Puppies in pouches.

I typed an ENORMOUS post last night. And then deleted the entire thing because something in the way I hold my hands when I type keeps hitting some mysterious combitnation of buttons on this computer that have staggering results like deleting my blogs and causing the computer to vanish entirely.
And now I don't remember anything that I had typed about. Except running into Jonathan Spivey on a corner just north of Union Square and having him give me a one armed hug and turn the corner without breaking stride. Don't think he knew he I was, but as I seemed to know his name, he felt obliged.
In some show someday when I'm in my sunset years I will need to base my character off of this woman in the Fedex. You'll just have to wait and see.
Ginnie just told me she just witnessed an orca killing and then consuming a sea lion. I don't think I have ever been more jealous.
I'm really into my new magic shoes. They make me about three inches taller and something about the way the bottoms curve makes it possible for me to produce the swingy ponytail/wind in the hair thing with every stride.
I'm trying to figure out some way to go to Canada over the next five weeks. I have realized that if all goes as planned, from top to bottom of this holiday, I will have visited 11 states. Which ups my total considerably. No-12.
I have been so busy walking around and swinging my hair that I have completely forgotten to chew my fingernails. My father will be THRILLED.
Fell madly into romantic novel damsel in self-inflicted distress love with the subway attendant last night. Am now pretty much over it. But the tale might bear telling.
At around 9pm, I had constructed an outfit that, while completely covering all my private areas, and still looking non-hoey, managed to weigh only 4.7 oz and keep me relatively cool. I put on my sparkling orthopedic shoes and skipped down the stairs. Shut all three doors of the apartment behind me. Locked. Knew I had no key yet but had firm plans to make a copy of Joseph's in the morning.
Shut the door. Turned around. The sky was full of more lightening than I have ever seen all at once. And there were whipping gusts of wind and if I looked to my right I could see the Empire State Building swaying just a little.
Oh well, locked out.
Go down into the subway. Sit. Stare back at the construction men. Then stare at the sign that says that from today until the end of October there will be no more late-night trains into Manhattan from this stop.
Exit the subway directly into the end of the world. Exit the end of the world directly into the pizza place on the corner.
Am getting pretty good at the subways, and after several rounds of "Get On The Subway Without Consulting The Map And See Where You Go And See If You Can Get Back Without Cheating," I am confident in my Manhattan abilities.
In Queens I may as well be trying to alphabetize jelly.
So I call Joseph who tells me that he will call the upstairs neighbor. She doesn't answer. (Joseph is out for the evening, by the way, not just being a jerk and letting me learn my lesson for locking myself out.) So I lean against the pizza parlor and observe the streaks of lightening and feel the hot little prickles of pre-storm droplets and decide that being stranded outside lost in the electrical storm disaster of '09 can either be a scary death situation or a grand adventure. Decide on the latter as I have on my brown hat from the Mill and my polka dot skirt and am feeling pretty untouchable.
Immediately after I make this decision the Pacific Ocean is dumped onto the corner of 44th and the pizza place.
I go underground. (See, doesn't that just sound so dangerous and exciting?)
I am approached by a handsome Indian man who works in the subway and informed that the trains x. I tell him I know this and ask if I can please wait here until the deluge is over.
I do not hear how he answers due to a earth-shaking thunderclap, but he walks away so I figure it's fine.
Well, the rain doesn't stop, so the man approaches me again, asks me where I'm going, and asks if I would like to take the shuttle.
Whenever someone asks me if I would like to take the shuttle, I get nervous. For no good reason, except in my mind I envision some tubular vehicle that will be way up high and cost me a lot of money which I will be required to know something about space in order to ride.
This shuttle is a bus. He says for me to come with him.
So I go. He thinks I am interesting I think, as he keeps looking sideways at me. I ask him a question so he will have something talk about.
As we walk down under the streets along the subway lines we pass dozens of wet, bereft people, construction workers, a dazzling Jamaican woman wearing a rainbow dress, an Indian woman wearing a drapery from Linens 'N Things and her little brother; and to each party of people Sir Subway announes "NO MORE TRAINS!"
