'The ultimate obscenity is not caring, not doing something about what you feel, not feeling! Just drawing back and drawing in, becoming narcissistic.'
― Rod Serling 

I've told myself I should just point at the sign when people ask me what I'm there for. They only stop for a minute. There's no time to say anything really that will satisfy them. People are competitive. They stop to win. They want to best me and the sign with their own take on things. Most people don't stop. The sign's message is clear. Most people smile with their eyes when they read it. Some people who pass the sign every day, smile every day. Some cars that go by beep every day. Peace sign or thumb-up thrust out the window.

From a New York Magazine conversation with Fran Lebowitz. Here she talks about her friendship with Toni Morrison:



“She’s one of my best friends, and she is the only wise person I’ve ever known. I know lots of very smart people, but I only know one wise person,” she said. She and Toni talk on the phone every day. “She’s very important to me because there are very few people’s advice I’m interested in,” Fran said. “I’ve not always taken Toni’s advice, but I’m always interested. Toni is so unlike me. When I was young, my mother used to say, ‘Can’t you be the bigger person?’ And I would say no. I am by nature the smaller person, but the bigger person is Toni.”

“Toni’s the biggest person I’ve ever known, by far. She has the greatest generosity of anyone I’ve ever known. So it’s not only her intelligence, which is extreme… I truthfully know other people as smart as Toni, but I do not know anyone who is so large in generosity. And her talent is fantastic, but I know other very talented people. She is unique. I feel like I’ve met a zillion people, so I don’t think she’s unique in my life — she is unique on the planet.”

'You may never know what results come of your actions, but if you do nothing, there will be no results.' 
        -- Gandhi 
 

Was it the oxycodone I'd been taking every four hours for four days? Was it because it was the first day back out on the street with the sign? Was it too sunny and maybe I hadn't had enough water? I felt weak after 45 minutes. I was talking to a man who'd stopped to tell me about his worries about his first-grade daughter who seemed to be slow at everything. He was a Latino laborer with his hair in a bandana. He spoke with an accent. It wasn't easy for him to be telling a stranger this. I felt bad that I had to stop our conversation. I wasn't worried that I'd pass out, but I was staring at the ground and was feeling weak, the sun beating down on my shoulders in a dark blue shirt. I'll go back tomorrow.

When I knew my shoulder was busted up, I first thought of the days I'd miss with my sign. Both meanings of miss. Tomorrow surgery then a few days to recover I guess. Monday I hope I'll be back on Chambers Street. Sign does no good in my apartment. Neither do I.