Sadly, the passage of time had once again dictated that the anniversary of my birth had arrived. Turning ___ years old was a bit of a shock for the reasons everyone talks about. Aches, pains, memories and photographs of similarly aged people who once seemed SO OLD, and so on. But instead of worrying about the trajectory, I tried to focus on smaller pleasures, such as the forsythias at the park.
Every year, the forsythias mark the unofficial start of spring, when snow and cold are mostly relegated to the near past and distant future, and I start to think about pulling my running shorts out of the closet, where they have been folded up since that freakishly warm week in January. And every year, I go this overlook and take the same picture while I dream of parking lanes being replaced with bike lanes protected by stone walls and raised garden beds. And then I put my camera and dreams away and think about other things.
This magnolia will be covered in white blossoms in a week or so, and it will be breathtaking, but I also like it now, when I can see the architecture of the gnarled branches.
'It's been a cool spring, which I hope brings a cool summer.*' -- the white magnolia
*unlikely
Most years, I'm ambivalent about daffodils. They just seem a little too bright and friendly for the world at this juncture.
But this year, maybe because the weather has been so cool, or maybe because I'm older, they seemed a little more dignified than I remember. Maybe they're growing older too.
As always, I was entranced by the heather. It's interesting to me how some things never get boring, and finding these things is maybe part of accepting the indignities of age. There has to be some space for wonder.
I made it to Central Park not long after the sunrise. The race wasn’t slated to begin until 8:30 but I needed to pick up my bib by 7:30.
I knew I was in the right spot when I saw the train of portable toilets. #dread
After I got my bib, I had to wait for an hour. It was cold and windy, but at least it wasn’t snowing. I tried to savor the slow movement of time.
The leaves of this tree rattled in the wind like a tambourine, which is why it is commonly called a ‘tambourine tree.’
Other runners were also milling around. Not too many people were talking, because we’re all used to living in our heads.
I took a ‘before’ picture and then removed my outer four layers and hat and put everything (including my phone!) into the bag check.
The race started on time and we all set out, probably a little too fast as always. But it felt good to be running instead of standing around in the cold. Here’s a picture of me trying to reel in a much younger runner who earlier in the race had irritated me by holding a conversation with her friend as if they were having tea (they both had British accents) while I was using every bit of breath just trying (and failing) to hang on. When I saw her again around Mile 8 or so, I thought ‘well well well, if it isn’t Miss Chatterbox’ and took some satisfaction in passing her. But when I finished, I saw her lounging around with a hot chocolate and bagel, so she must have re-passed me without my noticing it. This is what competition looks like at my age!
This shot is about fifty yards from the finish. I wish I could say that I blew past this guy, but as soon as he saw me on his shoulder, he just skipped ahead and left me in the dust. I need to work on my finishing kick. (Among other things.)
Overall, my time wasn’t too bad, considering that I’m officially old I’ve just started racing again, and it was a cold and very hilly course.
Here’s me, happy that the race is over and oblivious to the poppy seed in the middle of my teeth that I picked up with a bagel and hot chocolate at the finish line.
In today's news, I impulsively signed up a few days ago to run a half marathon in Central Park. The race is scheduled for tomorrow (Sunday), which means I'm now filled with the usual dread. But also a little excitement, maybe. The weather is supposed to be cold but sunny, and I'm in reasonably good shape. I shouldn't die or anything. But I could!
For many years (ugh, decades) after high school and college, I told myself that I was done racing. It seemed pointless. And it still does, but it also seems a little pointless to run forty or fifty miles a week and never race. The dread I feel is less about the race itself than the logistics of getting there, finding my bib, dealing with the bag check, and standing around for an hour before the start. And okay, maybe a little bit of dread as I think about how hilly Central Park is and the certainty that I'll be in some pain going up these hills. But there's that feeling of getting to the top and catching your breath and (hopefully) flying down the other side, which is a really nice feeling. And really nice feelings are pretty rare these days, so maybe it's worth it. One thing I've noticed about middle age is that it's easy to slip into habits and patterns that allow time to pass very quickly; running -- and especially racing -- by contrast, is a way to slow time down.
"How do other people slow time down? Or not? It's a question I think about." -- Clio
In other news/activities that slow time, I recorded a new DeathCulture@Sea song, which you can enjoy here:
Or on Instagram, if that's your thing. It's not really my thing -- I only joined up to follow my favorite comic Brian Jordan Alvarez -- but it's frightening fascinating to see how the algorithm figures out (and mostly doesn't figure out) my interests, just by scrolling through the feed.
