Good grief...it's like wandering through a grang library, running fingers along the spines of leather-bound volumes, blowing dust off and flipping through soft, well-thumbed pages...

Gym-work has taken the edge off any aggression I might have held towards self, life, other inhabitants of Earth.  So now is the time in deep night, to give some physical form to streaming thoughts.

I was once told, "when you find the right guy for you, he's not going to be cool, Ari." Far more interesting are the circumstances, and the person, still a dear part of my past, who left me with this nugget of questionable insight...but that is a story for another day.

I wondered briefly, what he meant. Clearly, the coolest people were already my friends, and so could not be the One?  What, I was not cool enough, so the One would not be cool? He was not cool enough? Who dares to define what my Cool will be? I will decide who is cool, and who is not, thank you very much.  And any One who I am with, will, at some point, have definitely been determined Cool, by me.

Cool, until proven Contemptible.

Eyes lock for the briefest instant in recognition, then divert, as bodies balance coffee, cokes, trenchcoats, umbrellas and bags, filing in chaotic, inverted-v order with the kind of muted urgency of people who know the doors will shut all too soon. Now is too soon to speak.

Ding. Slam-wham. The doors try to set their limits but are quickly and violently denied by one last body breaking the infrared sensors.

Finally they close.

"Seventeen please", someone calls out from the back. The poor soul, we know he'll have the agonising wait whilst every single other floor is stopped at.

People jostle, look around at the nothing to look at. Eyes meet again,

"Hey"
"Hey how are ya?"
"Good, good. You?"
Smiles exchange.
Silence.

Ding.
Smiles. Negotiates self, Starbucks and bag out of the doors.
"Seeya"

Finally it's only Floor Seventeen and you left. This facilitates a deeper conversation than just greetings.
"Good weekend?"
"Yeah, great, only worked half of it"
"Excellent! You very busy at the moment?"
Half smile and "Yeah, pretty much"
Sympathetic half-smile return "Yeah, same here"

This has been the hard bit, choosing a topic and saying just enough on it to elucidate a conversation that is just perfect for the time it takes to go between destination floors. Therein lies the art.

Ding.
"Take care"
"See you".

No shot I took would truly do that towering, unique cityscape skyline justice. You have to see it to get an idea of the scope and perspective.  View from Colgate pier, NJ, of Lower Manhattan's Financial District.  Where the Towers once stood.  I've never experienced NY without the twin towers, but there still seems to be an empty space.

Explanation for my little incident back then.  Needless to say I recovered a coupla weeks ago, and resumed with little to no change in pace, but a drastic reduction in intensity.  Because we were running out of places on our little shortlist to go :P

I want to disown it.  It has rejected everything I've tried to feed it for the past two days.  In an unpretty way.