Tuesday Heartbreak

Singing:

I wanna be with you when the nighttime comes
I wanna be with you when the daytime comes
I wanna be with you

In New York City, when an unusual crowd surrounds an ordinary building with lights and cameras and noise, it's either a bomb threat or a movie set. The latter can be pretty cool. The former, not so much.

I was walking east on 36th Street, head down against the relentless cold, the wind tugging tears right from my eyes. It's always the left eye that betrays me first — whether from sadness or cold, the left eye is always the one that lets go.

Can it get any colder than this?
Yes.
Yes, it does get colder than this.

And I was thinking to myself:
How did I get so lucky? How is it that I fell into this job, where I spend my days reading and writing, talking about music and love?

On Madison Avenue, directly across from our office, an unusual crowd surrounded an ordinary building. I wiped the tears from my eyes.

A bomb threat? I wondered.
A movie set?

"Please go around the crowd, people."
"Don't use this sidewalk."
"We gotta move this truck, move this truck!"
"How ya doin', miss? Can I ask you to go around the other way?"
"Get those cables out of the shot."
"Rolling!"

A movie set. I smiled.

While mismatched coats and scarves and earmuffs took brief pauses from their frigid commutes to look for famous faces, I made my way to the corner of 39th and Madison where the guy in the little, silver truck greets me each morning with a big, happy "Hello, my friend!"

He is the first person I speak to each day, and he always makes me smile. I don't know his name. Our simple relationship is perfect, I imagine. An exchange of pleasant words and other small things, his coffee for my money.

I remember not too long ago when all I really wanted was enough money to buy a cup of coffee each day. I remember walking through Greenpoint with Emily, thinking it would be nice.

"How was your weekend?" I ask the man in the truck.
"Oh, you know, my friend: too short. Always too short."

Although I do not truly sympathize, I fake it with a laugh and a nod. I wonder if this man in his little, silver truck is aware of the movie that is being shot in the space all around us. I wonder if we will be in the movie. I take my coffee and say goodbye, still singing:

Catch up, baby, catch up with my dreams
Maybe, then, I can see you all the time.

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