*Blogger’s note: I’ve been having trouble uploading my posts here. For instance, I was certain I had posted this Easter morning only to find it in my draft file today. Please forgive the lag.

Son, on looking into the Easter bag I made for him: Feels a little light, Dad.

Me: Yeah, sorry. The bunny is hollow, so it doesn’t weigh much. Besides, we don’t need the extra calories being we’re cooped up inside all the time.

Son: No, I mean I don’t see a card with any cash in here.

Me: You’re 25. Maybe it’s time we stopped that tradition.

Son walks away disappointed.

Easter is a holiday full of resilience and hope and perhaps we haven’t had such worldwide need for both since the second world war. Here in my usually busy corner of the world (Northeast New Jersey, USA), we’ve slowed down considerably. The parks and beaches are closed, the malls and shopping centers are shuttered. Most employers have sent their workers home to continue as best they can on their laptops or, for those that have manual jobs, to wait it out as best they can. The roads and highways move freely and are the only places where things have accelerated. I don’t think the police are pulling anyone over for speeding. Sad to say, but we’ve become the epicenter of the disease with approximately a 1000 people dying daily within 30 miles of my house.

*Bronx liquor store sign (not taken by me)

And yet there is hope. I sometimes pessimistically wonder if its the hope of the alcoholic derelict who has finally begged enough money to buy a bottle of grain, but pisses blood in the alley. All the same, the experts say we’re getting near the peak. The extreme social distancing appears to be having good effect. The deaths may be mounting, but the hospitalizations are slowing. And outside nature provides a cue. The very air smells of fertile earth. The fruit trees are all abloom and the bulbs in flower, colorful dabs echoing the good news. Neighbors I’ve never seen before smile brightly towards me as we pass during our daily exercise. The children are painting rainbows on the house windows and chalking them on the driveways.

I think of Jesus now, rolling away the stone at his tomb’s entry. He feels a new day’s dawn warm upon his upturned face. And somehow, despite all, he walks out and smiles.

Happy Easter y’all.

#covid19 #coronavirus #easter2020 #easter

#middleaged #manspov

#middleageddating #lastfirstkiss #love #aging #autobiography #memories #writing #nyc

#nnj #northnewjersey #bergencounty

Forty years working and forty years late

I wanna follow Greeley’s direction west

Gonna stomp the grey dust off my boots

Uncinch this ol’ belt, give the tools a rest.

Lay my hard hat down for the rest of time

Wish my workmates enough wealth and good health

Proudly stride through one last construction gate

And put my faded union card on a shelf

Tomorrow I’m buying a first class ticket

On the transcontinental railroad train

Having never been past Pennsylvania

I wanna see the mountains and the plain

And sit in the bar car with a beer and a snack

Listening to them steel wheels go clickety-clack

Clickety-clack

#middleaged #manspov

#middleageddating #lastfirstkiss #love #aging

#poetry

#autobiography #memories #writing #nyc

I’m sure this imagery and these words have been used thousands of times before. Here’s my perspective:

Between you and me

We built such a high wall

To protect ourselves

From tempest and squall

I sat on my side, you on yours

Each alone in shadow and pall

And neither sought a way over

Twas insurmountable and tall

We rented hourly lawyers

And signed our inky scrawl

But now with time and distance

Our big differences look very small

A

#middleaged #manspov

#middleageddating #lastfirstkiss #love #aging

#poetry

#autobiography #memories #writing

I’ve been remiss. This blog has grown cobwebs. It’s dusty. I need to cast the curtains aside, open the windows, let in some fresh air, and shed some light, but I’m reticent. The reason I started this blog was to give myself a reason and an excuse to write a bit each week on a single theme. I chose online dating for a man on the down slope, so to speak. I guess I could optimistically say I’m middle-aged, but senior citizenry is right there ahead of me. Pretty soon I will be able to get into films at the reduced rate. There are all sorts of discounts and specials awaiting me in just a few more years, The AARP (American Association of Retired People) has been sending me membership forms for years now. Stop, please. I notice younger people give me respect I have not earned. This blog was supposed to be a humorous reliving of my adventures into the dating world after two fairly long relationships. A whole new world beckoned and it appeared to be geared towards my strengths.

