WOW. What a spectacularly depressing day. Much more depressing than the 24th. To hell with what Dr. Arnall says. But it’s my own fault. I stopped taking my St. John’s Wort when I was in Florida, because you don’t have to worry about Seasonal Affective Disorder when it’s sunny and warm and wonderful out. But I started again today. I was gonna try life in Boston without it, because I’m really too lazy to be popping pills, but it’s just too depressing not to. It’s like The City of the Undead out there. But you know how zombies usually come out after dark? It was right around noon when I found myself in a train-full of ‘em. But, to be honest, I fit right in.

My favorite T-zombie of the day was the drunken bum in the big, puffy Eagles jacket. He was pretty pimped out, but then there’s this shrunken head sticking out of that big, puffy jacket, and on closer inspection there were a lot of bodily fluids all over it. He was ripe, the reek of malt liquor and stale smokes, but his essence was mixed with the scent of cold rain, so it wasn’t unbearable. He was just riding from station to station, looked like. He got on at Andrews, got off at Broadway. I saw him sit down on a bench and take out one of those handmade cigarettes–you know the ones. I call them Medley 100s. Because they’re made from the tobacco of hundreds of butts painstakingly gathered over hours, days, weeks, and all rolled into one.

Then there was this other T-zombie who wasn’t a bum, but was painstakingly dressed like one. I think he must have been a student. A fashion geek. He was worried his hair didn’t look greasy enough, and kept licking his palm and slicking it down.

The other day I saw a very good-looking, well-dressed buppie around my age picking his nose on the T. It wasn’t this quick, sort of surreptitious swipe you see occasionally. It was brazen, almost defiant. But what I admired most about the gesture was his technique. He used his pinkie finger, which gave the whole procedure a refined, even dainty air, making the activity seem almost cultured.

Of course we have laws—in the form of social taboos—meant to discourage rhinotillexis (the clinical term for nose-picking). In fact, we have taboos against all such extractions and bodily emissions. Anything that comes out of the body, from mucus to menstrual blood, from saliva to semen, even our exhalations are taboo. Solids, fluids, gasses, doesn’t matter. (See Wm. Ian Miller’s The Anatomy of Disgust for an interesting, if occasionally misguided, discussion of all of them—I have to disagree with his conclusion that semen is the most polluting bodily substance, when it’s well-known all traditional societies have explicit taboos for menstrual blood, and very few have any such taboos for semen—but I have discussed this elsewhere).

At any rate, this much is clear: anything that’s been inside somebody else, we don’t want to have much if anything to do with. With pretty good reason, I would say. Especially on the T.

Now I am not in the practice of discussing rhinotillexis ordinarily, but you knew it had to come up here at some point. Let me be very clear about this: while I do not condone nose-picking, I understand that it is sometimes necessary. I know it seems, in some cases, the most efficient and effective manner of extracting dried mucus, which may be obstructing nasal passages. But beware: it can be dangerous, too. According to the experts at damninteresting.com:

“If the skin inside the nose is broken while picking away, the veins in that region are situated in such a way that sometimes an infection can migrate inward to the base of the brain and inhibit the blood flow, a serious condition known as cavernous sinus thrombosis. This condition can also be caused by squeezing zits on or around the nose. Because of these risks, the triangular area of the face from the corners of the mouth to the bridge of the nose is referred to in the medical community as the ‘danger triangle of the face.’”

And of course, regardless of its efficacy, efficiency, or the strange, inexplicable pleasure and pride people seem to get from producing all manner of bodily substances and noxious emissions, no one wants to see you do it. It can have a negative impact on your social standing. Some adults, perhaps because they were too enthusiastically encouraged in their potty-training days, still seem to think there is something marvelously fascinating or funny about their bodily functions. All I can say is it’s a pity your fondest childhood memories took place on the potty. It is a very fine line, parents. Encourage your children to dispose properly of their bodily waste, but do it in a businesslike way. To be sure, mastery is a praise-worthy accomplishment, but it’s not like winning the World Series. Calm down.