Watching each of their faces as he announced this was very entertaining.
So one by one they start following us.
We are like Moses and his trusty sidekick She-Ra. Or something. Felt like I was in the Poseiden after it has just flipped when someone finally decided to find a way out, and some banded together to try, and we were those people.
(Sidenote- my father told me one Sunday on the way home from church that "The Poseidon Adventure" had been on that morning, he had taped it, and it was a good movie that I would enjoy. I go into the basement and watch it. I still have nightmares.)
So we arrive at the end of a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG corridor with those moving walkways which I adore. They are of course not on. But Sir Subway gestures to the end of the walkway 5 kilometers away and indicates a woman in a orange vest from whom I am to get a ticket. I am then to go outside and get on the shuttle which will take me to eia;heia eiagoa (had no idea what he said) and then I can get on a train to Manhattan.
Ok.
So I smile and thank him and stride off.
Me, Jamaica, and Indian brother woman hustle down this walkway.
I get my ticket and go outside.
Outside is the Great Tampoon.
The only vehicle I can see anywhere that is running is a small van across the street. So I swim across the street and smile and tap on the window. It is rolled down to reveal a bus full of construction workers and one of their girlfriends cackling at this wet dotted woman in orthopedic shoes who is trying to board the construction bus. They point out the shuttle stop a block away.
So I go down there and lean against a plexiglass wall next to a Japanese man who is wearing brown, tan and ecru. I glance over at what he is doing on his phone. He is watching Beyonce videos.
I get excited and feel very cultural when I realize that I think out of all eight people under the shelter I am the only one with English as a first language.
About half an hour later, after I have learned all there is to know about the poor health and hospitalized state of Abdu Kharam Ahkal who is the father of the woman in front of me, the shuttle comes. I get on.
The bus driver is an elderly white haired tub of a man with round spectacles. He says to me, "Hello, Gorgeous," and I turn around immediately to make sure Jamaica and Indian brother woman are getting on with me. They are.
This bus is really something. It has blue seats and a balcony in the back. I just sat there and thought about how wonderful it was that a bus had a balcony.
So we ride the bus for about twenty minutes during which I make a few attempts to look out the window and gauge where I might be. I decided it was either Astoria or Boise.
Stopped trying to figure it out.
We stop at a dark rainy corner and are ejected from the bus.
We go down an escalator that is covered in trash and hasn't moved for 15 years for about three stories into one of the upper levels of hell where all the walls are burning orange and everyone you see presents a threat of crimes against your person ranging from pick-pocketing to kitten assassination.
I sit on a bench between my new buddies Jamaica and Indian Brother.
The first train that comes everyone lifts off the bench to board like cobras had just gotten up their skirts.
We get on. By now I am secretly hoping that I will go somewhere utterly bizarre just so I can add to this story.
We ride long enough for me to finish about eight chapters of Kevin Nealon's new book about his wife's pregnancy.
I consult the stops list (in the interest of time, as Sam had been expecting me for what was going on two hours now and should have been 20 minutes) and decide to get off at 14th St. As to where on 14th St. that would be was anyone's guess.
Indian Brother had gotten off several stops ago and 3% of me wanted to go with her as I at least knew if I went with her I would either end up eating something spicy, or in the Intensive Care Unit visting her father.
Got off at 14th. Was immediately presented with the option of boarding the bus to Jersey.
Decided against that. Went to the nearest exit.
Emerged to a beautiful, wonderfully just-rained smelling corner of Manhattan that I understood.
Still had to walk about 17 blocks east to get where I was going, but was worth it. I love how it smells after it has just rained, and I think having a lot of wet pavement makes the smell even better.
So that's what I did last night.
Am tonight scheduled to go to a book signing Joseph is in charge of with some Mattel-manufactured Russian blond who has written a book explaining the etymology of lots of English words and wears leather and pink lace and has a boyfriend named Socrates.