Where else would i put these thoughts?

- Oh pretty girl on the platform. I stand near you, and not so abstractly or subtly gander over at you. It can't be helped, you see, because your ribbony head of curls caught my eye as soon as i went through the turnstile. And well, i could dip into my satchel and pull out the trade papers i should probably be studying, but then there you are. Pretty. Curly. You haven't yet shown me your eyes - oh my...you are pretty. Incredibly. Surely, you see me. I'm no more than just a few feet from those two big blue beee-yoots. This isn't a game. I'm merely interested in looking at your visage, the same as if i were to stare so intently at a Van Gogh landscape hanging in the Metropolitan. I want to be near that beauty. I want to just stare and admire. I want to be inspired. To be filled with the joy such beauty imbibes you with, to then turn around, and hold the door for that elderly lady, to offer a pleasant smile to that stranger waiting for the bus near my apartment. I want to be charmed, and hopeful in turn, be charming.

- I do so much walking in this city. There can only be so much entertainment one pursues in the headphones plugged into their ears. I offer to those of you who read these words the opportunity to chime in on whether the next behaviors i describe are creepy or endearing: I'm rushing, late (by my terms, which really means i'm right on time) for an appointment. I weave in and out of the stragglers on the sidewalk. I don't shove anyone. It's all on me. I duck, bend, shift, scoot and bow - all to make my way through a congested alleyway. I look at my watch every few steps. How can it still only be that time? Seriously? Boy, when did minutes go so fast? And then, suddenly, without any hesitation, i stop in my tracks. Ahead, there is a beautiful woman who has stopped to study the tantalizing window display at a dress shop. My steps are methodically slower, angling my approach so that i walk behind her by just a few inches. Right as i'm upon her, i close my eyes, suck in the air around her through my nostrils just so i can sense her perfume. My forward progress carries me a few feet past her, as the remnants of her bouquet pay their last respects upon my nostrils. And then, without hesitation, i resume my hurried march to my appointment, with 100% certainty she has no idea what her lovely perfume has done to lift my day.

Morsels

- Recently, my computer of 8 years kicked the bucket. I've amassed and compiled a relatively impressive and valuable amount of porn (read: obscure, sadistic kink). In order to try to recover this store, i was given the advice to purchase a "thumb drive" and manually move all necessary files onto this in order to access it from the new (as of yet purchased) computer. There is something very strange, off-putting and yet humbling holding this tiny little plastic contraption that contains 4 GigaBytes of my catalogued, compartmentalized and still sexuality-impacting life. This is what my thousands of hours culling and searching amounts to? Something the size of a stick of gum? Not sure if i should be comforted or appropriately disturbed.

- I am the lucky victim of a mystery stress fracture in my heel. One day i'm running my usual 4 miles (and later that evening taking care of some other business), the next day i can't walk home from the train station. No trauma, no blunt violence to my limbs. I have been driving this body of mine hard, and perhaps the age of it has caught up with the use. For now and the next handful of weeks, i walk wearing a plastic-reinforced, velcro-strapped boot and a wooden cane (that i picked up at a local antique store for $5). It has led me to think about my vulnerability. I'm not as mobile as i would like to be or am used to being. I must rely on the kindness of others, both strange and known. And i must re-evaluate my own impenetrability, which i frequently fancy as near super-human. Not being able to support my own body weight has had an impact on how i can properly correct my girl or address anything kink-related. It makes the hand-written phrase on the single notecard i have hanging on my wall - that i stare at every single time i sit at my desk in my bureau, like now - all the more relevant:

"what is weakness?"

What is weakness? Indeed. What does it mean to be weak? What are the fall outs from those situations where weakness is avoided at all costs? Do we know whether we profit or suffer when we are weak?

I ask these questions of myself everyday, and now, as i hobble around the city that i live in, i wonder if weakness is found in my hobbling or in my inability to accept that it is my current lot.

- Christmas approaches, and instead of doing our customary "naughty Xmas" gift exchange, my girl and i are trying to put something aside for these tough economic times ahead. It's very difficult to justify putting money towards more material and admittedly unnecessary items when what faces all of us is uncertain and unknown. I can't help but feel like a brat to be miffed we're not upholding this tradition, but there are too many uncertainties that need flexibility and patience to endure.