WaterWorld

By GeorgeLouis at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org

Like a lot of urban myths, the idea that New York (once "New Amsterdam") is a horrible cesspool of evil people takes a lot of work, through popular t.v. shows that are eager to sell this gritty vision of our fair Gotham as a grim reality to viewers too scared to see the truth for themselves. Of course, we also rank #14 in the U.S. for churches per capita, but that doesn't sell as many tickets to the show, does it? Not that our lives are dull, it's just that (like other areas around the globe), popular culture about us can be intentionally misleading.

I lived in one of the most prosperous neighborhoods in the world, and I felt lucky to be there when I did. Prospect Park is Frederick Law Olmsted's vision for a less manicured space outside of Manhattan that would give the grounds an air of discovery upon certain vistas, lending it an experience more similar to hiking in nature, rather than being in the middle of one of the world's largest cities (Brooklyn), now a borough of New York City, which was once a city of its own.

The same can be said about any of the outdoor spaces we have in the surrounding area. Brooklyn and Queens (boroughs both) are part of the land mass that becomes Long Island. The ocean is so important to us, that our SUNY Maritime College (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_University_of_New_York_Maritime_College) is in the Bronx, another borough. Water is everywhere around us, strange as that picture may seem to someone whose best ideas about us are formed through fictionalized t.v. shows, so much so, that Long Islanders define towns as either being on the North Shore or the South Shore.

As I've written before, we also have an old, active, thriving beach culture that's as separate from California Dreamin' as their beaches are to their t.v. shows, too. In the midst of all this natural beauty, it makes alternate versions a hard sell, but careers are built on such quibbling points, and lost on them, too. Because we are an island nation in New York, our lives are almost totally defined by water. There are 2,000 bridges and tunnels in the city of New York (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridges_and_tunnels_in_New_York_City), which is utterly incomprehensible to feel through the flat screen of a t.v set. You have to smell the ocean breeze as it blows inland, watching the water rise to a gushing flood that flushes out the sewers within a half an hour, to realize the power that is this great driving force of nature.

It's made us respect the water we need everyday, because we come from it. We're made of it, after all (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_water). It's essential to who we are, because it is the stuff of life itself. We cannot live without. It is in this spirit (inclusive to all life on Planet Earth), that I'm asking you today to participate in its preservation through your careful consumption, and the designation of our precious waterways to national parkland status or designated UNESCO heritage sites, because you have to ask yourself this: when was the last time you beat a tidal wave? I already know the answer, and so do you. Honor water as you honor life itself.

https://events.attend.com/f/1383773128\
http://en.unesco.org/ 
http://water.org/ 

I Come From the Water

Toadies

I come from the water
I crawled upon the shore
I left my brothers there
I got what I came for

I sucked that hot air in
And rolled upon the sand
Emerged beneath the sun
To be a man.

I come from the water
I come from the water
That weren't no easy thing
It's more than nature
It's like my destiny

I stood upon these legs
And held my head up high
Emerged beneath the sun
To start a new life

I Come From the water

Life in the desert
Just to be together
The sand forever
The same forever
It moves beneath me
It pulls my body
My pulse beats hotter
So far from the water

I love to see the sun
In spite of all it's done
I pray for shade and rain
I pray to live again
I come from the water

Google Play

Reach Out, Touch Faith

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Jesus

Because I write so often about faith, to the point of its inclusion in this sites' subtitle, I've attracted a dedicated group of disordered onlookers who like to pretend (as an aggressive strategy) that "holy" means "magic healing pod", even though I've written that this clearly is not the case: http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2015/09/cocoon.html. It doesn't stop certain types of addicts from pursuing a malignant agenda with me anyway, because like cancer, addictive disorders afflict the good, the bad, the ugly, and the indifferent. If you're an asshole as a drunk, you're still a dick, just someone with a really great excuse.

We even had a host of handy little equations for easy discernment at our parties, broken down as such: Instant Asshole = Just Add Alcohol. Simple, right? You'd be amazed by the amount of jerks we outed through basic human responses like "looking", coupled with an amazing deductive process called "observation". My best friend and I went to school readily equipped with a pocketful of quickly digestible phrases that we'd distribute around our gatherings to the benefit of our friends in attendance, a set of hard-working New York natives we wanted to protect, so we could all have a relaxing night of fun, with great tunes, great food, and great drinks to ease our stress.

Of course, our good times became a target, too, as we learned that evil people with learning impairments need a constant stream of cute "tips" and repetitive tidbits for understanding the human condition, seeing as psychotics are dependent on healthy people to provide guidance and balance for them, though often without the acknowledgment of such, because that would be open and transparent, and if you're a parent who huffs children like they're your personal medicine cabinet, then you already get my drift, without the overly subtle cues (wink, wink). Our happiness and peace of mind were things some of our families went to great lengths to sabotage, especially if your children work all those difficult and demanding jobs that pay for your medical benefits. Get it?

