly Parton’s death the day before should be the top story.     Andy asked me what I thought and I said that the machete attack on a trans man who was at home with his spouse and kids seemed more of priority to me.     Andy agreed, pointing out that anyone who wanted Dolly coverage could find it everywhere, so we left it in its spot later in the show. I am probably the last person you would have expected to listen to a podcast called Dolly Parton’s America, never mind all 9 parts of it. But the fact that I listen to Radiolab, a science podcast, while I clean would likely be less of a surprise. That’s what brought me to Dolly Parton’s America. Jad Abumrad, who is part of Radiolab, produced it and in 2019 Radiolab aired the first part of it. Despite being a New Yorker, I am familiar with country musi...

  There are as many approaches to spending time in a jail cell after being arrested for civil disobedience as there are people, but there are some common patterns.     There are high-energy activists who keep chanting and even stomping even in the holding cells, not my favorite because the vibrations and sound reverberate through the whole cellblock.     There are antsy activists who stay in motion, even some who climb the bars.     There are new activist who might be anxious, hovering close to more experienced folks asking a lot of questions.     Then there are high drama activists, who spend the whole time going on about their medical needs and what might happen if we are held long enough that they miss a medication.     At the extreme end of this are those that wind up getting carted off to the ER, because that is the only way to get access to medication while in police custody, unless you somehow smuggle it in, which I have also...

                       I was at the check-in desk, multitasking as clients arrived for Sunday dinner, when I noticed a distressed post from a long ago client.     I hit the “care” reaction and turned by attention back to the room. Then the first message arrived, “Sorry for the doom post.     I just feel like shit.     Someone triggered me bad,” he wrote.     “I’m struggling for $20 for my dogs since I don’t get paid til Wednesday and this man offered me $20 to sleep with him.     It just took me back to 20 years ago in my brain and made me not ok,” he said, referring to his homeless days.     “I can see how that could happen,” I wrote back.     “Try using your senses to remind your brain that you are not there anymore.     Find some things you can touch, smell, etc.”     It’s an abbreviated version of a c...

8/14/25       The cats had just woken me up when a message from a long ago client showed up.  “I need your help.  It’s an emergency. So I just got the news that Manny unfortunately passed away this morning,” he wrote, including a picture of another long ago client.  “How do I go about finding his body?” Over the years, I have dealt with enough of these situations that I have a strategy. “Start with the person who told you,” I wrote back.  “Do they know where he died? How do they know he died?”  Once in a while, rumors of a death turn out to be inaccurate so I always start with the source.  “The police came to Angelica’s house and told her,” he said, naming another long ago client.  He explained that the police woke her up at 4am and she froze from the shock and didn’t get much information. “She thinks it was in Manhattan,” he added.  “Start with the Manhattan Medical Examiner then,” ...