It’s a lonely town, New York is. It’s a town of dreams strewn about in the gutters and bodegas, drunk on happy hour Stellas, hanging from the phone wires like tied-together sneakers the morning after high-school graduation. My name is Ken Goldstein, and this is my town. I live here on Thompson Street with a man and his cat and his dog, their trapped howls and mews overpowering the whimpered cries of my hopes and aspirations.
I wonder how a town so crowded, so teeming with tempest-tost wretched refuse, can still feel so lonely. I stand alone and isolated among the huge midtown crowds, only making myself feel better by pretending that we all used to be really good friends, but that there was a huge fight and we’re all no longer on speaking terms. I sneer at them with a sideways glance as I walk up Broadway, worrying my special new New York worries.
I worry that the people at my laundry service know far too much about my personal life, and also that OnDemand Digital Cable has made my unable to masturbate using only the power of my imagination. I worry that my deep hunger to become a father has its roots not in any desire to raise or nurture a child, but only in my love of naming things. I worry that I am too selfish to successfully raise a child; perhaps it is wrong to hope that they never find a cure for leukemia simply to ensure a steady supply of free return address labels. And no matter how many times they show poker on ESPN, I’m still more accurately described as a “degenerate gambler” rather than an “aspiring athlete.”
I’ve reached by Village apartment, and there’s no point in trying to sleep until a half-hour after the bars close and the NYU students cease yelling “Whoooo!”. If I still had a blog I suppose I could write about my troubles, try to make a connection in this lonely world. People would write to me, leave comments with helpful advice. And by “people” I mean “women.” And by “leave comments with helpful advice” I mean “not report me to the Craigslist authorities.” But I don’t have a blog anymore. I mean, sure, it’s still there, I suppose, silent, unchanging, mocking. There’s no shame in it, I suppose, not being able to handle the high-pressure blog scene. Men like Paul and Mikebark are just stronger than me, I suppose. Sigh.
More tomorrow, I suppose. Perhaps an update on my post-blogging life. Or a devilled egg recipe.
Ah Ken, it's so good to have you back in blogland - you've been missed. And, such lovely writing for your dramatic return, poor lonely boy.