In the interest of their self-interest, the sickest people in our codependent families became awkwardly weird spies, using a bevy of strangely paranoid behaviors and robotic movements to "glean" what they could have learned much easier for the asking, but that would signal their dependence upon us, and if you're a self-described asshole, then that just won't do. We became adept at feeling out other people's agendas in record speeds, so we could move on to the real jobs we had that are indeed challenging, let alone become primary to someone with several serious brain disorders.

It didn't stop suckers from trying to leech off of us anyway, but it did make it a much more difficult gauntlet to run, like playing a game they could never win, hence the justification for all that supposed frustration leading up to our abuse, in an insanely childish cycle of petulance and lashing out that marks the continually untreated psychotic. It gave our parents the ammo they needed to build up secret grudges that only they knew about, with oddly described rituals about our weather here that "they" always get "wrong", in these obliquely vague references to weather and meteorology that did not mark an understanding of their advanced degrees in science, dearly paid for by our working class grandparents and the city of New York. For what, actually? This same ritualistic back-and-forth?

Compulsions became hunting forays we'd lay traps for, often without even realizing it, adept as we were at self-defense. Most of my friends and all of my siblings (and their kids) have belt ranking in martial arts, as a necessary reflection of the daily trappings we could undo, if we felt like exposing someone again....and then again, and....OK! Once more loudly!! It became this retarded card trick of pissing us off so we'd leave them alone in their nervous fretting, so they could turn to comfortingly repetitive behaviors that soothe aggravated souls. It wasn't our problem, and yet somehow it still was (especially in our absences, when we were at our most productive = stage a scene to get attention, and/or conduct a total communication block-out including any and all modern devices), and we knew it was wrong.

Here at this public library (and laundromat, or the local grocery store, in particular drug stores dispensing legal addictions in handy pill form), I reenact these old classmate routines with a mature ennui that signifies my acceptance of your disorder...again. Much like immediate family, they learn to either get with the program or leave, and so I type to you blessedly free of a twitchy emaciated addict with bad breath sitting next to me, behaving as if I'm their fix du jour, because I'm not. They always snap to, because you really have to, one way or another. Sometimes it's either "do or die", as it's purposefully set up by a drama queen with nothing to lose but their unhealthy mindset (real medicine...oh, the horror!), given the moral problems most stubborn psychos pretend to have with "authority", which really means obeying normal laws, like any other citizen complies with, like I do.

Currently, the local crazies like to get as close to me as possible without touching me, like when I'm sitting in a chair at a public computer with Internet access (because that would be overtly actionable by law, in front of lots of cameras in place), so they take turns grazing the back of my neck with their falsely hurried, brushed-by breezes (because, you know, at a small town library, that's the right pace for a part-time government job...uh, no), or they leave notes for each other in garbage pails placed strategically around the room, or they lurk near me pretending to browse (that's an easy trick to pull off, though), or there's just that one out of place mouse pad that needs straightening up right next to my workstation, so they can get an up-close look at my progress onscreen. Like my other vanquished library foe "Michelle the Hat" (http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2015/10/michelle-hat.html), I always seem to win these ho-hum "reindeer games" that some of my public insists on projecting through me, as a magnet for their madness.

You should put on your thinking caps, though, because time is running out! "Michelle the Hat" got so far as barely fingering the intentionally fringed sleeve edge to one of my summertime tops a few years ago (and she had to read my work closely to do that little, by muttering my phrase back to me as a justification, in a hastily delivered mutter "perfect in its imperfection" which I previously published as a line, so I knew she was reading me every day...AHA!), and that had to be done in haste before anyone else caught on to it, like the subversively secretive, evil, ugly, little dyke that she really is, because this here mama knows all the ploys you play daily. Unless you're my man, I ain't gonna let you touch me (and no, I don't have "issues" with normal human touch. Nice try, though, Elvis!), so if you aren't truly ailing, you most definitely won't be healed with some casual proximity to me, because I'm not your personal Jesus statue to play with. Bitch.

Depeche Mode – Personal Jesus Lyrics

Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who cares
Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who's there

Feeling unknown
And you're all alone
Flesh and bone
By the telephone
Lift up the receiver
I'll make you a believer

Take second best
Put me to the test
Things on your chest
You need to confess
I will deliver
You know i'm a forgiver

Reach out and touch faith
Reach out and touch faith

Your own personal Jesus...
Feeling unknown
And you're all alone
Flesh and bone
By the telephone
Lift up the receiver
I'll make you a believer

I will deliver
You know I'm a forgiver

Reach out and touch faith
Your own personal Jesus
Reach out and touch faith

Songwriters: GORE, MARTIN LEE

Personal Jesus lyrics © EMI Music Publishing

Hot Shots

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin

Years ago I saw a television story about a storefront in San Francisco that catered to the heroin addicts in their neighborhood. It's a brilliant idea. On the street level are partially walled stalls to give addicts some privacy, while allowing a rotating healthcare worker to check-in with their patients by simply walking past every so often. If they felt someone was in trouble, there's a nurse on staff to give them a life-saving shot that prevents an overdose.

After their patients became comfortable with that level of transparency, they could tour the upper floors of the building with staffers to see their in-care services, like their rehab program and transitional housing. After I saw it, I thought to myself: why aren't we replicating this program in every major city across America? It just made so much sense to me that I knew it was the answer we've been seeking as a society.

