Love In The Time Of H1N1
One never knows how a four o'clock rock show is going to turn out. We're not talking the Iowa State Fair here. We're talking New York City on a sunny Saturday afternoon.
Ends up it's one heck of a time to rock.
Chris Abad and I booked the show months ago not because four o'clock in the afternoon is prime time, but because, well, what the heck? I figured I'd get all my married friends out with their kids (as I did at last year's post-op all-ages show), get in a paid (well, tip jar anyway) rehearsal, and get our Saturday night started ...
Better Be Home Soon
Everyone's losing their job. If not, they're loathing it.
Mine's like Whack-a-Mole or Missile Command or a California wildfire; I resolve one issue, and another pops up, or falls from the sky, or catches fire. You get the idea.
Still, even at the end of a Tuesday that feels like a Thursday, at the end of a twelve-hour day running on nothing but Shredded Wheat and water, it beats the converse. What's more, while I may not sleep through the night anymore on account of ambitious goals amidst these troubled times, I appreciate that (as a ...
Forever & Always
You may recall that one of the "A Holiday Benefit, Vol. II" silent auction items was a "Custom Benjamin Wagner Song."
This was the pitch: "Singer/songwriter will collaborate with YOU on a song. At the end of the process, you’ll get two (2) signed CDs with YOUR song plus original album art. Minimum Bid: $75."
At the end of the night, the item had three bids. I decided to take them all, netting 826NYC $386. I followed up immediately with each bid (actually, one bid came from a loose affiliation of four friends), only one of whom had a ...
Planned Parenthood
On the street, Edward refused to take my hand, issuing a long, withdrawn, "Nooooooooooo!" So I carried him.
On the subway platform, the roar of the trains scared him. So I held him, whispering, "I won't let anything happen to you, I promise."
Abbi and I took Ethan and Edward for a few, long hours this afternoon. Eighty blocks, four subways, three historic buildings, two carousel rides and one gift shop were more than enough. The boys were mostly adorable, to be sure. But the pressure was immense. Everything was a ...
Our Own Devices
Left to my own devices, I would spend my time off in one of two ways: sitting on a beach drinking local beer after a three-dive day, or sitting on my couch watching movies, reading Esquire, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair or a good rock bio.
And in fact, I've done a fair dose of the latter in the last two weeks, plowing through Julianna Hatfield's "When I Grow Up," Jancee Dunn's "But Enough About Me" and Sting's "Broken Music."
The problem with my own devices, though, is that they tend towards entropy. Refrigerators lie fallow, bills ...
Vows (Or, I’ll Work For Your Love)
At the end of the day, the meet cute doesn't count for much.
I mean, make no mistake; it's a cute story. I thank my lucky stars that Abbi happened onto my Friendster profile, found my website, came to my rock show, and tapped me on the shoulder -- to say nothing of the fact that she had the wherewithal to be persistent (but not too persistent).
No, at the end of the day, it's a good story, and a great start (and, if you're me, a fortuitous turn of events).
It seems to me, though, that really matters isn't that first chapter, but ...
Discharged
When I woke, my wife, mother, and doctor stood over me like a Holy Trinity.
I tried to speak, but could only gesture to Abbi for a kiss.
I didn't remember anything prior, or have any idea where I was. Through the fog, I heard Dr. Dawson report that the surgery went by the book. The laparoscopy left just three small incisions. My throat was sore (from endotracheal intubation, I would soon learn). I felt like I had to go to the bathroom (from a catheter, I would also painfully learn). But otherwise, I was fine.
I lie there alone ...
Patience
The Lenox Hill's ER was manned by a slight, Russian-speaking security guard.
"Name, age, and ailment," he said handing me a pink slip of paper.
Benjamin Wagner.
37.
I paused at "ailment," puzzling over how detailed I should be. I wrote, simply, "APPENDIX," then took my seat in the dank, crowded waiting room.
An elderly black man, maybe 85-years-old, sat slipping in and out of consciousness to my left. A middle-aged white guy in a softball uniform held his twisted pinkie aloft. A drunken, heavy-set Latina mother berated her ...
Patient
In some strange way, I felt relieved as I strode towards Lenox Hill Hospital's Emergency Room with my plastic bag full of still-wet CAT scans; at least I knew what was wrong, and what had to be done.
It was a strange day from the start.
I'd slept scarcely a wink the night before, dragging myself pathetically from the bathroom floor to the couch to the bedroom, hunchbacked and mute from nausea, vomiting, and flashes of fever and chill, fever and chill. As the sun rose over a new week, it all felt too familiar.
I called in sick, ...
At Least We’ll Leave Before We Have To Go
"New York is all about what could be," says David Cloyd, a 34-year-old musician who moved to the city from Austin ten years ago. "You know: The potential. The possibilities."
New York Magazine is the source of Mr. Cloyd's quote, at least partially responsible for my sense of urban, upwardly-mobile aspiration. The Intelligencer's cocktail party talking points, "Party Lines'" glossy pics of soirees I'll never attend, and the pages-upon-pages of million-dollar, high-rise, smoked-glass condos I'll never be able to afford.
It's the degrees ...
