From round and about

Interesting New York moments of note from the past few weeks:

-In a deli on 137th Street, as I was waiting to pay for my coffee and unhealthy snack, a woman entered and stood directly behind me, not exactly in line but not doing anything else, either. She started singing. Maybe to herself, but her voice was so highly trained and operatic that she was loud enough for everyone to hear. She sang the song Jessica Rabbit sings in Who Framed Roger Rabbit: "Why Don't You Do Right." (Which, as it turns out, was originally written in 1936 by Kansas Joe McCoy and called "The Weed Smoker's Dream," then rewritten and performed first by Lil Green in 1941 and made famous by Peggy Lee the next year... or so says Wikipedia.) It was bizarre. I didn't know anybody else on earth knew that song. I wanted to join her in it, or turn around and smile, but she was singing it in such a vibrato-heavy, show-tunes-with-jazz-hands style that I couldn't get into it. I left the deli singing it quietly to myself, all sultry like it's supposed to be sung.

-This morning, walking to work along 57th Street, a man in front of me was walking with a closed umbrella in his hand. He was wielding it in a very strange fashion. With each step of his right foot, he would put it down as if it were a cane, but when it came back up, rather than swinging it forward to put down again, he would swing it up very fast and hold it out parallel to the ground for a second, then in a jerky motion put it down again and repeat the whole cycle. It was odd. But what was odder was that when he would walk past a plate glass window, he would stare at his own reflection, perhaps mesmerized by his antics with the can. I could only wonder if he saw me behind him, staring at him with a bemused expression.

-Myself, stuck to a wall in a public place, frozen in fear and struck dumb by grief, breaking down for all to see, right there by the door. I do not do these things, I thought even as I crumbled. I wanted to batter down past those arms holding me at a distance, enter them instead and wrap myself inside until that shattered heart let me in to do much needed repair work. My hands are tender and my mortar is strong. But no dice. Instead I watched myself as if from someone else's perspective, hiding in plain sight.