“I walked into a corner restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen one Sunday.”
Soup is on
Dear Diary:
During a two-week trip to the city, I walked into a corner restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen on a Sunday evening.
Everything on the menu looked good. While I was trying to decide which soup to order, a bowl came for a man sitting alone next to me.
“What soup is that?” I said after he had his first taste.
I immediately regretted asking. This was New York, and my talkativeness felt out of place. Don’t be so annoying, I thought to myself.
The man turned to me.
“It’s the leek,” he said. “It’s wonderful. I’m glad you’re here too. The couple that just left – that man’s voice was so annoying!
–Megan Moore
Celebrating Whitman
Dear Diary:
It was 96 degrees and carousel music was playing as I approached the academics hosting the annual Walt Whitman party in Brooklyn Bridge Park.
I asked if there was room for one more reader and was told to talk to the woman in blue. She was a professor of literature and had the final say.
When I spoke to the woman in blue, she said participants had to register online.
I wanted to read, so I told the truth.
“I’m kind of a big deal,” I said. “Your audience will love me.”
She handed me the microphone with an uncertain look. And with the Brooklyn Bridge as a backdrop, I borrowed a book from a woman who stood there, looked out at the audience and let out my barbaric cry.
Sometimes I fill myself with someone I love out of fear, out of fear that I am radiating unrequited love;
But now I think there is no such thing as unrequited love; the reward is certain one way or another;
(I loved a certain person fervently, and my love was not returned;
But I wrote these songs from that.)
As I bowed and began to say goodbye, the people cheered. As I left the stage, I realized for the first time what it felt like to be acquitted.
—Danny Klecko
To look up
Dear Diary:
A group of people stood on a corner in the Flatiron neighborhood, all looking up at a tall, old building.
I asked a young woman in the crowd what everyone was looking at.
Don’t know! she said.
I asked the same question to a middle-aged man standing nearby.
“I have no idea,” he said.
Both kept looking up.
– Felice Aull
Crackers
Dear Diary:
Although my parents were both New Yorkers, I grew up in a small town outside of Cleveland, where my parents moved in 1969.
After graduating from college and then wandering around North America for a year with two friends, I ended up spending the scorching summer of 1988 with my grandmother in a tenement in the Parkchester neighborhood of the Bronx.
I loved the way the diverse group of tenants touched each other’s lives in small ways every day. Two of my favorite residents were older sisters who lived nine floors above my grandmother. Regardless of when I met them, it looked like they had had a few cocktails.
One Saturday morning I picked up the phone and heard one of the sisters formally introduce herself and ask if I would come over and help with a small favor.
When I knocked on their door, it opened and the sisters stood next to each other. One quickly turned around and went to the freezer. She opened it, pulled out a small, foil-wrapped package, and turned back to me.
She said their parakeet crackers had died a few weeks earlier. Would I be willing to bury the beloved bird outside the building?
I went downstairs with the special load, then out the door and back again. I heard the sisters call from above, lead me a little to the left, a little closer to a large tree and then finally stop.
I dug a small hole and laid Crackers to rest. I had no doubt that a few more dry sherries would be lifted that day.
–Kevin Clegg
40 winks
Dear Diary:
It was a few years ago and I was a third-year obstetrician at one of New York City’s major hospitals.
After a particularly grueling week, I had finally gone to sleep in the call room on the first floor of the hospital. Within minutes my pager sounded and I was called for a c-section on the top floor.
Blue-eyed, I stumbled into the elevator and pressed the button. Halfway up, the elevator shuddered to a stop and went dark.
I called the ward nurse via the elevator phone.
“I’m stuck in the elevator and want you to grab one of the other residents to do the C-section,” I said. “Also call maintenance, but tell them they are not in a hurry.”
I hung up the phone, curled up in the corner of the elevator and immediately fell asleep.
Before I knew it, the doors opened and a handyman walked into the car.
I blinked.
“So fast?” I said.
He looked at me in surprise.
“Ma’am,” he said, “you’ve been stuck here for two hours.”
– Emily Hartzog
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