Lisa St John: Blog of Random Mind Movements

He bought me a pen at the museum shop and made sure I had enough hot water and bath salts. He brought me morning coffee and smiles. After all these years I am finally walking through the door he has been building into a room of my own.

It wasn’t just the free ticket into the New York Times Travel Show that a stranger handed me because she “didn’t need it,” it was the smile she had when she registered my shocked “Thank you.” Little interactions like these in The City (as those of us lucky enough to live nearby call her) always propel me to write.

The Sunday morning light banging on the doors of a brownstone, the preponderance of dogs walking their humans in Hell’s Kitchen, the delicacy of a stranger returning a dropped glove to a passerby; these vignettes are New York. The line outside of Amy’s Bread on 9^th Avenue reminds me that quality is as important as time. The discussions at Lolita’s on the Lower East Side take me back to a time when I actually liked talking face to face. I do not know how I found my niche in the world as an educator since I tend not to like most people (I have very few friends), but I guess it’s because teenagers are a different breed of human. A much more interesting one. Usually.

These contradictory thoughts are the impetus to my starting this blog. I want to explore them, and I think much better in words than I do out loud (in the traditional, verbal sense of the phrase). I like to see my words on the page. I like to ignore or challenge the little green squiggles from Microsoft Word (I’ll use that fragment if I want to!). I realize that I think in Times New Roman, and I despise silly fonts. Maybe that’s the academic in me or the purist, I do not know. I do know that I welcome the paradigm shift away from typewritten Courier. Staying at ink48 got these thoughts rattling also since their theme is the written word (and fonts in particular). They have a dog welcome station out front with snacks and water bowls. I like that. I don’t have a dog, but if I did I would want him to be welcomed at the hotel. It’s like being glad that there are “expectant mothers” and “handicapped” parking spots. I don’t use them, but I am glad they are there. Although…in my memory “expectant mother” is just a euphemism for “totally freaking terrified portal for another human being.” And the fact that there are drive-thru ATMs in Braille just plain makes me scared.

Anyway, ciao to The City for now. I left my husband Kent a present from the Little Pie Company in the room before I left. Monday comes earlier than other days for some reason. The same explanation why waiting ten minutes for a much needed bathroom stall is much longer than ten minutes of a massage I suppose. Wow. I think I just finished my first blog post.