As always, there is a larger issue. Knowing the negative impact of public rhinotillexis, why on earth do otherwise respectable people, who obviously put a premium on appearances, do it where they are sure to be seen? It’s the paradox of public spaces at work again. People feel liberated in their assumed anonymity to do things that they would not do in front of anyone they knew. This, too, is a social problem of epidemic proportions, and our society encourages it. With ipods and a host of products that force the private into the public realm, and subordinate public mores to private whims, people have forgotten what manners are for.

Think of that horrifying ad from Amp’d Mobile where this geeky guy with a foreign accent’s on the bus, and he’s controlling everyone. He points to a big black guy and a skinny little old man and says, “you and you: fight!” They go at each other. Next he turns to a skinny white guy sitting with a boombox on his lap, and says, “you: turn the radio up!” And the guy turns it up. Then he turns to a black woman with a big bottom. “You: shake your junk!” She gets up, grabs a pole and shakes her ass. He turns to two conservatively dressed women. “You two: make out.” And, of course, they go at it with gusto. The message: “Have the power to entertain yourself.” God help us.

But this isn’t really so much of a stretch–you already see it to some extent in the way people behave in public, as if those around them are somehow less real than they themselves are. If they could control them for their own entertainment they surely would.

So what does this have to do with picking your nose in public? Well, we’re as real as anyone else in your little world, and we don’t want to see it any more than they do. So cut it out.

Yes, I’m back in dear old Boston. St. Armand’s is a nice place to visit, but not much going on, aside from the aforementioned walks along the beach, which I’m not knockin’, and the occasional Jerry Springer sighting. More about my week at the beach here.

Back in Boston things are much as I left them, with the additional remnants of a little snow event I missed. People seem to be sort of perking up a bit, having survived January 24th, the most depressing day of the year, at least according to University of Cardiff psychologist Dr. Cliff Arnall’s calculations. His formula looks like this:

The equation is broken down into seven variables: (W) weather, (D) debt, (d) monthly salary, (T) time since Christmas, (Q) time since failed quit attempt, (M) low motivational levels and (NA) the need to take action.

I don’t know how much snow we got while I was gone, but the motorists on my dysfunctional block here in Dot apparently felt it was enough to merit breaking out the old “space-savers” again. Drama queens. I mean, I took a walk around the block and noticed it was just my little street where people had put out the space-savers. I don’t know what to make of that. Is there something wrong with my block? Is it something in the water? It doesn’t seem, on the face of it, to be any more small-minded, petty and possessive than any other block in Boston. But there’s obviously something going on.

I would write about taking the silver line from the airport last night, but I didn’t. I caved into pressure from Itchy, who had offered to collect me at the airport. I thought there might be a little sushi stop on the way home, but no. I should have taken the T.

Speaking of sushi. My aunt was all like, “oh, your uncle loves sushi, so you two will get along famously.” But while we got along just fine, he’s not a true sushiphile. My aunt saw him eat a california roll once and that’s what she based her judgment on. She’s like that. You know people who see you, like, clog dance once, or whatever, and then forever after you’re referred to in mixed company as “my nephew the crazy clog-dancing fool.” And it’s like you tried it on a lark, and you never ever did it again. But that’s the problem with families. They won’t let it die. My aunt doesn’t eat any fish at all, by the way, which I can’t understand. And thus she talks about fish like it’s just a given it’s disgusting. It’s like, “No, I don’t drink puss from lepers’ boils! Are you kidding?” That’s how she sees it. So, we didn’t have fish but once the whole time I was down there. And no sushi.

While we were cruising around town in my uncle’s convertible, I noticed that the unfortunate acronym for Sarasota’s public transportation is SCAT. That stands for Sarasota County Area Transit, of course. But google SCAT and see what you come up with. Better be careful, though: the NSA’s watching.

The first site that comes up is “Snack or Scat? Can you tell the difference between a tasty snack and stinky scat?” Sommerville Community Access Television is up there, too. It’s actually surprising what a popular acronym SCAT is. If I were one of Sarasota’s senior citizens searching for a bus schedule, I would have to wade through an awful lot of SCAT to get to it.

All I’ve got to say is, whatever you do, don’t image search it.

Here’s something for everyone. There’s a new site going up called tgraffiti.com that features…well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? T-graffiti.

It’s not quite off the ground yet, but you heard it here first. So check it out. And if you’ve got a camera-phone and you see a graffito or two you think the rest of us need to see, too, snap a pic and pass it on.

