September 29, 2000

It is half-past midnight and I am shaking. The winning combination of a cold apartment and the consumption of four cups of diner coffee, I think, might have something to do with this. It is a weird feeling, this inability to get warm coupled with the compulsion to jump around, jump around, jump up jump up and get down, because sitting still would be too close to sleeping, and four cups of diner coffee does not cotton to sleep or its compatriots. Oh, oh no, it doesn't.

I am now jittering under a plaid wool blanket that is draped across my knees. I feel like a goddamn grandma. Not that there's anything wrong with that, and not that I don't know some fine-lookin', neuron-firin' grandmas, but I am already having I Am Old issues -- I don't need them reinforced. Also, I'm watching Oprah. Is this a bad sign? At least it's the 12:30 a.m. rerun. That makes me young and vibrant, right? Hipncool?

Yeah, so, even more disturbing than my involuntary vibrating (which sounds much more fun than it actually is) is a little trend that's been developing in my wacky New York existence. This trend basically consists of some form or another of crazy homeless man punching me in the arm. I know, I know…you're all thinking, "Wow, if only crazy homeless men would punch me in the arm, my life would be complete. I would renounce my faith in God and go pray instead at the Church of the Crazy Homeless Man. I would buy jars and jars of olives, carefully remove the pimentos from said olives, and painstakingly arrange said pimentos into amazingly accurate portraits of the crazy homeless men who have an affinity for punching me in the arm." But believe you me, it just isn't that simple.

Punch number one: I was going to meet Elijah at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas (read: pretentious art movie house) to see some wholly unappealing Iranian film. It was called something like The Wind Beneath My Wings Will Carry Us, and I really didn't want to see it, but I'd made him see Chuck and Buck the last time we went out, and while that was definitely an, um, interesting experience, I'm not quite sure it qualifies as a great theatrical outing. So, this time, I let him choose. Anyway, I was walking up 9th Ave., and just outside of the artisnal cheese shop(pe), I saw a man who resembled no one more than he did Abbie Hoffman coming my way. He had big, curly hair, and a thick, creepy beard, and he was, for lack of a more polite term, covered in muck. Even though it was raining, and he didn't have an umbrella, still, muck covered him.

Muck Man didn't seem too dangerous, so I didn't really notice or care that he was going to pass but a few inches to the left of me. I looked him in the eye, because I hate the way everyone (including myself) usually looks away from homeless people, as if they don't exist. So, I made eye contact, as if to say, "Hello, fellow human," and then down, because he looked deranged and I didn't want him to get the wrong idea. When I looked down, I saw that he had no shoes on. I barely had time to think, "Jesus?" before he slugged me in the shoulder -- and we're talkin' hard -- and muttered, "Destroy." This freaked me right the fuck out. The fact that the windy Iranian movie was no longer playing, thus enabling us to see Nurse Betty, featuring the quirkily irresistible Crispin Glover, soothed my shattered nerves a bit, but not enough. I mean, he said, "Destroy!"

Punch number two: Walking up 8th Ave., outside of the post office across from MSG, coming home from buying a lovely wedding card for my soon-to-be married friends. It's around 8:00 p.m., and I've already missed Big Brother, so, really, what do I have to go home to? Still, I'm goin' home. As I approach 33rd St., a man, later determined to be crazy and homeless, flicks something in my path, and I walk into it. It might have been a cigarette butt, but to me it felt like one of those little white popper things that explode. Anyway, it hit my thigh, I thought, "Hey, that guy threw something at my thigh," and continued on my merry way. "I'm sorry, Miss," he slurred. I'm sure he was, but I really didn't want to get into a discussion about it just then, so I didn't stop. So, of course, he punches me in the arm and says, "Hey, Miss, I'm talkin' to you." Again, right the fuck out I am freaked.

So freaked, I did not go home, but rather went to read the new Harry Potter book and drink four cups of diner coffee at, surprisingly enough, the diner. The diner in New York. You know. Because there's only one.

And so, at 2:00 a.m., I'm still shaking.

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