I Didn't See Her Today...

"You don't send me flowers anymore..." - Neil Diamond

By Patrick Alcatraz

Editor

New York, N.Y. - The City that Never sleeps, it is said, holds a jillion stories - some naked. It is electric, and it for sure throws nutty stuff at you that you just don't get anywhere else. Today, it was a lanky, small-tittied woman in a plastic, see-through outfit moving on 42nd Street toward Times Square. I looked, as did a few hundred others moving along the busy, crowded sidewalk in front of the NY Port Authority building. Craziness is not all that rare, however, although usually it's lousy comedians, loud vendors, or the whistling NYC cops acting stupid. This is Color TV out in your face. I love it, but there are times the annoying win the game. Today's lunch at a cozy Chinese joint was marred by a Black guy talking much too loud, this in a tiny eatery where the tables are thisclose. I did my best to hold my temper; my daughter chided me for continuing to think that I'm the "only guy on the planet."

Anyway, my 23-year-old kid and I have been together quite a bit after not seeing each other for almost a year and a half. Gabrielle, St. John's U. Class of 2008, is a fine, fine dinner conversationalist. She likes to remind me of things I'd rather forget. I take it like a Man, yeah. She laughs when I say I find some things stunning and absolutely not believable. I say, "wrong guy," and she laughs again. We keep eating and she stares at me like a cop when I lift my tea glass for a refill when I don't even know where the freakin' waiter is, or may be.

A bit more enjoyable are those moments when we talk about her Mom, my ex-wife Narda. She, too, lives here, and, well, sometimes she goes out for a drink. She's in Spain, finishing a two-summer Master's program in lovely Salamanca. So, sure, I keep looking for her. But she's not there.

The photo of yours truly atop this installment was taken outside one of my ex-wife's favorite watering holes - an old, musty bar on the Lower East Side somewhere. Yeah, I e-mailed it to her, hoping her face will drop to the floor and think, "WTF is he doing there!"

I love this juiced-up joint...

- 30 -