You see I’m not a horrible looking guy, nor am I terribly overweight. True, I’m balding, but I’m in good shape financially and, really, let’s face it: if you’re a single woman on the verge of retirement, the latter is the more important. My secret weapon though, and the reason the digital dating world is my particular oyster, is I can write pretty well. And while the first enticement is looks, the second is probably communication skills. I never really looked at other men’s profile, but I can only imagine they’re pretty bad. Whenever I’ve matched with a woman, I’ve been pretty successful at getting the relationship off the ground with the written word. I can get them to laugh; I ask interesting questions; I’m engaging and am there for them. I often wish I could keep it in that realm, but women like to move onto phone calls…quickly. And while, I can write women silly, I become the silly one when we move to using our actual voices. I stumble and stammer, run out of things to say, and make excuses (often before the call is even made, I’ll say, I have to make it short, I have (insert inane reason here).

Amazingly, I have managed to move onto real dates and once we both get through my initial shyness, I have gone onto several lasting relationships over the last couple of years. Well, as lasting as they can be, acknowledging there have been several in less than two years. And there have been many, many one-offs. I have gotten into a few sexual predicaments. In other words, despite my absence, digital dating has continued to fill my mind, if not this blog, with plenty of material. So why have I not continued? I had been building a steadily growing audience worldwide, which I’ve lost for the most part. The short answer to why I stopped is: I had painted myself in a corner. Many of the women I dated were aware of the blog and I hadn’t built up quite the time differential I needed to say, Oh, dont worry, dear, that’s the distant past. More importantly, I fell deeply into a relationship that confused and enthralled me and in some ways still consumes me. And I cannot write about it. So here I am.I will get back to it. I promise.

In the meantime, something else of interest has come up…maybe you’ve heard of this coronavirus…

#lastfirstkiss #love #aging #fiction #coronavirus #covid-19 #nyc #pandemic #coronavirus

Ya gotta find the silver lining no matter how hidden and tenuous it may be. I’ve been working in NYC for nearly 40 years. And I’ve been fighting and hating the traffic for all that time. If I had to guess, I’d say traffic costs me 35 minutes a day on average. Nearly 3 hours a week, 150 hours a year. I have to leave earlier in the morning and I get home later in the afternoon. When you put it on top of my commute time (let’s say 45 minutes a day), I spend way too much time just getting from here to there.

I’m a construction worker and I tend to spend six months in one spot, then six in another, and so on. I’ve spent many years in Queens and Roosevelt Island. I’m on the latter now. The island used to be covered with penitentiary hospitals and lunatic asylums in the latter 1800s and into the mid 1900s. Now it is mostly covered in mid-height rental buildings, a high tech learning campus and the Four Freedoms Park. To drive onto the island, I have to take the Edward Koch Bridge (more commonly known as the the Queensboro bridge or the 59th street Bridge-celebrated in a Simon and Garfunkel song, which in turn is more commonly known as Feelin’ Groovy and does not mention the bridge at all).

Going home, I take the upper roadway and exit off the ramp to make a right onto 62nd Street. I then take 62nd through 1st Avenue and York Avenue. there is a traffic light at each intersection. There is usually so much traffic, it takes me 15 minutes to cover less than a quarter mile. I never, ever catch a green light and often have to sit through a couple of reds at each. The last two days though, there have been so few cars, I’ve sailed through each light. I feel like the President, just being waved on to my destination. I’m getting home 20 minutes faster each day. It’s glorious. I just needed a plague to make my life a bit easier and I’m feelin’ groovy.

May you have nothing but blue skies and green lights ahead.

#lastfirstkiss #love #aging #fiction #coronavirus #covid-19 #nyc #pandemic

May you live in interesting times.

Apocryphally attributed to the ancient Chinese, this curse can be mistaken for a blessing. It’s the first of three curses, the other two: May you be known to people in power and May all your wishes come true. To me, they sound more Irish than Chinese, but the origins are lost in the mists of the foggy past.