One of the more unnerving developments in my recent life has been the fact that every time I leave the house, my next-door neighbor is leaving his house at the exact same time. He’s always walking a big poodle that despite my general love of all animals I’m not fond of because it lunged at me the first time we met. I was surprised because I thought poodles were supposed to be intelligent and calm. To be fair to the dog, its lunging is a reflection on the owner. Still, I’m never excited to see the dog, especially on a daily basis. We look at each other with suspicion: ‘I would bite you if I could,’ the dog says with its dull, angry eyes, to which I respond, ‘Leave me alone, dog.’ Meanwhile, I’m trying to politely engage in small-talk with the owner. Weather, or the hawk that ate a pigeon in the backyard a few weeks ago. But how long can you talk about one event, when I really want to say, ‘Umm, have you trained your dog yet? Because it looks like it wants to KILL me.’
Anyway, after disengaging from the neighbor, I ran to the park, which is showing signs of early spring. The groundhog was wrong this year. We’ve had a few cold days, but mostly forties and fifties, which is too warm for February. There’s a rule of thumb for New York City weather, which is that July is 100 degrees warmer than February. #trouble
The gardeners had installed wind and snow fences to protect the heather, which was in bloom.
For a moment, I was transported away from 2023 and its many problems. This is also how I feel watching television, FWIW.
What could be better than blooming heather and American elm trees?
I can tell you one thing that’s not better: seeing my neighbor and his big, aggressive poodle every day.
But it’s almost spring, which means we can be hopeful.
It will be a relief to take down the fences, even though in retrospect they were unnecessary.
There's a big, wooded reserve right across the street from my parents' suburban apartment complex, but to get there on foot requires crossing a busy road and walking (or in my case, running) on the shoulder of the road for about a half mile to reach one of the parking lots that allow access to the trails. I always get up early to beat the traffic and mostly succeed, but there are always a few cars, and drivers go faster when they are unimpeded by traffic (as studies from lockdown have demonstrated) or speed cameras. I don't feel like I'm in danger, but it's unsettling to have cars pass at high speeds just a few feet away the space I occupy. I've also noticed that some drivers don't like having their freedom constrained by the sight of a runner and will make a point of veering as close as possible to me -- the runner -- to I guess make a point about who really owns the road. The township where my parents live isn't exactly Trump Country, but it's close enough to rural Pennsylvania to say that I do think about the final scene in Easy Rider, which has only become increasingly prophetic with each new decade.
I also think about what the government -- our government -- could do to improve our lives. Last fall when I was visiting, the road was less busy because of a big construction project at a nearby intersection that prevented drivers from using the road to reach another much wider and even busier road. I was disappointed on this most recent visit to learn that the construction project had been finished but they had made no accommodations for bikes and pedestrians, even though the planet is basically on fire, in large part because of our habit of burning fossil fuels in order to get from one place to another. Do people understand this direct link between cars and global warming? It's pretty clear that the New York Times does not.
What our government does and doesn't do for us -- meaning people who live in the United States -- was on my mind as I listened to my father complain about the food he receives in the dementia wing of the facility where he now lives. Wouldn't it be nice, I thought, if instead of privatizing health care under the guise of 'efficiency,' the government invested real money in either 1) building an infrastructure to care for our elderly, or 2) at the very least regulating the private operators in the current system so that they are required (among many other things) to serve food that is healthy and edible. 'It would cost too much money,' is the typical objection to such ideas. And yet we have no problem allowing the money to sit in the bank accounts of the country's many, many billionaires, where it does nothing.
Unfortunately, because my father has dementia, he doesn't understand the connection between neoliberal policy and the terrible food he is served by his private healthcare provider. Like many others from of his generation -- not to mention the ones that have followed -- he has a deep distrust of government, which led him to vote Republican for as long as I've known him. The exact reasons for this distrust remain something of a mystery to me, and on this visit, I regretted not being able to explore this with him.
As long as people think that government (as an ideal and an imperfect reality) is the enemy, we are doomed. Global warming and other problems are too complex to be solved without a collective action, rooted in a desire to make our lives better in ways that are not contingent on market efficiency or personal enrichment. Can a society be said to suffer from dementia? Watching my father succumb, I'm more convinced than ever that he is far from alone.
This was another year in which the city felt very near (because I live in it, which is a survival technique) and very far (because I stay away from it, which is another survival technique). I did go downtown a handful of times over the course of the year. Mostly I took short-term rental e-bikes (Citibike), which is my 2022 Survival Technique of the Year (TM).
E-bikes should be a survival technique for everyone. They’re easy to ride, they’re relatively fast, but they still feel like bikes (as opposed to motorcycles or scooters). They’re obviously safer and better for the environment than cars. Ranting about cars and the space they take up in the city, while moving (dangerously) and while in storage on public property (aka ‘street parking’) has been another survival technique of 2022.
