Listen to Roland read the piece:

I’m not trying to make excuses but I had a wicked serious back injury in 2013. Like serious enough that the EMTs took me out of my apartment building on a stretcher.

Wait. That’s not right. Not a stretcher. It wasn’t Saigon.

A gurney. They carried me out on a gurney.

I remember yelling back over my shoulder to the doormen as we rolled through the lobby onto 12th Street and the waiting ambulance:

“I didn’t think you’d be seeing this particular scene for at least another 20 years!”

After taking some terrible advice from the first doctor ('“Spend the next 6 weeks flat on your back on your living room floor”) and then amplifying the injury under the over-confident jolly hands of a chiropractor who could not see past his outsized ego, me and the gym lost our groove.

It wouldn’t be until another two months had passed that I found myself sitting across the desk from the Head of Spinal Surgery at Hospital for Special Surgery as he explained that the body needs to move in order to heal. And by spending a month flat on my back teaching via Zoom with laptop propped to my knees I had not done my body any favors.

But I’m not trying to make excuses. Really. (Really, Roland?)

Then what with the pandemic, my daily step tally (I am told there is such a thing) really suffered a hit. You see, no one tells you that it takes much fewer steps to get from the sofa to the refrigerator than it does from your apartment to . . . say, anything else the world might have to offer.

Long story short. I acquired a new gut. A second gut. On top of the old one.

And I named it Self Pity.

Last week on a particularly gorgeous sunny breezy day, the kind of sky my late producing partner and friend John Tilley used to honor by tilting his head skyward, smiling his biggest South Carolina smile and proclaiming “Well look at that, it’s another 9/11 day.” On that bright spring day I glanced up at the maple tree overhead and decided this would be the year I finally bought a bike.

Not a Pelaton.

Like a real one.

With wheels that connect with the ground.

If I’m going to spend the next year living in this house I grew up in, it would serve me to access some of those muscle memories from childhood.

As I took a couple bikes out for a test ride in the lot behind Cycle Dynamics in Westport, CT (yes I’m plugging them because they’re great), it suddenly hit me that riding the stationary bike at the gym or at Soul Cycle or in my bedroom is only vaguely like riding a bicycle.

And you know what they say. (Only sometimes it isn’t quite.)

So much is in the balance, the way the hips and the thighs communicate to keep the spine upright and the wheels facing forward. This morning in my driveway at 7:30AM, I was grateful no one was up and out to witness my spastic attempts to right this thing on my way out into the hood.

I was 7 yrs old when I lost 1/4 of my front right tooth to the unforgiving pavement of Rockyfield Road. So, we have history, this road and I. I had been attempting a very tight U-turn in front of the house of Howard Munce a commercial artist who had used me as a model for one of his advertising drawings. And it was right in front of Mr. Munce’s house that I lost part of my oh-so-saleable smile.

How long has it been since I took off down the road on a bike? One that would fall if I stopped pedaling. I’m not sure. But it certainly had been more than 25 years.

As I whipped around the loop that is formed by Rockyfield Road, Warnock Drive and Wysteria Lane, I thanked Heaven for gentle downhill slopes. For though it is certainly true that for little boys everywhere coasting downhill on a bike is a singular joy, for a man closer to 60 than 50 every opportunity to coast arrives like a gift from God.

Looping around and around this almost unrecognizable cousin of the neighborhood I grew up in, I decided to make bike riding a very big part of my enjoyment of the Summer of 2026.

Of course there is still the matter of one lingering question I neglected to ask in the bike store.

Which makes it easier to pedal uphill: a low gear or a high one?

Perhaps you can answer this question in the comments. Yes, I know I could probably Google it. But it would be so much lovelier to get my answer from each of you. And I know you know the answer. (Yes, you. You know who I’m talking to.)

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Fairness or Justice or the Individual’s Moral Compass.

These have been my North Star. I think I always look for evidence that the people I might trust in have the capacity to swim against the tide.

Because if, like Mom and her family did, I were ever to find myself on the wrong side of a corrupt law or a system designed to destroy me, I would need help to survive. And that help would most likely to come from people willing to buck the status quo.

What does it take to do this?

For one, a willingness to live with being disliked, shunned, cast out, ignored or even hunted.

Who among us is willing to live in the great discomfort (even danger) of exile?

(just to do the right thing)

It’s always easier to go along to get along. And in this regard, I look back on many of my life’s actions with suspicion.

Because I have been the consummate diplomat. I have been the best peacemaker, archeologist of undiscovered middle grounds. I have worked diligently and effectively to see to it that before I leave a room, I have tamed it.