I’m visiting my aunt and uncle on St. Armand’s Island outside Sarasota. There’s no one under sixty allowed unless you’re visiting a relative, here to pick up their ashes, or are a Mexican worker with custodial aspirations. But, as my aunt, bless her, is fond of saying: “it’s all good!”

I’ve just returned from my morning ambulation on the beach, and am preparing myself for my mid-morning swim. Not to rub it in, but it’s gonna be eighty here today. As for my walk on the beach, I had almost forgotten the pleasure of the stroll. I have always enjoyed walking, but in Boston I find I am always en route. There is always an ulterior motive. But walking for the pleasure of walking seems strange, and out of place in the hustle and bustle of the city these days.

When I lived in Budapest (about a five minute walk from Castle Hill in Buda) I did a lot of strolling around with no particular destination in mind. There is something to be said in this context for city squares (proper squares, not the Cambridgean kind). Squares give you someplace to stop, during epic ambulations, have a coffee at a proper cafe (not the Starschmucks kind), read the paper, and then continue on your way. Boston is a very walkable city, don’t get me wrong, but it could use a few more proper squares, in my opinion.

While I certainly don’t consider myself a philosopher, philosophers have always been ambulators. There is something about walking that lubricates the gears, so that the thoughts are free to stretch out from here to the horizon. There is something liberating in the rhythm that loosens the thoughts. Walkers’ thoughts wend and wind and take on a life of their own. Sedentary thinkers find it easier to domesticate their thoughts, while walkers’ thoughts are wild, and must be wrestled to submission. But I think it’s worth the struggle.

Man would not have philosophy without bipedal ambulation. If he could fly he would have no need of it. Likewise, if he had never left the sea. Socrates was forever walking on the beach trying out his method on the impressionabe youths of Athens. Kant’s neighbors could set their watches by his afternoon walks. Schopenhauer, one of my personal favorites, emulating Kant, never missed his two-hour afternoon stroll. Kierkegaard famously wrote: “Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts.” Nietzsche went further: “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”

The Philosopher’s Walk in Kyoto, Japan, is thus named for philosopher Kitaro Nishida’s contemplative strolls along its magical, cherry-tree-lined paths . There are, of course, schools of Eastern thought devoted entirely to ambulation. Qigong, for example.

And when you think about it, walking is deserving of attention. It’s no small feat, walking as we do. It is, in fact, the single most defining feature of all human ancestry. There are very few other creatures on earth who can do it. Bipedal octopusses can, and do, although I don’t know what sort of philosophers they are. The problem with chimpanzees is that they can’t extend their knee-joints to produce a straight leg in the stance phase, which may be why, although they’re pretty smart, they have not produced many philosophers themselves.

The beach here on St. Armand’s Island is beautiful at any rate, and, hark, I think I hear it calling me…

January 2006 hasn’t been like January at all until now. Today it was wicked cold, as they say around here. On the way to my gym I passed the Chinatown T and all the homeless guys who usually hang out in front of Saint Francis House were huddled just inside the outbound entrance.

You gotta give it to these guys. I mean, presumably they could migrate, snow-bird style. What’s a one-way ticket to Nassau, Bahamas? Seventy-nine bucks on Jet Blue. Very doable. That’s less than the price of half a gram of crack (a “working half,” as they call it on the street). You gotta give something up temporarily, but look what you’re getting in return: it’s gonna be 79° and partly sunny in the Bahamas tomorrow. You know what it’s gonna be here in Boston? 36°, with rain/snow showers. All the crack in the world can’t make up for that cruddy forecast.

And I’m not trying to get rid of the homeless. That’s not my intention here. It’s not about me. I hate to see them freezing their nads off out there, sure, but then I go home, make myself a hot toddy, switch on the TV, and I’m snug as a bug in a rug. They’re still out there, but it’s out of sight, out of mind. I’m not gonna pretend otherwise. I know what life on the street’s like, so it’s not like I don’t have some kind of sympathy, but there’s only so much one man can do, you know?