And so, it was with great happiness and a shock of recognition that I saw on the local news this week that our fair city here in New York plans to introduce a similar street-front model catering to heroin addiction. Why not? We already have rehab, detox, and disability. Why not spare families and their addicted family members from dying by a bad shot misapplied? This way, we can save a lot of people living on both sides of addiction. It's the way out for you, friends. Take it!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supervised_injection_site 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harm_reduction

Sweatin' with the Oldies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_arts

After I dumped yet another fucked up Irish-American kid who clung to me like I was his last drink of the night at closing time, I quit smoking and took up Mixed Martial Arts at the age of 37-going-on-38 shortly, with two pins in my left knee and much damage to the area, the result of a highly invasive knee surgery (with several DVT's afterwards) that I needed after my Giant Mal pulled me over during a too-early morning walk that was at the hectoring behest of the contentious out-of-towners living downstairs from me, put into motion to assuage their madness at life itself, none of which I controlled.

And so, unlike the rest of the typical New York crowd looking to bail out of their banal schedules at the slightest chance, I went without another drunken night at a bar (with people I couldn't stand), to train on the mats of the local McDojo that was close to my Manhattan office building, many months after the bipolar receptionist, her fat friend, and the pretty Puerto Rican kid had bailed for other places more rife with strife. I trained with their Head Instructor at the time, Sensei Jason Lopez, a man who excelled at grappling and wrestling in their style.

It was an odd time for their school, because they used to be a strip mall chain exclusive to the suburbs, now branching out due to the success of MMA as a sport, to keep up with area-wide demand for exercise programs, which was disastrous for the real athletes who paid a lot of money for expert instruction. They used to be a karate school because the Schulmann boys (two Jewish kids from Spring Valley in Rockland County) originally competed in tournaments, though even that was under a cloud of suspicion. They made wild claims with some myth that included an old Chinese man walking their Holocaust-fleeing grandparents over a rough Asian mountain chain to freedom, where they were taught many ancient mystical arts from their beloved Shifu, which made me laugh so hard when I read it online, that I was shocked by the crazies at their school who wanted it so badly to be true.

They had some bad burnouts at the Manhattan school, people dazed by the change from traditional katas to the aerobic exercise that characterizes the mixing of many arts, baffling as that was to their clientele who preferred the comfort of regularity without change. They simply couldn't keep up with the new program, and they knew it, which set up an "old versus new" student dynamic that turned ugly quickly. Of course, I was targeted by pretty much every person there, except the younger kids who wanted to date me, or at least rub up against me, if they could keep up with my schedule designed by Sensei.

Soon enough, the posers dropped away to form a small but dedicated group of training partners for me: some were good, some were bad, and some of them couldn't perform martial arts if their lives depended on it. For me, it didn't really matter. I just needed them to be consistent enough that they could hold the training mitts needed for my combos, or a kicking shield for our practices, and anyone can do that. It was in that spirit I found myself walking into an almost-empty studio one evening after work, because St. Patrick's Day often falls on a weekday here in New York, and I had a demanding art director's job that needed me to stay in business. My reputation had proceeded me, and that's not something you toss away for the same type of pint of beer you've been hoisting since at least your college days, though for my working class native crowd, it was often sooner than that.

They had a program with local law enforcement at the time of my training period there, though in truth they were looking for anyone who could be lured inside their studio space by some asshole kid with a "fauxhawk" haircut that they made stand outside on the sidewalk, handing out flyers to the passing commuters, because he was a total dick. I wouldn't buy a thing from him, and they knew that, too. So, I changed and waited upstairs with my gear on (like we'd been taught) , waiting for the current class to end so we could hit the mats at the sensei's signal, in a deep sense of order and respect that marks the true martial artist. After all, he was the one with the black belt who'd fought a thousand fights to be leading class, as he reminded us whenever he felt his crowd was drifting away in the wrong direction.

Schools with a lot of beginners need almost-constant encouraging from the staff, because amateurs without any real artistry lose heart without paying cheerleaders to rally them from the sidelines, in a paid show of support. With me it was totally unnecessary, and the staff knew that, too. They were, quite simply, blown away by me, choosing instead to give me a wide berth at the school while their lead guy taught me their classes. That night of St. Pat's was my favorite class, "Bag Training", because it was easier on my bad knee than the training that's typical for grappling classes (even with the padding), plus I depended less on the partner who held the punching bag for me. I had a "rep", as they say, which is typical for me everywhere I go.

The more frightened students who'd been coerced into classes they couldn't get a refund for, without serious injury or moving out of town (the Attorney General for New Jersey from years ago had to sue them as a chain, on behalf of the parents of injured children who never got refunds, as one Eliot Spitzer), made whispered deals in the locker room for training partners, to ensure some sense of control over what happened to them on the mats. I had no such luck, seeing as most of them women there avoided eye contact with me purposefully, to avoid partnering with me or having a conversation, so I just went with whoever didn't have a partner after sensei said "partner up" in class, like selecting kids for a hard game of dodgeball with lots of long-held grudges, except that this was the opposite.