Back to e-bikes, the infrastructure for biking (and e-biking) remains terrible in New York City, however. Most bike lanes are painted on the road next to parked cars, and protected lanes are often blocked by whoever feels like parking there and especially police cars. Having biked around the city, it’s clear to me that cops like to troll bikers by parking in bike lanes and generally harassing them. Guess what? I get it. There’s a minority of bikers who are very annoying. They have flashy, expensive gear and they go too fast in bike lanes that are shared with runners and walkers. They scold you a lot. They vote for neoliberal politicians, even now. But this minority should not dictate the behavior of the police or the many, many more obnoxious drivers who think it’s fun to drive within inches of a biker (or worse). I dream about having a mayor who can mobilize her (because it will probably be a woman) administration to radically overhaul city streets, so that e-bikes are a viable means of getting around throughout the year.
Also, can we stop spending money on useless advertising campaigns such as this one? Is there a single driver in 2022 who saw this ad and thought ‘you know, I really do need to slow down’? The solution to speeding drivers is enforcement by way of speed cameras and serious penalties against the increasing number of drivers (including 98 percent of cops and firefighters) who bend or deface license plates to avoid detection by speed cameras. Anyway, cars and their drivers are a major problem in New York City, and they should be heavily regulated. I look forward to complaining about them more in 2023.
Moving on from cars, Fort Tryon Park continues to be a big survival technique for me. why aren’t we investing more in parks?
I keep this image on my phone and laugh at it sometimes, which is a survival technique. Which speaking of phones reminds me: another survival technique of 2022 was turning off all notifications (sound and visual) for texts and phone calls, and especially social media apps. I’m not sure I logged onto my FB in 2022, though, which is another survival technique. That and gloating about the demise of IG. I’ll never understand why so many people are like ‘FB is evvvil — I would never! — but oh btw here’s my Insta.’ Ranting about social media is a perennial survival technique.
Let’s return to the park. Its beauty speaks for itself, n’est-ce pas?
Last year at this time, I wasn’t able to get to the park because I injured my knee pretty badly, which brings me to another big survival technique of 2022: physical therapy. Thank you, PT, for getting me back into running shape.
And thank you, Feldenkrais, for making me more aware of how I move. You might be surprised to learn that even if you don’t go downtown all the time like you used to do, you still tend to move around a lot, and there are ways to do it that bring more and less pain to your body. Thank you to my mother for getting me started in Feldenkrais. (Survival technique: listen to your mother — survival technique — sometimes.)
Running is generally a safe activity in the city, with one caveat: there are a lot of bumpy sidewalks that inevitably lead to comical (to observers) but painful (to participants) face plants when your toe catches on the edge of a raised square of concrete. (This is something else that should be fixed when they #bancars.) Feldenkrais has been a good survival technique during these unfortunate moments because in addition to teaching me how to sit and stand, it has taught me how to fall.
Moving on to our next category, gardening continued to be another big survival technique for me (and I’m sure it’s safe to say, Stephen) in 2022. As it’s something I regularly write about here, I won’t talk too much about it other than to say that we recently had a visit to our garden from a hawk, who made a meal of a pigeon while the cats looked on in awe through the window. With condolences to the pigeon, this is peak gardening, and I look forward to more of it in 2023.
I’m sorry, I forgot to post some of the ten thousands pictures I recently took in the heather gardens of Fort Tryon Park during the recent polar vortex.
Parks, gardens, heather: all should be considered survival techniques as we head into 2023 and beyond.
And elm trees.
And cats. I want to make a special mention to Zephyr, who despite having kidney problems turned sixteen this year and has been a critical player in my survival-technique strategy for his entire life. What would we do without cats?
And finally, in addition to Clio being cute — another survival technique for both of us — here’s my final DeathCulture@Sea survival technique (aka ‘song’) of 2022.