What I’m saying is, if you look at it in a different light, there are certain advantages to being homeless. The glass isn’t always half-empty, people. After all, for a good portion of human history mankind was essentially homeless. Before the advent of agriculture brought the grub to you, you had no choice but to go to the grub. And that meant you moved around a lot. You followed the weather. When it rained, you found a dry place. What we’ve got today is kind of a historical anomaly: our homeless aren’t migratory. They’re sedentary.

In fact, the homeless are experiencing many of the same health problems as your average suburbanite. According to one expert: “obesity and sedentary lifestyles have been related to health problems among the homeless population,” too. It seems increasingly that the only difference between the homeless and the homeful is the fact that the former don’t have a home while the latter do.

Clearly, it wasn’t always the in-thing to have a home. It started getting trendy sometime around 10,000 years ago with the advent of agriculture. Now, agriculture has its advantages, but there’s definitely something to be said for the more itinerate existence of hunter-gatherers, too. The prevailing opinion is that agriculture has made life easier, but some, among them a few anthropologists and some bushmen, beg to differ. As Jared Diamond tells it:

“[T]he average time devoted each week to obtaining food is only 12 to 19 hours for one group of Bushmen, 14 hours or less for the Hadza nomads of Tanzania. One Bushman, when asked why he hadn’t emulated neighboring tribes by adopting agriculture, replied, ‘Why should we, when there are so many mongongo nuts in the world?’”

Think about it. It takes Itchy and me a couple hours a day to negotiate where we’re going for dinner. And then there’s the wait, because Itchy always forgets to make reservations. Then when you do get seated (and half the time we end up at the bar), you’re looking at a half an hour before you get your food, service being what it is. Three courses, brandy, and coffee and a cigar later, and there’s five hours that’ve blown by. And that’s just one meal in a day. And if you eat in it’s even worse. In the modern world, obtaining food is a friggin full-time job.

So who are the real suckers here? That’s the question, innit? And are there enough mongongo nuts to go around?

The lesson? Don’t look down your nose at the homeless. Think of it this way: you know that if our little world got turned upside-down all the sudden (did everybody get their “Ready Boston” pamphlet detailing the evacuation plan in case of “a dangerous situation such as a flood, a chemical spill or a very large storm”?)—anyway, if we all found ourselves out on our asses all the sudden having to forage for ourselves, who do you think would have the really helpful hints then? It would behoove us all to befriend a vagrant or two. If “befriend” is going too far, then at least network ‘em in.

Homeful folk do OK when the name of the game is flourish. Yes, we know the best microbrews (He’brew: The Chosen Beer) and sushi bars (Oishii), the trendiest sneakers (Adidas Micropacers—only 500 pairs were produced, selling for $600 each), and the most to-die-for handbags (one word: Balenciaga). But when its survival we’re talking, the rules change. Can you safely drink street sludge? Eat raw fish from the Charles? Do you have a pair of truly sensible shoes? Can you conceal weapons in that Louis Vuitton knock-off of yours? Who you gonna ask? An expert, of course. Somebody who knows.

And that somebody would be your neighborhood homeless person (or “habitationally-challenged individual,” if you wanna get all PC about it). They know that Rule No.1 is you go where you’ve got a steady supply of mongongo nuts. And a liquor store nearby, if at all possible. I mean, can’t have nuts without beer. What’s the point?

The point! When the tsunami comes, or the dirty bomb, or Godzilla, or space invaders, where you gonna go? How are you gonna find it? Just hope when the time comes (and it’s coming, people, it’s coming) you’ve got ol’ Crazy Eddie the Homeless Guy’s number in your blackberry.

I can appreciate our homeless for the vast store of potentially very useful information they possess. They may look like good-for-nothings to you now, but, trust me, when Mars attacks, they’ll be the ones to save the race from doom. Forget those TV phonies on their desert islands. These cats are the real survivors.

So I don’t want to run them off. In truth I think we could do much more for them than we do, right here in Boston. But when you see them braving this bitter cold, you have to wonder why they don’t celebrate their freedom from the nine-to-five, the ball-and-chain, from mortgages and credit card debt, and so on, by springing for that Jet Blue ticket to the Bahamas. I mean, fuck winter in New England. I’m headed to Florida myself on Wednesday.

