Her: (taking bag) What is..donuts! Oh man, you know me so well!
Me: Yup, I really got your number.
Her: Yeah – 1.800.LOG.ANLO
Me: (thinking) No, it would something like 800.SaraLow because then I would have your number.
Her: You really like to ruin everything, doncha, Logan Lo?

The nor’easter didn’t do much in my particular neighborhood – although it did really mess up other parts of the city.

But it did make for some truly jaw-droppingly beautiful skies around here.

Like when I exited the subway the other night, I saw alla these people looking up and wondered what they were looking at.

But then I looked up and was greeted with the views you see above.

The pictures don’t really do them justice.

Honestly, it was a little surreal walking around the city and seeing it lit up that way.

I wasn’t the only one as I saw so many people just staring up and admiring the beauty of the sky.

Probably cold comfort for people that had a lotta things go south because of alla the water and wind.

But it was really pretty here in the city for a little bit.

If only for a little bit.

Years ago, I told you about Orange Sky by Alexi Murdoch.

I immediately thought of that song as well as my brother and sister when I saw the sky above.

In any case, while the original song is amazeballs, there’s a really nice cover by Kat Cunning that I’ve been listening to lately.

Have a listen?

And I really should give my brother and sister a quick call…

Well I had a dream
I stood beneath an orange sky
Yes, I had a dream
I stood beneath an orange sky
With my brother standing by
With my brother standing by

[Chorus 1]
I said
Brother, you know, you know
It’s a long road we’ve been walking on
Yes it is, yes it is, you know it is
Such a long road we’ve been walking on
Oh, brother, oh, brother

[Verse 2]
And I had a dream
I stood beneath an orange sky
With my sister standing by
With my sister standing by

[Chorus 2]
I said
Here is what I know now, sister
Here is what I know now
Goes like this
In your love
My salvation lies
In your love
My salvation lies
In your love
My salvation lies
In your love
In your love
In your love

[Bridge]
Oh, but you know I am so weary
And you know
My heart, my heart’s been broken now
Sometimes
Sometimes
My mind is too strong to carry on
Too strong, too strong to carry on

[Verse 3]
But when I am alone
When I’ve thrown off the weight of this crazy stone
When I’ve lost all care for the things I own
That’s when I miss you
That’s when I miss you
You who are my home
You who are my home now

[Chorus 3]
And here is what I know now, brother
Here is what I know now, sister
Goes like this
In your love
My salvation lies
In your love
My salvation lies
In your love
My salvation lies
In your love
My salvation lies
In your love
My salvation lies
In your love
My salvation lies
In your love
My salvation lies
In your love
In your love
In your love
Your love now
[Outro]
Well, I had a dream
I stood beneath an orange sky
With my brother and my sister standing by
With my brother and my sister standing by now
With my brother and my sister standing by

Location: my kitchen, making a huge vat of kefir
Mood: nostalgic
Music: Sometimes, my mind is too strong to carry on (Spotify)
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Last Friday was National Cheeseburger Day and I was in the middle of writing Sara that I wanted to maybe have a bad dinner of burgers and fast food when she wrote me first – as I was writing out my own message.

Her: I’m craving chicken nuggets. Like BADLY
Me: Wait, what?!? I was just about to write you that it’s National Cheeseburger Day and we should eat trash tonight.
Her: Really?! We are in sync!

Clearly, she is my person.

Similarly, years ago, my brother called me to tell me that he’d just bought a box of Certs because he couldn’t find a box of Certs that he bought previously.

So, he looks around his house for where to put it, so he’ll remember where it is, thinks of a perfect spot, and goes to put it there only to find…the box of certs.

That’s actually happened to me a number of times.

Like, I bought some plastic repair putty called Sugru that my brother mentioned to me years ago to fix all sorts of things.

When I got it, I remembered that my brother told me to keep it in the fridge.

So, I was thinking of where best to put it and decided to keep it in the butter drawer in the back where I found…a package of Sugru.

Evidently, I bought it when my brother suggested it and forgot I had it but, luckily, I came to the same logical conclusion of where to keep it.

I was thinking about alla this because I’ve literally been marveling how close my dad and I lived to each other in the same neighborhood and how often I’ve walked past his office where I’m sure he had all these hopes and dreams, successes and failures.

But then, as I thought a little more, I went back to that old debate of nurture over nature.

It makes sense that my brother and I would do identical things – he with the Certs, I with the Sugru – because we were both raised the same way by a father that stressed logical thinking and contextual observation AND because we are so genetically similar.

Likewise, it makes sense that my dad and I would gravitate to the same neighborhood; there are between 350 and 400 neighborhoods in NYC so this is a pretty large coincidence.

I’ve been thinking for days, “What if we had some shared hopes and dreams in the exact same place?”

But, the fact that my dad and I would choose the same ones at roughly the same age does make some sense as he was taught to think in a particular way and he, in turn, taught me to think in a particular way.

But maybe there’s more (or less than) than that.

These two co-workers – Dave Green and Andrea Urmston – worked together at Manchester airport, bonded instantly and joked that they felt like siblings, only to later discover that they were brother and sister, separated at birth.

Or consider Becky Gibson and Ralph Slawter, two siblings separated for over 30 years that ended up living just a few doors apart in the same nursing home without realizing it.

(Another really weird sidenote, I actually dated someone that had the same name as one of the two women I just mentioned).

With those two, it wasn’t nurture as they were all separated and raised different. So, it has to be biological/nature.