Luck have it, I got a Mick who was enrolled with the cop's discount program, or at least that's what I remember hearing, and he certainly fit the description. During warm-ups, I got a good look at him as I sat on his feet while he did crunches. We'd been given instructions to hem the sleeves and pants of our gi's and baring that, to at least roll up our sleeves, which you wanted to do anyway, just to cool your skin in the hot dojo and get them out of the way. He'd chosen to ignore that rule, preferring instead to do the handy bachelor trick of ripping the bottom of his white gi pants into a ragged edge, giving them the appearance of floods. Further still, he was a receding hairline, salt-and-peppered, middle-aged man looking to keep up with his fitness, and I certainly understood the motivation behind that. Maybe that was part of the deal behind his bright kelly green headband, too.

Not only that, he had on dirty pants stained at the butt, also against dojo rules to always wash your gi before your next class and be freshly washed, so as to not offend your training partner. Ah, fuck that! Most of us developed the easy routine of (at least) washing our gi the night before (they were the lightweight kind), and then hanging them to dry, because packing your gym bag for the day is also part of the routine. He'd also decided to mark himself out even further as a NYPD Mick by sporting that same green sweatband around his constantly-sweating red head, in case we missed his remarkably pale pallor on the exposed skin showing below his ripped pants. Oh! Thanks!

It was with a great sense of irony that I rolled with an Irish-born male still sporting his native brogue that I could discern in the few short words he did speak to me on the night of St. Patrick's Day, while other Celts drank to exhaustion or vomiting, as he sweated with me on the bright blue mats. Could be worse, I though to myself, smelling him ripely for not the first time that night. We could be one of them on the other side of the huge pane of glass in that street-level studio, easily viewable to the drunks making fun of us as they weaved pass. We could be one of them wandering about aimlessly, in a city not of their own. Besides, I never forgot it, have I? Here I am working for all of you today at my local library, instead of some equally desperate office gig in the city, celebrating a weekday night made exceptional only through another rough commute made worse with the drunks who'd smell even riper on the evening bus out of town, if they weren't passed out already. I could be one of them instead. Go raibh maith agat.

 “May you have goodness.”

http://www.bitesize.irish/blog/polite-phrases-in-irish/ 

for R.S.
 

Neck

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Taboo_Tattoos

I met Jimmy at a bar down on Stone Street with the company receptionist from the small Jewish family business I worked for, during my last long-term office job. She was busy burning through the new people, places, and things that she could at this McDojo we signed with, which gave me the relative peace of having a training experience of my very own, without parenting her through it. She remains one of the most disturbed women I've ever met through other people's companies, following a typical pattern of hiring that's based on the myth that other mentally ill/disabled people make the odd family members stick out less, which never really works. Who builds businesses based on the backs of a bunch of sick people? Not really good ones, like the workflows I design as I was taught, through an impressive list of industry mentors.

So, chaining their rabid Israeli girl with the weird yellow hair to a front desk, watching her explode into deranged fireworks day after day, really didn't mean much to me. Who cares? I had the actual business of books to work on with my contacts and clients. I was an almost totally self-sufficient business within a business, which the best creative contractors can pull off in their sleep, under the false duress of other people's manias. I kept a strict schedule that would automatically cut out anyone who couldn't hack it, which meant most of their resident amateur weirdos ran out of the door in horror of our actual labors, and they were forced to hire real publishing executives with genuine credentials from big league New York publishing, like me.

Their fried dyed mess of a doggie was honing in on me gradually though, because she could feel me pull away as easily as if she was just another generically fucked-up Long Islander, and she was that. Most of her work friends were gone, like her supposed "best friend" who was fired and then group-texted a bunch of us while we were working that she might just off herself, which sent her high school buddy running back to see me. "Oh, Becky always does that." Huh...not in my world. What gives? I trained her not to interrupt my day with her trivial madness, seeing as we all drew a paycheck from my continued successful contact at Barnes & Noble, the largest book retailer in the country. No me + no work = no money. Even she could figure that out with her more corrupt cronies at the office who preferred email hacking over the small in-house network to actually working. Ew!

Spying on me occupied their free time, and even in that strange game, I had them hooked through my online comments on well-known media sites that caused a ruckus throughout the place. Haha! I LOVE corporate espionage! It's fun! After that, she had to step up her game at infiltrating my life with an ever more aggressive and open series of mind games that don't work on genius talents who create paychecks for them through their book sales. Sorryy....She awkwardly asked me to sign up for karate lessons at a cheap intro price one afternoon while I walked past the front desk, after I created another successful distance she could practically taste in her mouth, because she knew I quit smoking through their email readings and my Internet surfing; I was actively looking online for fitness programs, like fencing with an epee or foil (http://fencersclub.org/). Yuck!

Her brother was actively engaged in martial arts training, which cinched the deal for her as a coward. She couldn't walk down the block unless she was looped off secretive hits taken in the company bathroom from a big blue bottle of mouthwash. After an initial observation session with one of their instructors (I won that assessment, too, BTW. I know, I know...sigh...again), we signed up for the program and it was going great. She soon learned that I didn't need athletics to tame a raging case of violent bipolar addictive disorder with markedly psychotic features like she did, so she picked up on a lonely fat girl desperate for a friendly face in our aggressive fight training classes. She began sweeping into class at the last minute to avoid talking to me on the mat, and then developed a ridiculous crush on a kid who was 19 and a brown belt instructor at the time.