I met a friend at Symphony Hall yesterday for a Beethoven thing. The first half was a kind of lecture by Harvard musicologist Thomas Forrest Kelly, and then after intermission the Handel and Haydn Society played Symphony No.5 in C Minor, Op.67. It was nice, but, you know, everyone’s heard this one so many times that even though Professor Kelly urged us to imagine this was the first time, it was impossible.

Whenever I hear that bum-bum-bum-BUUUUUMMM, I’m expecting that disco beat to kick in. I mean, I grew up with the disco version of Beethoven’s 5th. And “Rock Me Amadeus.” And the like. And my dad, bless him, loved those “Hooked on Classics” cassettes. That’s what we listened to on road-trips. He never got tired of ‘em. If you’re not familiar with the “Hooked on” phenom: “cross Ludwig van Beethoven with the Bee Gees, and what do you get?” That’s the idea. I mean, you’ve got these classical medleys, with all the compositions kind of hooked together by a disco beat. The individual medleys usually had a theme to them, like “Hooked on Romance” or “Hooked on Can-can.” And with these cassettes my dad utterly obliterated any enjoyment I could ever possibly hope to get from “light” classical music in adulthood. I was scarred.

But. Like I said, Symphony Hall yesterday was nice. Conductor Grant Llewellyn is a cutie.

For some reason I took the orange line from Downtown Crossing to Mass Ave, and walked to Symphony Hall, rather than take the green line from Park. I think it’s a kind of atavism. I mean, when I lived in JP my whole life was on the orange line. I never took the green line. Of course, the Mass Ave station is not far from Symphony, so it was no big deal.

On the train this little Latina came on with her girlfriend, and sat across from me, but on the seatback/window ledge, with her feet on the seat. That’s the trendy way to sit, on the orange line T at least. I mean, on the platforms, all the kids sit on the bench-backs with their dirty, muddy shoes on the benches themselves. But it’s logistically harder to do on the trains, because you have to be under a window, since the seatbacks aren’t wide enough. The window ledge gives you an extra four or five inches. But still, it looks precarious, and less comfortable than just sitting on the seat itself, which is what it’s for. So you have to wonder what’s behind it.

What’s happened with the bench situation is, after you see a bunch of people doing it, you’re like, well, I’m not gonna sit on the bench the normal way and get my trousers all dirty from the crud on their shoes. So you either don’t sit on the benches at all, or you sit on the bench-back like they do. When in Rome.

The young woman seemed to almost be daring someone to tell her to sit her ass down like the rest of us, but you don’t mess with these Latinas on the orange line. They will rip you limb from limb. So she sort of surveyed the scene from her elevated perch and knew she was the queen of that car. “Cowards!” she was thinking. “Worms!”

And she’s right. That’s the thing about modern life. So many socially unacceptable behaviors could be nipped in the bud by a good ear-boxing. Just once is all it takes. I mean, you do something socially unacceptable, get a good clip round the ear from a total stranger, you’re just not gonna do it again. But, alas, those days are gone.

After the Symphony we went for dinner and drinks. We had Thai for dinner, at a place right around the corner from Symphony Hall. I wasn’t impressed. We left there and ended up at a place called Match on Mass Ave. It’s an atmospheric restaurant/bar that advertises itself as THE place for mini-burgers and martinis. Très, très Middlebrow.

So, as you might expect, it looks like a classy joint, but in the end it turns out not to be. I guess that’s their gimmick, their shtick. Boston is, essentially, a college town, and almost everywhere you go to get a drink turns out to be a glorified sports bar. But it just wasn’t working at Match. I mean, it was like Jennel, the other night: here’s this striking, gorgeous girl, and she opens her gorgeous mouth and has a voice like a fishwife.

That’s the thing about Match: designwise it’s Pearl Bar, but patronwise, it’s Cheesecake Factory. The anorexic hostess exuded attitude, appropriately enough, but it soon became obvious she was compensating for something the place lacked. For me the tip-off was the funky curved-stem martini glasses.

Rule No.1: Martini glasses should not be fucked with. The classic martini glass is one of those rare, perfect things that cannot be improved on, and should remain sacrosanct. Here you have this place that puts a premium on design, but the devil’s in the details, and if you flub the details, you can spend all the money in the world on ambiance and still end up with a Cheesecake Factory on your hands.

