Crisis of Modernity

What does that mean? I remember that word from the English department at BU. I think it was the name of a class that I never took. Or a class that I took and never bought the books for so I might as well have never taken it.
Well earlier this evening I was walking out of the Parkside Q train stop pushing Felix in the big boy stroller that he is still not big enough for because it tweaks his neck. About a dozen people were standing surrounding a 3 year old boy. Some one yelled 'do you belong to anyone!'. He just stared blankly. Some one else yelled 'where's your mother!'. Again blankly. Some one else yelled 'get an officer!'. Felix and I just sat and watched everyone start buzzing about the child that did not belong to anyone. Some one else yells 'someone needs to lock his mother up'. An woman officer walks up to the little boy and then walks around the corner with him.
My brother calls me and asks what is the crisis of modernity.
So I tell him.

hotttt

Today was hot. It is hot. This computer is hot. The cell phone glued to my ear is hot. The rain is starting. The lightining is striking. New York is on fire. Walking outside the air is heavy. The pools are staying open later. Call 311 for your nearest cooling center. Air conditioners are selling like hotcakes. Hotcakes? Really how many of those have been sold in the last year.

I am too hot to think.

Well this makes sense.

Yesterday I was walking down East 68th street, towards the park, earlier in the morning then I would usually be out. I had just gotten a new case in the neighborhood.
An old grandmother in the upper east side was seen smacking her grandchild around in the park. The child is with a distant cousin now So at that moment I was going to a case meeting at the Methodist church on the Lexington. What a wonderful block I am thinking.
Though I am not a fan of the this gold crusted neighborhood because of the air that it carries, because it fact it is still new York but wants to hide any think less then ivory and marble. The fact is I don't know much about this neighborhood because I never go here. Never in all my years would I expect to have a case here.
Now I have a case.
As I am nearing the corner, a corner crowded with a Village voice, an AM New York and a Wall Street Journal Boxes, a Korean deli teaming over with little pyramids of waxy overpriced fruits, a police man, two or three high school students and a mother pushing a stoller. In a moment, one moment, I hear cracking sonic boom, I feel unbearable heat against my back, the stinging pain in the back of my head and get knocked to ground.
I lie on my stomach with my right check pressed to the ground. With my left ear I can hear screams, of people and of sirens. I see shoes rush past me, high heals, sneakers, boots. None of of them. I must be one of many. I hear a screaming voice "its gone! Its gone! Just like the towers!"
My eye sight is getting hazy. I try to lift my head but the burning feeling is too strong.

Last Week

Ok I am out. It was a mistake. Everyday I mistakes.

Last week Felix and I went to the eyedoctor in a rain storm. Rain was coming down in great big drooling, dripping chunks. Our appointment was at 8:00 but when we got there I found out that they had no referral. Felix pooped. I had to feed him. I had to go get the referral in another building. Felix pooped again. He wanted to stand. He wanted to sit. He wanted to look over my back shoulder. then Felix pooped again. After two hours they dilated his eyes. The basement of the hospital started to flood. The TV said the subways were flooding. I fed Felix. Felix spit up. The doctor looked at his eyes. He said "you do good work'. I look that!. Like he is a sculpture or sweater I just knitted.
Well his eyes were perfect. In case anybody does not know from reading this. He was born thirteen weeks early and spent seven weeks on the ventilator. Such extreme exposure to oxygen often has detrimental affects on eyesight. His eyes are perfect just like everything else about him. How lucky can we get.

Stop the voices

There have been a few times in my life when I really saw the thin thread that separate sanity and madness. The first time I believe was in tenth grade when I did a term paper on schizophrenia. It was over half a semester that I spent reading account after account, book after book. And I remember walking up the stairs, letting out a long hearty maniacal laugh and thinking 'hey I could just loose it, and people will have to take care of me and I could rest.' Resting is good. That is why people get admitted. Admittance.
When I was in college and taking those small square tabs under my toungue is a little too often, I felt my tenuous grasp of self slipping away. But luckily I stopped that.
A couple years ago I admitted a good friend of mine. And a year later my best friend was admitted though not by me by her mother.
This all made me think 'wow It can happen to me.'
Well it did.... I am writing to you from St Vincents Psychiatric Unit. I am not sure exactly what happened. I have been admitted. By who? More later.