Once again, I had no problem backing away from her, which once again backfired on her evil machinations, because the good-looking Puerto Rican kid from Spanish Harlem promptly announced his crush on "women in their 30s" made loudly in front of the both of us that drove her mad with envy, though Lord knows why, except she also has OCD. She used me as a lure to attract him into conversation that failed miserably, because she had absolutely nothing to say. Frothing at the mouth in anger, she told me to stay away from him as she tried her hand at 21st Century "cougaring", a sport she was bested at by a better-looking Spanish girl with a design degree and a great job with a famous cosmetics manufacturer doing package design for major retailers. Ohhh...that must have hurt badly!

As she went down in flames, her very last draw for a high-status female friendship were post-workout drinks with me, just like the after-work soirees she first invited me to without much success either, because crazy bitch games don't mean shit to me. And that's when I met Jimmy, a short good-looking Irish-American kid from Brooklyn working FDNY/limo driving. As soon as I bit into one of my first hot wings at the bar, I could sense him working a circuit around the joint, circling the place, looking for attractive pickings, and as soon as I looked up from my hot wing, he looked right at me. Ooops. Uh, this should go over badly. I quickly told her discreetly that he was coming over to hit on me, as a warning to her fragile ego. She immediately perked up during his harmless flirtations, doing a bunch of weird moves that baffled him, until he and I finally turned to each other for a real honest talk, the kind that only genuine New York city kids have with one another.

We knew the same Brooklyn neighborhoods, and sweet guy that he was, it was more than enough. He was like a lot of guys I grew up with, and he knew that. No harm, no foul. She made a quick plan to leave me alone with him as part of her punishment to me for turning away from her while she talked with his less-attractive friend, but as one co-worker had already observed in his email to me (hi Scooter!), my genetic attractions weren't my fault, nor his. She left me alone to whatever the fates had in store for me, which in this case meant hand-holding back to his parked SUV, and a nice drop-off at my Park Slope townhome with my little bag of drugstore products (like organic panti-liners) left in his truck by accident.

We made tentative plans for his returning them to me one evening after my work was done, ringing him on my cellphone from the Chelsea corner near my office, but it didn't work out. He was already out on a fare that wasn't near my subway stop in Manhattan. Oh, well. That was fine by me: the lad was far too young for me and besides, he'd never been to the real country of Ireland, just the commercial one he designed in his head that made for easy marketing in New York City, as part of the local color. Besides, as a master artist, taste means a lot to me and his quickly-rendered shamrock tat left much to be desired, as did it's placement in the middle of the back of his neck that he showed to me after shots. No thanks, mate. Sláinte to ya for the safe ride home, though. You were a sweet kid to me that night. Ta!

Famine (an Gorta Mór)

The scene at Skibbereen, west Cork, in 1847. 
From a series of illustrations by Cork artist James Mahony (1810-1879), commissioned by Illustrated London News 1847.

After my Scandinavian friend via Labrador from way back when moved out a few years back (though his stuff remained around the property for years afterward, gypsy that he is), Steve was rather quickly replaced by a Haitian-American family as new tenants. The father was gregarious and friendly to me when he felt like it, and the mother to their young son never spoke to me at all, which is rather typical for the seriously sick. The man would appear at odd times of the day and night, and I soon became accustomed to the habits of a household struggling with manic depression made worse by their recent move.

Believe it or not, they fit in with the rest of the household far better than I did at the time, better tuned in as they were to the various traumas at play throughout the big old house and its surrounding property. Like some mysterious theater for the insane, cars and trucks appeared and disappeared, sometimes for sale at the garage next door, to be back in use the very next day. What were their reasons for so many back-and-forth decisions? I never knew, as the resident healthy elder among a group of disordered individuals adrift in their diseases, cut off from forming families like the rest of us do out in the real world.

"Fritz" was charming, talkative (when he did appear), and spotty in all of his endeavors. At times, he would be cheerfully waiting with his adorable little boy outdoors for the short bus that took him to nursery school for half a day, as is fitting for a toddler still growing. Fritz would manage some tasks fast and efficiently, while he struggled to adapt to other basic day-to-day schedules on a regular basis. I say "Fritz" because I have also become used to a dizzying array of names over the years, some real and some ridiculously false, and my man from up north had the former thing going on with him.

First, he gave his son a name so weird and difficult to pronounce that I knew it was some sort of joke only he knew about. OK....whatever. I'd been told that people on the run often assume names to prevent the long arm of the law from reaching them, and after awhile, his new family seemed to fit that bill. The father said he was a Haitian-Canadian-American immigrant, with another family living in Montreal that he never saw, which was made odder because unlike his young wife, he was the one at home with his boy. The mom left early in the morning every day, to be replaced by a series of gradually more inept nannies, culminating in a tall angry woman who became abusive after their boy lingered on the porch to get a closer look at my Halloween pumpkin that lit up at night, made less scary in daylight but still interesting to him, nonetheless.