Then there’s the martinis themselves. The martini is another rare, perfect thing (”the only American invention as perfect as a sonnet,” as H.L. Mencken had it). It has a history. It should be hallowed. There are only a few variations on the theme that should be allowed, like dry or very dry. This vulgar proliferation of so-called martinis—these froo-froo concoctions that are only martinis, in a perverse reversal of Mencken’s diktat, because they’re in a martini glass–has gone way too far. The classic martini is that rare gender-neutral cocktail—something both men and women can drink, looking elegant but not effeminate drinking it. It is the ne plus ultra of urbanity, more cosmopolitan than a cosmopolitan. These fruity-tooty drinky-winkies that they’re pawning off as martinis are heresy, pure and simple.

Anyway, you go someplace darkly atmospheric, you expect it to be populated by intriguing, darkly fascinating urbanites, not loud-mouthed apes in Tedy Bruschi jerseys (not that I have anything against them or Tedy Bruschi, in their proper contexts) with their dolled-up girlfriends, many of whom looked for all the world to be transvestites (nor do I have anything against dolled-up girlfriends or transvestites, again in their proper place).

But, anyway, what’s up with that? I mean, the tranny chic? Maybe it’s that young women of a certain caste don’t usually dress in women’s clothing anymore, so that they’ve forgotten how? The caked-on make-up and teased-out hair was totally Madonna circa “Like a Virgin.” I lived through that once. Let’s not go there again. It’s not funny. I can handle the seventies again, but not the eighties. If you’re too young to remember them, then you have no right going there and traumatizing those of us who do.

I know all of this sounds a little snooty on my part, and really I’m the last person who’s gonna rain on people’s parade. I’m all for a good time. It’s just that the setting and the crowd were annoyingly incongruous. And that made the place seem pretentious, like it was trying to be something it wasn’t. But maybe that’s just Boston.

I was out in JP last night having beers with a friend, ended up at Green a little after eleven, managed to make it to JFK around midnight. Now, usually I’m either tucked into bed by then, or, if I’m out and about, it’s with somebody with wheels. I have to admit, that time of night, and in a state of slight inebriation, I prefer a taxi to the T, mostly on account of the walk home from the station.

So last night I’m walking home and I get to Dot Ave. without incident, but on the corner there’s a strikingly handsome young woman, tall and blond, in a red dress. But she’s got that Southie accent, you know, and you can tell she’s got a foul mouth, and she’s shouting across the street at this bloke with a big backpack. And he’s calling her all sorts of names, and she’s shouting at him to leave her alone, and go his own way. It sounded very sordid, but she seemed to be handling it, and, frankly, she was a tall, big-boned gal, and he was a wiry, skinny guy, a nervous type by the looks of him. She could’ve taken him, easy.

And just as I’m passing she turns to me, and looking up at the street sign, she’s like, “’scuse me, does that say Crescent Street or Crescent Ave.?”

“Crescent Ave.,” I mumbled, and crossed the street, and walked on.

They continued their shouting match outside the convenience store on the corner, and I’m thinking, whew, I’m gonna get away scot free, but she comes after me.

“’Scuse me! ‘Scuse me! You got a phone?”

I could’ve said no, obviously, but I said yes.

Now, I’m usually pretty streetwise. I don’t get myself too involved in this kind of thing, because it’s impossible to know what’s going on. Sure, if there’s some violence of some sort going down, then you intervene, somehow, don’t you? You can always call the cops, too. But what’s the extent of your resposibilities in a situation like this you find youself all the sudden in the middle of? I mean, should you confront the guy, tell him to leave the girl alone? Is it enough to accompany her to a safe place but not get too mixed up in whatever’s going on between them?

Well, she took my phone, and started making calls, while fending him off. At first he kept his distance, not knowing what I would do. But as we walked on, he moved in a little closer. It occurred to me as he approached that it could be a set-up. When I was in Rome a few years ago, there was a spate of muggings, and the way they went down was, a woman approached and asked for help. When you stopped to help her, her mates came up and robbed you. Didn’t happen this time. I don’t think Americans want to put all that effort into setting the scene and so on. They just come up and stab you or something, and then take your money. Which didn’t happen here, either.

but anyway. They’re still going at it.

“Just go your own way!” she kept telling him, distractedly punching numbers into my cell.

