Observations

       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,” ...

  One of the many ways our healthcare system is broken is the difficulty of finding a psychiatrist who takes insurance.  The combination of low reimbursement rates and burdensome paperwork makes many of them opt out.  With such limited options, I wound up at a training clinic, where the doctors are residents.  Once they finish their two years of residency, they move on.  They finish up in June, and I don’t meet the new one until September, which would have been fine except that the leaving doctor only gave me two refills, not the three I needed to cover the gap.   I didn’t realize this until I ran out and my assistant called the pharmacy to request a delivery.  The training clinic, like so many hospital systems, is impossible to reach by phone, and since I have not yet met the new resident, I can’t message her on the portal.  My assistant and the pharmacy went back and forth trying to figure out this conundrum, but in the meantime days were goin...

  I was waiting for the elevator in the blast furnace heat of the 95 th   St station next to an older woman in denim shorts and brightly painted nails.     She was closer to the elevator when the doors opened, releasing a blast of even hotter air, like it was coming from hell itself.     She cringed but got on and I followed.     “You’d think they could air condition these elevators,” I said. “This is the worst station for heat,” she replied. “I moved here from Bensonhurst.” Before I could joke that I wouldn’t be able to leave the cannoli, she added“little Chinatown.” I know many older people miss the days when Bensonhurst was all Italian, but there aren’t many new immigrants coming from Italy, and many of the second generation ones have moved to Staten Island or New Jersey. The same thing happened to Carroll Gardens. But you can’t blame the new immigrants for that.     “And now look what’s happening here,” she says.     I’m no...