As I made coffee and got ready for the day, I could see them on the porch from the light of the tall windows; the boy was with a woman unknown to me. We knew he was trying to work out babysitters with his mother's assistance because the landlord told us. I saw the babysitter grab his hand, tugging him towards the front door and chastising him more harshly than he deserved, growing more aggressive with each tug on his little hand. I heard him rebel against it by yelling out loud (as I would have, too, because he wasn't doing anything wrong), so that I instantly stopped in the doorway between the kitchen and the large living room, clearly visible to them both through the big windows facing the porch. After that, the father was in charge of the boy, and he and I struck up an uneven acquaintance based on his daytime errands around the house. He told me that emigrating was easy for someone like him, expressing disdain for anyone who did it poorly.

I told him that were all immigrants here once, and that our histories didn't speak of ease and luxury, but rather of harshness and long voyages. I knew he wasn't interested in me as a person, because he never really asked me any questions about myself, but as one of the few people around the house who dared to openly speak with me outdoors, I was content to listen while observing his brilliant little boy. The boy, like me, was utterly unlike the other shut-ins living in the place. He seemed alive, curious, and energetic, picking up objects for a closer look and naming them aloud, when he did emerge from the house with his father on nicer days: "Car! Truck! Cloud! Sky!" He'd point out all the life moving around him happily to his father, and they seemed like good friends. He clearly cared for his son very much, and that's something I always approve of, under any type of conditions.

Their residency upstairs wasn't an easy one, unlike Fritz's glib pronouncements about relocating as told to me. At first, me and my closest neighbor Mike heard loud banging sounds and a furious back-and-forth pacing upstairs every night that wasn't right, and we knew it. The landlord largely ignored our inquiries, getting involved only when the nighttime banging became so glaringly obvious, that he told them to buy area rugs to muffle the sound, like I've done in the past to assuage the complaints of people living beneath me (per NYS law). Fritz didn't like spending the money to do it. He told me the landlord didn't reimburse him for his own rugs! I added in my conversation with the owner that active toddlers (like large dogs named TeddyBear;) need to be taken outdoors to play because of their natural energy levels, but just like the poor girl living in the attic space with her parents, I never saw the two children in residence playing at the playground right here in town, or at any of the library events for kids, even though I'd left information about our community center for him to use.

After awhile, even the father was forced to admit to me that he was hanging in there, but the going was rough. Uh, yeah! Yes, America is hard. Freedom is hard, and our lives often reflect the battles we have daily to preserve our way of life here. He finally admitted to me that if he had a choice between here or Canada, he'd probably have chosen Canada, because it's so much easier. Of course it is! French Canada is great, as long as you can bear up under a wintertime so severe, you'd be begging for a Haitian beach after it, poor as that nation historically has been. And for a Haitian man like him, I imagine driving a cab is a breeze when the native tongue is French, too, and therein lies the problem with a largely white Quebecois entrenched in their separatist ways: you can drive them around to earn a living for your family, as long as you snap to their ways, like a slavish devotion to a French culture that exists overseas in Europe. Know what I mean?

There's a steep price to pay for socialized healthcare, in a taxed system that presumes everyone on the planet (which is Quebec, where else?) is healthy and unhealthy in the exact same measure, which is about as far from life as you can get. College is free! Isn't that great? Sure! Just ask a hippie guy named Jean-Paul. I met him on a trip to McGill back in my college days. He preferred to matriculate in school after school after school, as a way of ignoring real life. His first degree was in history (like my ex-boyfriend) and then he was going to Nova Scotia for an art degree, as a way of deferring adult decisions like: who am I, and who do I want to be when I grow up? It was absurd.

And their "free" clinics are great, as long as you don't die on their waiting list for that also "free" gall bladder removal subject to approval by a board of people selected to make those decisions without consulting a Doctor of Medicine. That's what you get there. I'm not saying I dislike the province of Quebec, I'm just saying that resistance is futile. Back in the 90s, Montreal still had a large group of people who wanted to break away from the rest of Canada, like the state of Texas or the ancient city-states of Rome, and we all know where confederacies lead: nowhere good for the rest of the emigres.

Like the rest of the household of people who habitually need the healthcare we have to give them, he gradually stopped "bumping" into me outside, finding himself in the rough ride of democracy like every single one of our ancestors have felt keenly. I knew he realized the strength behind our life imperiled here as it sometimes is, and the true grit it takes to make a "go" of it in a free society, which is why people often fall back on the care and decisions of others. As their family fell apart upstairs, I knew instantly knew what was happening to him; he couldn't make it here.

He told me as much on the last Fourth of July, running into me on the porch as he drank next door on the first floor, waiting for me to show up for the fireworks, like we had discussed a week before. He seemed put out that I was just appearing outside at nightfall, as I explained to him that the Mets game was on. I'm from Queens, homeboy? I'm a native, bro! He never really knew my lineage, nor did he ask me, preferring instead to wander down the hill with a beer bottle in his hand, letting his boy run freely down the hill ahead of us. Uh....I was nervous at first, but Eli knew how far to go and when to turn back towards us.

