Thrice daily, Cujo Chuggie, my platonic-canine-domestic-partial-life-partner requires my assistance in escorting him down the five steep flights of my tenement apartment building to the gritty sidewalks of my Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood. So he can relieve himself.

With the selflessne… Read full post »

The evening rush hour at the close of another warm day inspired a collective fatigue among the passengers of the crowded train car as we rode from stop to stop in utter silence. A little boy sat patiently with his pretty young mother directly across the aisle from me.… Read full post »

During seasonal bouts of deeply woven religious anxiety, often emanating from the pit of my irritable bowel, I find fleeting comfort toying with the idea of a conversion away from Judaism to a faith with less schmaltz in the traditional community meals. I'm still undecided whether my heretic… Read full post »

At the beginning of this morning's yoga class, while instructed to cradle myself in one of the less demanding contortions known as relaxing fetus, I endured a twenty minute lecture praising the virtues of a raw vegan diet from our anorexic-chic, loose fitting hemp wardrobe wearing substitut… Read full post »

There was a homemade poster board sign featuring a well-known line of educational propaganda that hung prominently on the wall of my first grade classroom. In large hand written sparkly glitter outlined red bubble letters it read, "The only dumb question is the one you don't ask."… Read full post »

An entry from my diary from the winter of 2006

Hypochondria inspire an acute sensitivity to the minutest physical changes taking place within or around my body. The emergence of whiskers on a recently shaved jaw or the drying of nasal mucus is felt with the kind… Read full post »

The Waiting Game

Although sitting around with other mental patients before our respective appointments is technically not group therapy, I could not stand the silence and thought I'd test the water. Posing the question, "so why are you here" to a stranger, whose evident anxiety was further… Read full post »

There is a modicum of one to two hours of voyeuristic window watching that I must squeeze into my daily routine if I am ever to achieve full blown agoraphobia. Occasionally, my fellow recluses and I catch each other in this risqué act, which immediately leads to mutual bouts… Read full post »

Shit Quilt

The elderly women of Quilted Northern spend their days and nights lovingly crafting ornate quilts constructed of the world's most fragile paper only to have their precious art eventually soak up the fecal matter of unfamiliar asses.

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The telephone's shrill ring yanked me from the dreamy quicksand of a Benadryl slumber in the middle of the night.  Half blinded by sleep encrusted eyes and dark shadows, a head still clouded by an over the counter high and the chill brought on by a buzzing air conditioner… Read full post »

A colleague of mine held a dinner party in his new apartment in a neighborhood of New York City that for the past few years has been experiencing an economic resurgence. A shift in the caliber of businesses and the style of residents was immediately noticeable upon this most… Read full post »

A childhood friend called this morning to have me personally wish her son a happy third birthday. Before I had the chance to protest participating in such a predictably strained dialogue, the little boy was snatched from his morning appointment of television cartoons over to the phone.

It… Read full post »

I ate my oatmeal slumped over in bed, while listening to the morning news over an Internet radio broadcast. I wasn't feeling very inspired to expend the energy required to sit up properly after wearing myself out from the arduous microwave cooking process involved in my instant breakfast's co… Read full post »

"I give you a bracha^[1] that you should find your basherit^[2] right away. So that you can be complete!" 

My profoundly numinous friend uttered this blessing with even extra magnitude in his already rich tenor. It was as if he could single handedly ignite the flame of divine interve… Read full post »

Last night in dreams, I penetrated the shuttered smoky oak accordion folding cabinet doors of my childhood living room’s Zenith System 3 television set, beyond the glassy envelope of a cathode ray tube, where a bombardment of electrons assembled the phosphorescent reunion of my beloved… Read full post »

My father was terribly obsessed with monitoring the regularity of my bowel movements during my childhood. He felt emotionally invested in the knowledge that I was not, as he used to put it, straining myself. In fact, I was regularly straining myself despite the immense discomfort this caused… Read full post »

I was taught the meaning of the word suicide when I was eight from my summer day camp friend Jason. His mother had sadly taught him the meaning of the word with a personal example of it earlier that year.

Jason brought a mimeographed copy of his mother's… Read full post »

 The other day, while walking through Lincoln Center, I was struck by a roof top taxi cab advertsement for a television program that seems to unashamedly celebrate greed. I couldn't help but notice the driver painstakingly counting and sorting one dollar bills in contrast to his bikini… Read full post »

My nervous fingertips grudgingly click and clack their way across my well worn keyboard under duress from my Googled brain. I need another fix of irrelevant information to keep my focus far away from a failing life beyond the seductive ethos of Cyberspace. I am in the advanced, perhaps… Read full post »