Whatever the origins, I feel most of us have had our fill of interesting times. Taking myself for example, JFK, MLK, and RFK were assassinated: the Vietnam War and all the protests consumed the country; Nixon resigned; the Iranians held the hostages; we were shocked and awed by the Gulf War; I watched the towers collapse on 9/11; and we’ve been in a nearly constant state of low level war ever since. Now we find ourselves in a pandemic the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the Spanish Influenza of 1918.

I suspect most generations faced their own major trials. My parents were born into the depression and World War II. My grandparents faced that other pandemic and World War I. Go back further, my ancestors lived through the Great Hunger in Ireland and the American Civil War. As a people we pull through, but some fall aside. Their story stops and we can only wonder what might have been. As for me, I’ve had enough of interesting times.

Blogger’s note: I wrote this last week and thought it had been published, but either through my fault or the site’s, it hadn’t been. There’s another one from last week I’ll publish tomorrow. And since, I have some serious time on my hands, I’ll try to write another today. As you can imagine-and may very well be going through yourselves-things are changing at a rapid pace here in my pandemic place in the world. Stay healthy, folks. We’re all in this together (alone). #lastfirstkiss #love #aging #fiction #coronavirus #covid-19 #nyc #pandemic #newjersey #bergen

 

The snow came down yesterday in great big dollops, not lazy, feathery dollops either, but ambitious snowballs that needed to reach the ground quickly. An early spring surprise after a winter of unusual mildness. I watched bemusedly from my closed porch as the Monday morning crept along ever so slowly.

I was supposed to go to work, despite the orders from the New York governor to remain at home to help curtail the spread of Covid-19, unless you provided essential services or were food shopping. Apparently, I belong to an essential class of workers. I help build new, high rise apartment buildings in New York City. How is that essential, one might ask. It’s not, of course, but the powers that be have decided we can continue our trade, even though most of us are not building infrastructure or hospitals. I suspect the governor has made a decision based more on money than medicine. You see, I am economically essential, but socially expendable.

There is somewhere in the range of 200,000 construction workers banging away at hundreds of projects throughout the 5 boroughs. None of whom can work at home obviously. Send them all home and the economic fallout would be quite disastrous. I’m sure somebody whispered in the governor’s ear, we work outside; we can keep a distance from each other (anybody who has ever gone up in the morning hoist can have a laugh at that); we’re already wearing masks, gloves, and goggles. I’m sure the governor took comfort in those whispers, but it was the bankers and real estate tycoons who really talked loudest.

I’m watching Italy fall into the clutches of the disease. I wonder how closely the USA will follow down that path. I wonder if the governor hasn’t made a terrible bargain.

middleaged #manspov

#nycconstruction #nyc #lastfirstkiss #love #aging #fiction #coronavirus #covid-19

St. Patrick’s Day 2020

Times Square stands empty and the pubs keep the quiet. This is a poem from 17th century Ireland, translated here by Frank O’Connor. Seems apropos today:

I am stretched on your grave
And I’ll lie here forever.
If your hands were in mine,
I’d be sure they would not sever.
My apple tree, my brightness,
It’s time we were together
For I smell of the earth
and I’m worn by the weather.

When my family thinks
That I’m safe in my bed,
From night until morning
I am stretched at your head,
Calling out unto the darkness
With tears hot and wild,
My love for the girl
That I knew as a child.

Do you remember the night?
O the night when were lost
In the shade of the black thorn
and the touch of the frost.
Thanks be to Jesus,
We did all that was right
And the moon in the sky
Was our pillar of light.

The priest and the friars,
They approach me in dread,
For I love you still.
All your life and your death
And still would be your shelter,
Through rain and through storm,
But with you in your cold grave
I cannot sleep warm

So I am stretched here on your grave
And I’ll lie here forever.
If your hands were in mine,
I am sure they would not sever.
My apple tree, my brightness,
It’s time we were together,
For I smell of the earth
and I’m worn by the weather

#stpatricksday #poetry #stretchedonyourgrave #coronavirus