We watched the small town fireworks from the crowded sidewalk, and he seemed overwhelmed at the size of it, like people had just sprung up from the pavement beneath his feet as we walked downhill. He was disoriented by this show of support in such numbers, like it wasn't what he expected, and I could tell as he looked around, that he was trying to form an impression that was not forthcoming. Eli threw grass and pebbles around to attract his father's notice again, which he did. People turned to our little trio to smile, and I could see that he saw a diversity reflected back at him that was new to him. Welcome to "The Land of the Free", homeboy! We made our way back up the steep hill, with his young son walking in front of us.

As we chatted out on the lawn, Eli thought it fun to play with the grass while we spoke, so I joined in the fun, tossing handfuls of the fragrant grass softly into his face to watch him giggle. I laughed, too. It was a happily gentle night for us, and the weather was perfect. We talked about the town below, and the largely Irish-American crowd who lives and thrives there. Rather than piquing his interest in our town, like a real newcomer, he cut me off with a tale told of dumb Africans driven onto ships past by evil slavers sporting mirrors with which to fool those poor unfortunates with. Huh. He's never met my ferocious African-American friends from around the way. They'd know their reflections from bathing and scrubbing their wash in the water, dude, like every other human being on the planet before them.

Sensing a game was afoot, I cut him off in turn, with my own sad tale of woe about our beleaguered Irish past, like the deliberate impoverishment of Ireland by England, for their defiance of empire-building ways. He seemed taken aback by that, and also quieted by it. Oh, he hadn't heard of that....he trailed off like a tragic Shakespearean character, humbly wishing his apologies to me for such a past. He just didn't know...oh! You didn't know that soldiers watched families die by the side of the road from hunger like the Soviets had, or perhaps China during their "people's revolution"? Well, excuse me, monsieur. You're talking to the daughter of wars survived, droughts tolerated, and crops deliberately destroyed. Ain't life grand?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_%28Ireland%29 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_famine_of_1921 

The Troubles (Na Trioblóidí)

Irish people refer to their civil war as "The Troubles", in a shy euphemism that reveals the gentleness of a warm, kind, generously hospitable people aghast at the suddenly vicious violence that broke out, assisted as it was by outside economic interests. False divides in homelands are disturbing to live under, because it implies that families cannot live together, similarly constructed as the fair people of "The Emerald Isle" are. I have ancestry from Galway and County Tyrone, which, in centuries gone by, would have presented me with the unenviable task of choosing sides before military zones were demarcated by England, familiar as these lines are now, but hard still. Who would you choose? Which side? Your Protestant son and his family, or the Catholic boy living just outside of Dublin? Why did we ever have to choose?

It's the same around the globe, like the same epic battle fought between Cain and Abel we repeat in these disordered histories around the world, as walls built to separate instead of unite. We've seen it throughout time: The Berlin Wall, The Great Wall of China, and a wrongly-felt nation of Korea now split as "North" and "South", just as the U.S. was once divided, too. When will we learn? Mothers and fathers said goodbye to sons and daughters who fought and died in the wars of wealthier people vested in key government positions, far above the grunts sent to fight conflicts that did not always benefit them back home. What would you do?

Who actually wins in these wars? Not us! On my last trip back to "Eire" (it was a big fat New York family trip, let's just leave it at that for now), we were blessed to have a border crossing that was told to us gently, knowing the changeover only when we stopped for gas and got British Sterling back as change, instead of the Euro that marks the currency for the Free Republic of Ireland. Scotland was recently given the chance to switch to an independent nation through a legal vote but declined, and I can't say I blame them as a people. England is far wealthier, like Puerto Rico's relationship with the United States. Would you cut ties with us quickly? Certainly not, and neither would a savvy mom like me who only wants what's best for her children, economically and otherwise.

You haven't seen poverty like the kind that we saw as Americans visiting in Ireland back in the day. My first trip to Ireland in the 80s was like a time machine trip; a country so poor, they still used the local bus to travel with their chickens in cages to sell in the markets of the bigger towns, like the sawdust strewn quickly and cheaply on the floor of a Brooklyn supermarket in the far-out neighborhood of Kensington that was such a long subway trip away from the big city, no one at my first job in publishing ever heard of it. That's changed, though the character remains the same, because genuine pockets for natives never really appeal to out-of-towners or hipsters, and if they do, it's short-lived.

But that's not our commitment to these homelands we love so much as immigrants. When my father and his wife came up last year for a brief visit, we went to Louie's for Sunday brunch on a day that was as briskly cold and sodden as those of "The Green Island" itself. He'd  asked for a quiet spot without music because of his poor hearing (a genetic disorder I share with him), and I instantly felt at home. One of our friends from Clarkstown South worked there as a waitress when we were in high school, and it remains a great local spot.

Our waitress was Irish, as was obvious from the lilt of her brogue. We fell into conversation easily, as we are wont to do here among family and friends, similar in tone to the pubs ("Public Houses" for short) we know so well overseas. She explained a little bit of her life to me, as the parents looked over the classically seasonal menu; she chose to have her sons born on American soil so they would know the the gift of freedom as dual citizens, and it was one of the most beautifully-said, softly-spoken words of progress I have ever heard. 