After all, they shared genetic temperament traits like: Social capacity/energy, sense of humor, interpersonal behavior, etc.

And they also gravitated toward similar types of work, which was structured and mechanical in airport operations.

It supports the idea that genetics nudges people toward certain environments.

And, while writing this, I just remembered that my sister and I – completely independently of each other – chose the exact same marble and showerhead for our respective bathroom renovations.

Maybe with my dad and me, it’s enough nurture and nature that these coincidences aren’t all that strange.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll find more as I continue to scan stuff and look through old pics.

I’ll keep you posted.

Location: the gym, telling them I’ll have to leave
Mood: anxious
Music: I’m telling you, it’s meant to be, my dear. (Spotify)
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Me: For god’s sake, why is the container in the sink?
Her: I was letting it soak.
Me: It’s glass, there’s nothing on it. It doesn’t need to soak. I was gonna put the rice back into it.
Her: Just get another one!
Me: That was the one I left on the counter just to put the rice back into it!

Sara, like Alison was, is a huge neat freak – something that I probably need in my life.

But Sara’s incredibly patient as my room has been a mess for months now – and I’m closing in on a year.

It all started back in January when my mom handed me some 14 photo albums that I decided to scan to preserve – something I shoulda done a while ago.

It’s been a head trip as I’ve vividly remembered some things but others are a complete mystery to me.

Then, in June, my sister handed me a briefcase that was just absolutely stuffed with rando papers that my dad had.

I told you then that it deserved an entry of it’s own and that’s this one.

Because I realized after I took it that it was my dad’s “important documents go-bag” – social security cards, licenses, birth certificates, that kinda thing.

Man, did I find some treasure.

I’ve scanned about 13 photo albums with two more to go (these are the two in worst shape, so I saved them for last) but just started doing the papers.

This needed to be done because it’s been taking up a solid chunk of my bedroom, so about two months ago, I started scanning.

Wanted to share two things with you: The first is that I found that he – totally randomly – wrote out all the places he lived up to when I was born.

The second is that, I didn’t realize how much our lives seemed to…overlap?

Dunno what the word is.

He never told me that he lived on the Upper West Side; from June 1969 to May 1971, he essentially lived just a few blocks away from where I’ve spent the last 30 years of my life.

How crazy is that?

And that hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Chinatown where I’m always taking Sara and the boys?

That’s literally right next door to the office he started.

I just took that pic right above the last time we were there.

The restaurant we eat at has the blue and yellow sign on the right and my dad’s office was that building right in the center of the photo.

I dunno why, it just makes me wish he was still here so we could chat about it.

I don’t think he ever realized himself how close our apartments were from each other.

Nor did I ever realize that I’ve been eating outside his old Manhattan office for decades.

That door below is the one he used to get to his office. The restaurant we always eat at is three doors down from there.

There’s so much more I wanna tell you, so much more that I’ve found in this pile of old albums and scattered papers.

But I think I’m still processing it all.

I sometimes don’t realize just how cavernous the hole his death has left in my soul until I actually realize how cavernous the hole his death has left in my soul.

If you’ve never lost anyone that prior sentence probably doesn’t make any sense.

But if you have, then it makes total sense and I’m terribly sorry for your loss.

What a crap club to be part of.

Location: in front of the oven, baking bread and squash
Mood: surprised
Music: There’s another world inside of me that you may never see (Spotify)

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Me: I’m sorry, can you turn that off?
Sara: Oh! I’m sorry, I was just listening to a podcast about it.
Me: I know. I just…I’d rather not, if that’s ok.
Her: Sure. I’m sorry.
Me: (shakes head) Nuthin to be sorry about. It’s a me thing. I’d just rather not.

It’s been a quarter-of-a-century since we were attacked on 9/11.

That seems like so long ago but…it doesn’t feel like it was so long ago.

Like everything else in my life these days, it was “just a few years ago.”

Except it wasn’t.

The buildings themselves had always loomed large in my entire life – literally and figuratively.

I went there in 1990 to go to TKTS to get tickets for Les Mis with my then girlfriend to see instead of going to my prom.

The above picture was taken from the Staten Island ferry on December 28, 1989.

And in the below picture, taken by my mom I believe, I was in her belly when it was taken in 1973.

That’s my grandma with my older brother in the lower right; he’s less than 18 months old here.

He was just here for a quick visit; he left today for Pasadena again.

My grandmother’s long gone. She was the one I told you about decades ago.

I miss her, I already miss my brother, and I miss those building.

Don’t have enough digital ink to tell you everything and everyone I miss, although I’m sure you can guess a lotta them.

The mark of youth is the idea that you can always fix things and always go back and try something again.

But, when you’re an old man like me, you realize that those days are gone.

That you can’t fix things or revisit things once they’re gone.

There’s a whole generation that has never laid on those two giant slabs of concrete and steel and never will for reasons that I still struggle to understand 25 years later.

I was just down in the area for work the other day.

The city seems the same to most people but not to people like me, who’ve been here our whole lives.

For people like me, there’s always something that feels like it’s missing.

And what’s there, while lovely, isn’t the same.

Actually, that would be a good description about everything in my life right now:

It’s all quite lovely. It’s just not the same as I remember it.

And I’ll always, always, always, miss the things and people that aren’t here anymore.

Because there’s always a hole left behind when something you love and loved is gone.

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Location: the kid’s new school
Mood: morose
Music: Whistling a new tune, hoping it would come soon (Spotify)
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