November 2005

I'm a square.

I thought I was cool.  I thought I was cool, hip, wicked, tight, dope, and down with it.  But I'm not. I'm square, boxy, L 7, un-cool, lame, un-hip -- hopelessly square.

I came to this realization at six o'clock last Monday morning -- Halloween morning -- on the fifteenth floor of the Paramount Hotel in New York City. I woke, sat up, put my feet on the floor, and reflected on how I had spent the past eighteen hours of my life.

I had checked into the hotel around 3:00 PM on Sunday. The Paramount Hotel is right in the thick of things -- two blocks from Broadway on 46th street. After getting my bags to the room I stepped out onto the street. It was like stepping into another world.

If you've never been to New York -- to Manhattan, Times Square -- it may be hard for you to imagine the energy that fills those celebrated streets. It's as though there is a Van de Graft generator underground, creating an electrical charge in everything on the surface. It makes you giddy; the hairs on your arms will stand up; your breathing will quicken.

There I was, walking by the theatres, the shops, the restaurants, the people, the lights, the noisy activity. I was psyched! I called my wife, Bee, from my cell phone. "I'm walking down Broadway looking at Times Square!" I blurted.
"Nuh uh!" she retorted. Always did have a way with words, did Bee. I tried to share my excitement with her over the phone, but as excited as she was for me, no words that I could come up with would make her see the scene before me. She envied me, certainly, but was not jealous. "Enjoy it, baby," she encouraged me.
"I will," I promised, and said goodbye.

And just like that, the electricity in the air disappeared. My elation of being in the Big Apple was displaced with loneliness and regret -- regret that Bee wasn't there to walk beside me, to share the thrill, to enjoy the ride. There I was, in the City of Cities, with hundreds of dollars of per diem in my pocket (free money), a thousand places to spend it, a thousand sources of amusement, entertainment, enjoyment and pleasure, and all I could think of was getting back to that ten by ten hotel room, click on the TV, lay on the bed, fall asleep, tangled up in blue. Without Bee it was just another town -- another place away from home.

The cold hard facts came crashing down on me there, on that Monday morning, as I sat on the edge of the bed,  leaning over with my elbows resting on my knees, my head in my hands. I'm pathetic, I thought. A perfect square. And without joy I readied myself for just another day.