She went on to say that her life wasn't problem-free living in this new reality. Her husband struggled with his work Visa during her boy's senior year of high school, and we laughed over the difficulty of securing a driver's license through the careful navigation of all those Irish turn-abouts, with its level matched only by New York's requirements for a learner's permit. Poor kid! Her husband stayed with her oldest son throughout his last Irish school year while she remained in New York with her other children, working her part of their family.

She'd knew they'd get by as a family, what with her husband spending time with her boy in Ireland, and her here to keep their family foothold in both lands, and I immediately thought to myself "That's it!". This is the solution that each and every American has longed for: assimilation without regrets, the preservation of culture without the taint of "foreigner" to dull our united hearts, for who could choose better? How do you split your body and soul in half? You don't! Now, with better immigration laws and fairer practices for recent emigres, we're no longer forced to choose between siblings, or children and their grandmothers, because we can keep our families together.  
We really can have it all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles 

Leprechauns

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leprechaun:_Origins

Sometimes the line between reality and legend can become a bit blurry, especially if you live in a Celtic kind of town that can seem exactly like the Irish villages overseas from whence we came. Nua Nua*, indeed! Much like family anywhere, we share a lot of the same personality traits, too, which is fun and confusing. Did I meet you already? I'm sure of it. You look so familiar....do you have a "doppelgänger**"? Homelands are fun, as we reconnect through the ages, making new links and strengthening those old tribal bonds that cannot be broken, no matter how thick the mists off the moor, or the fog bank rolling in from the Hudson may be. It's where the heart is.

My family often talks over one another or finishes each other's sentences, to either comic or irritating effect, depending on the context. The new version of the old game show "Family Feud" tells a similar tale told in real time, as first one sibling and then the next answers questions during the lightning round at the end of the show, hence the repeat answers that are acknowledged with more time given for the second round. It's funny and nerve-wracking to watch.

The same is true with my friends, family, neighbors, and acquaintances here in town. We live oddly connected lives, whether it's through shared blood or associations of other kinds. I've made lots of new friends here, who always seem to be joined to me genetically, too, and it makes me feel the comforts of home all over again, so I thank you for that. As we enjoy re-connecting with one another here in real ways that feel right, we also share a symmetry that's aligned through the commonality of our thinking styles, habits, and tastes.

My neighbor is like that. He's Italian and Irish-American like my mom's side of the family, a link that can be easily seen and felt with the ease of our conversation, especially about food and family values, meaning he likes to eat a lot, and so do I. We've talked about diet, healthcare, fitness, nutrition, weight loss (or gain), and his part-time work as a coin collector for vending machines. He's got two jobs actually (the second is at the high school), because he has a college-age son to provide for, and another boy in the Navy. G-d Bless! We crossed paths at the local laundromat early in my new tenancy, owned by his friend who looks like he stepped right off a boat anchored in the harbor to come ashore in this century, lured by the promise of streets that are rumored to be paved with gold, which means he and Mikey are leprechauns.

Seriously. When my brothers were little, they loved the clinking of coins, the way babies like the tinkling of keys. They're the first toys kids play with, because most fathers carry one or the other in their pockets. They had those coin-collecting booklets from the post office, and all of us had piggy banks for our spare change, because in our households every penny counts, and you never know when just one penny will make a difference someday. It's good to be thrifty! Besides home economy, we learned to identity different types of coins by looking at their states and creation dates updated at the U.S. Mint.

My brothers went on to other serious nerd passions like stamps, comic books, baseball cards, and movie memorabilia, which my oldest brother presumed to be the very first fortune he would cash in, as the money he needed for his Ivy League school. Even though we didn't like his arrogance about his IQ level, he wasn't wrong. He really did go to a highly desired Ivy League school for his prestigious MBA. Way to represent New York! I was so proud at his graduation, staying in the old stone, ivy-covered dorms that give our best schools their nickname.

But, my oldest brother was depending on something else besides chance by investing in his skills (which naturally pays off for him), and bad luck was what got his precious collection. Faulty wiring or a rogue squirrel ignited a boiler fire near his basement room at my mother's house in New City, which then traveled upstairs to my middle brother's room, guaranteeing that their collectibles would definitely be lost to either smoke damage or the burning fire. They used to share a room when they were small, before the oldest got a room built downstairs for his teenage years that used to be part of our split ranch's two-car garage, so their joint collections were in both rooms that were hit. Luckily, no one was home at the time.

And that's what my new friends here in town remind me of: sweet hometown boys who still like the cheerful sound of change clinking in machines that indicate there's a profit to be had by their labors. I find it charming, adorable, and sweet that they've made a successful business out of a laundromat and the machines that serve us, and that they get along really well, too, just like family, because real families always look out for one another. Always, my dears. Always.

http://lucky-charms.wikia.com/wiki/Cereals

*   https://www.bible.com/versions/884-oc1970-cuinn-tiomna-nua-1970 
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppelg%C3%A4nger