Clearly he felt she had duped him somehow. Something to do with shoes, and a cell phone that he had lent her, or was paying for, that he was going to shut off if he didn’t hear from her by noon next day. I was taking whatever information I was getting and trying to figure out who did what to whom. I was going to do my chivalric duty at any rate, but I don’t have any illusions that women are less capable of bad behavior than men. Maybe she was user, and she’d try to drag me into something. Sure, he was probably nuts, although I couldn’t tell what kind of nuts, but what was she doing involved with a guy like that in the first place?

We walked on, while she spoke to someone on the phone, and shouted at him.

“Why you followin’ me? Just go your own way, Mike!” (his name was Mike, too.)

She told whoever was on the other line that she was going to be at the Store-24 in a couple minutes. So I figured, hey that’s reasoable. I’ll see that she gets there unharmed and then go home. I mean, I was happy to do it. There would be people around. If Mike kept harassing her, she could call the cops from there, and they could deal with it. I mean, unless there were drugs involved, and that’s why she didn’t want to call the cops. But in that case, I didn’t want to get further involved myself.

So, though we converged at Meaney Park at the roundabout, We ended up on one side of the street, and Mike on the other the rest of the way to the Store-24. It actually looked like he was going to go his own way at the roundabout, and maybe if I had told him to “leave the lady alone,” or something, in my huskiest, butchiest voice, he would have. But, honestly, I was already more involved than I wanted to be. I felt it was best to be the strong, silent type.

but from across the street, he kept shouting at her, and then tried to bring me into it.

“Is that another one of your guys, Jennel?” He asked her. “You got a new guy there, Jennel?”

She was shouting back: “He don’t even know me! I’m just borrowin’ his phone!”

“You got a new guy, you whore? Got a big guy to go home with tonight?”

“I don’t even know him. Go on and ask him yourself, Mike!”

The Store-24 was hopping, which was a good sign, I thought. I mean, I felt like she’d be safe from Mike there until whoever she called came along to collect her. Mike went ahead inside. I asked her if she’d be OK, and she said yeah, and I walked the block or two back home.

Just as I’m getting undressed, my cell rings. I didn’t think for even a half-second. Switched it off. I mean, it must’ve been her pimp or her drug dealer. Whoever she called.

I did what I could do. I let her use my phone to call someone to come fetch her, and walked her to a safe place. For the rest she obviously needs professional help, of various kinds.

So how unhealthy is having piles of pigeon feces several inches thick between platforms at JFK? And lots of it on the platforms themselves? There’s no doubt there’s a pigeon situation at the station. As much as my heart is warmed by the thought of Frida and Diego nesting in the rafters, there is a real problem between the tracks. If you’re standing on the platform directly beneath the station, next to the stairs, look up. There is obviously some serious nesting going on up there, with not only loads of bird droppings dripping down but bird bits, parts of dead pigeons hanging there as well.

So what’s a little bird poop, right? Well, according to birdbarrier.com, there is some risk of airborne disease due to inhalation of fecal dust:

“As bird feces and/or the contaminated soil it rests on, dries or is disturbed, microscopic pieces break off and become airborne. These airborne particles can contain dormant fungi and/or bacteria. When breathed into the lungs, the warm, moist environment of the lung lining provides a breeding ground for the infectious agents. Common symptoms of this type of infection are flu like in nature: coughing, elevated temperature, restricted breathing and general body fatigue, and last roughly two to four days. The vast majority of the time, the bodies defenses will contain the invaders even before minor symptoms appear but in a small percentage of cases, major infection causing long term disability and even death occurs. It is worth noting that there is no known medical cure for internal fungal infections. After the Northridge earthquake, several thousand people came down with flu like respiratory symptoms. The ailment was called Valley Fever and was caused by people breathing in dust and airborne debris filled with histoplasmosis spores and related fungal agents stirred up by the earthquake.”

Can you imagine how much of that dried up feces is being stirred up by trains coming and going?

Now, I’m not really that concerned, but a little effort on the part of the T to control the pigeon population in stations like JFK, or at the very, very least, to clean up bird feces regularly, would be a step in the right direction. A little bird crap? No problem. But piles of it inches thick, and dripping from the rafters is a bit much, don’t you think?