One of the nice things (for me) about lockdown was that it gave me more time to engage with -- to listen, to play, to read about -- music. Before lockdown, music had slipped away from me for reasons that I'm sure will be familiar to many, namely I was busy doing other stuff. I was a long way from being fifteen or twenty-five, when I had convinced myself that music was my emotional connection to the world, when I organized my life around learning instruments, playing in a band, writing songs, going to shows, recording, rehearsing, touring, etc. It was misguided in many ways, but it could have been a lot worse. I had fun, I saw a lot of the country, and -- in retrospect -- it was a good (and not good) way to sublimate the extreme anxiety I had around being gay, which as much as I tried to deny it was the organizing force of my life. But once I addressed this anxiety by coming out, I began to change. It took a few years, but I found new responsibilities and interests: a 'real' job/career, a partner, cats, opera, writing, gardening, bad television, this blog. Music took a back seat, not only because I was busy, but also because I wanted to distance myself from what I had been. But three or four years ago, I realized that I missed listening to new music, and that there was no point in punishing myself for what I had been, much less who I had become. I started dipping into the music blogs, where I discovered exactly what I had been craving. I remember when Brooklyn Vegan published their Top Fifty of 2019, after which I fell in love with Weyes Blood/Titanic Rising in ways that reminded me of being a teenager. (Playing it over and over again, mostly, and succumbing to the ease of [a popular corporate music streaming service]). I started going to shows, which was also fun, although I wouldn't want to make a habit of it. (My ears are still ringing from this show, for example.) And then, when lockdown arrived, I decided to use a few of the extra hours I had saved by not going anywhere by pulling my guitars out of my closet and writing some songs. Sometimes it feels a bit pointless or futile (especially when I'm stuck in some layer of technological hell learning the software), but mostly I love doing it. What I've realized in 2022, as lockdown becomes for most a memory and I realize that I, too, will have to reengage with the outside world, is that I enjoy writing and recording songs and videos for the same reason I like doing many other things: it's a way to forget about the more frightening problems of life in the modern world. It's a kind of drug, but one that -- unlike so many other mind-erasing techniques -- has no hangover. I tried to capture all of the above (or none of the above) in this new song, which I hope you'll enjoy (or not enjoy) :)
A RADICAL NEW MYTH ABOUT SEX, FAITH,
AND THOSE OF US WHO WILL NEVER DIE
A young boy wanders into the woods of Harlem and witnesses the abduction of his
sister by a glowing creature. Forty years later,
now working as a New York City homicide
detective, Gus is assigned to a case in which he
unexpectedly succumbs to a vision that Helen
is still alive. To find her, he embarks on an
uorthodox investigation that leads to an ancient
civilization of gods and the people determined
to bring them back.
In this colossal new novel from the author
of The Metropolis Case, the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice collides with a new religion founded by three corporate office workers, creating something
beautiful, illogical, and overwhelming. Part sex
manifesto, part religious text, part Manhattan
noir—with a dose of deadly serious, internet inspired satire—#gods is a sprawling inquest
into the nature of faith and resistance in the
modern world. With each turn of the page,
#gods will leave you increasingly reborn.
Praise for #gods
“#gods is a mystery, an excavation of myths, an index of modern life, a gay coming-of-age
story, an office satire, a lyrical fever dream, a conspiracy. One of the most ambitious
novels in recent memory—and a wild, possibly transformative addition to the canon of
gay literature—it contains multitudes, and seethes with brilliance.” —Mark Doten,
author of The Infernal
“Matthew Gallaway’s #gods is a novel so brilliant, so funny, so full of strange and marvelous
things, I couldn’t stop writing OMG WTF I <3 THIS SO MUCH in its margins. It’s rare to
find a novel that so dazzlingly reinvigorates age-old meditations on faith and f&!*ing, art
and eros. Luminous, enterprising, and sublimely cheeky, #gods tells the story, the myth,
the dream of the human soul in all its glorious complexity.” —Suzanne Morrison,
author of Yoga Bitch
“Matthew Gallaway’s storytelling manages to be both dreamy and serious; lean and luxurious.
His words carry an incantatory power of mythic storytelling where beauty and
savagery wrap around each other like bright threads in a gorgeous tapestry.”
—Natasha Vargas-Cooper,
author of Mad Men Unbuttoned: A Romp Through 1960s America
“If the ancient gods were just like us, only more so, then the same could be said for this
strange, wonderful book, in which the mundane sorrows and small triumphs of very
ordinary lives glow ever so slightly around the edges, sometimes quite literally. At once
an oddly romantic send-up of dead-end office culture and an offbeat supernatural procedural,
#gods is terrifically weird, melancholy, sexy, and charming.” —Jacob Bacharach,
author of The Bend of the World
The Metropolis Case
'It’s to the credit of Matthew Gallaway’s enchanting, often funny first novel that it doesn’t require a corresponding degree of obsession from readers, but may leave them similarly transported: the book is so well written — there’s hardly a lazy sentence here — and filled with such memorable lead and supporting players that it quickly absorbs you into its worlds.'
Listen or download songs and records from my indie-rock past with Saturnine here and Death Culture at Sea here.
Music Video: Remembrance of Things Past
Watch the rock opera Remembrance of Things Past written and performed by Saturnine and Frances Gibson, starring Bennett Madison and Sheila McClear.
Video: The Chaos Detective
The Chaos Detective is a series about a man searching for 'identity' as he completes assignments from a mysterious organization. Watch the first episode (five parts) on YouTube.
