“When I entered the gallery, I saw a well-dressed middle-aged woman”
Favorite painting
Dear Diary:
A few years ago I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and, as is my custom, I stopped to say ‘hello’ to my favorite painting, Velázquez’s ‘Juan de Pareja’.
It is my habit to sit on the couch opposite Juan, and then together, in silence, we have long, intense conversations about art, philosophy, aesthetics, and even politics.
On this particular occasion, as I entered the gallery, I saw a well-dressed, middle-aged woman sitting on my usual couch and staring at Juan.
I’ve gotten used to having Juan all to myself so I was a little annoyed. She was probably resting and would walk away in a few minutes, I thought to myself.
I sat down next to the woman and started one of my typical late conversations with Juan. After about 10 minutes, the woman was still sitting next to me.
Curious, I turned to her.
“A beautiful painting, don’t you think?” I said.
She laughed.
“Yes, that’s it,” she said, then continued to stare at Juan in silence.
“Do you come to the Met often?” I have asked.
“No, I live in Colorado, so I only come here a few times a year when I visit New York,” she replied. “And when I’m in New York, I always go to the Met so I can spend time with this painting.”
And with that she got up, said goodbye and walked away.
— Marc Shanker
Surprise attack
Dear Diary:
Monroe Street in Brooklyn. Early fifties. There is one or two hours of daylight left on a hot summer night.
Dinner was over and a bunch of us kids were hanging out near the corner of Ralph Avenue doing nothing most of the time.
A boy on a bicycle came our way from Patchen Avenue. Nothing special; no one we recognized.
Suddenly he started pelting us with seriously overripe tomatoes from a supply in his handlebar basket.
None of us escaped the attack. And none of us could react before he sped down the streetcar tracks on Ralph Avenue and disappeared.
We never saw him again. But as I stood there, covered in rancid tomato slime, I had to admit, “That man was good.”
—Theodore O’Neill
May ’83
Dear Diary:
It was a late night in May 1983 and it happened to be the 100th anniversary of the Brooklyn Bridge. I was a trading assistant at Lehman Brothers, living in the decidedly unglamorous Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn.
The trains were less reliable then than they are now, and I always had a plan B to go home if there was a problem with the 2 or 3 on Wall Street.
It was one of those days. I was miserable after a long day as a kid on the trading floor waiting for the platform to go home. The train I was planning to take had just been taken out of service.
I left the Wall Street station and walked to the Broad Street station to catch another train. Finally one came and I was on my way home.
The train rolled onto the Manhattan Bridge, crossed halfway, and suddenly stopped. We sat there for a few minutes wondering what was going on.
Then the lights went out and we all sighed and thought of the worst. At that moment the conductor’s voice came over the.
“It’s showtime, people!” he said.
We sat on the train in the middle of the bridge and the East River after dark and watched the fireworks that celebrated the Brooklyn Bridge from the best seats in the house for over five minutes.
—Peter J. Goldman
Bailey Puddin
Dear Diary:
I lived in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn and I would walk my Silky Terrier, Bailey Puddin, around the neighborhood.
On my walks, I often met an elderly neighbor, James, sitting on his doorstep a block away. One day I asked him if he knew anyone who could help me move.
Mary, he said, I’ll ask around and call you.
A week later, James saw me walking Bailey Puddin and told me that he had tried to find me in the phone book and even called help, but there was no entry for a Mary Puddin.
James, I said, my last name is McLoughlin, not Puddin.
—Mary McLoughlin
To withdraw
Dear Diary:
I was in an elevator in a friend’s building. There were two other people in the elevator that I didn’t know.
The elevator stopped and a woman in her 30s got in.
“Do you live here?” one of the other passengers asked her.
“Yes,” she replied, explaining that her fiancé lived in 16C. “I just moved in.”
“Oh,” said the other woman, “you are getting married in a very fine building.”
—Martine J. Byer
Read all recent entries and our submission guidelines. Reach us by email diary@nytimes.com or follow @NYTMetro on Twitter.
Illustrations by Agnes Lee