But we are living in extraordinary times, times when daily outrages and offenses litter the terrain. And so we peacemakers, we people-pleasers can now seem somehow newly unpleasant.

And I don’t like the stench… or the vague suspicion that I may be, in some small way, contributing to it.

How to break free of old reliable long-honed habits of accomodation?

I welcome your suggestions.

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And if you missed my piece Safety .Net check it out here.

Something’s gotta give.

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In this lengthy conversation with Steven Bartlett she reveals herself to be one of our best teachers. Nobody I’ve heard comes close to Applebaum’s ability to untangle the complex web we find ourselves in and break it down into easily digestible slices.

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Are we lost? Like as a species? I think we are. I think we’re kind of lost.

The laptop, the platform, the online landscape, the smart phone… these are things we cling to day in and day out. And… we have no idea how they work.

What are the natural laws of Instagram? Or Tik-tok. Or YouTube.

Ask me what the laws of nature are for a cocktail party, a baby shower, a board meeting and I can give you a list of rules. If you do this… that thing will likely happen. Enter a room with purpose, make eye contact with one or two people, smile and say something and nine times out of ten, you have a reasonable sense of how things will go. Stay in that room for 30 minutes and you know much much more… who is open to you, who might best be avoided, where the simmering rivalries lie and how your standing in the broader context is shifting up or down. In most cases when you’re in a room with other human beings and you’re failing to connect, you feel it right away. And that’s a good thing because that feeling is an opportunity. A chance to regroup, reconsider and maybe try a different approach.

Online, there is nothing but a cumulative tally of quantities… likes, shares, comments. We can stare into the numerical abyss searching for some human takeaways. But really, we’ll be searching forever because there are none.

And yet, we are told to invest. And to invest heavily. And consistently in these algorithmichemical worlds because somehow for each of us, they tell us our future is supposed to depend on them.

But I think there’s a whisper some of us may hear… every once in a while that says maybe just maybe this emperor has no clothes.

And it would be funny if it weren’t so goddamned terrifying. Because in 2026 it’s way too late for us to point and laugh at Big Tech.

Because make no mistake. At this very moment there are armies of human beings who have tied their fortunes and their egos and their raison d’etres to these opaque, hastily launched, pseudo-worlds with such fierce determination that they will not allow us to opt out. They insist on gifting us this awkward and harmful kaleidoscope while insisting it is actually a telescope. “Look again,” they might say, should we dare to turn away.

You’re just not looking hard enough or long enough or in the absolute right direction. Life is there. If you can’t see it, the problem is in your eyes. Because clearly, it’s there. I mean, it has to be. Right? I mean, we wouldn’t have invested everything unless we knew. Right? I mean, who would do that? So of course, we knew. We know. This is real.

And powerful government officials join in… insisting that these worlds are good for us. And real. Really real.

With each year it becomes a little more awkward to just opt out. To really say “no thank you. I’m good” to all of this blind faith.

People tell me I might be missing out.

Might be.

What if the guys (and they are mostly guys) selling us all their myths of technology as indispensable just aren’t willing to take No for an answer?

What if opting out of their over-funded and universally-hyped offerings annoys them.

Like deeply.

Opting out of algorithms, for instance, is now virtually impossible. If you bank or pay for health insurance or use a major credit card there are formulas deciding stuff for you. And nobody holding the keys to the controls has any intention of making any of it transparent. Ever.

So right now, already, the tech bro billionaires are punishing us… for all sorts of offenses… real and imagined and built upon a foundation of hidden values and biases most of which we will never even know were there… working against us… in the shadows.

It’s not safe for human beings in places where relationships—the foundation of what makes life worth living, what keeps us safe, what gets us up in the morning—are under threat.

They built a bunch of artificial worlds on an anti-human assumption, that every one of us can be described as a unique string of numbers. And we are not numbers. We are not numbers.

We are not numbers.

We are not.

In a world of nothing but numbers how on earth will we know we exist? How do I know I’m real?

When I am seen by you, that’s how.

I’m neither One nor Zero.

Just something vaguely in between.

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Safety .Net was written for the May 2026 edition of Memoir Church: Writers Resistance where it was read by Suze Allen. Check out the video @41:55:

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Edification films could be seen anywhere and anytime because they tended to be part of larger bodies of work that I felt it important to expose myself to. For example, if you call yourself a screenwriter or film director and you’ve never seen a film by Akira Kurosawa, it would be hard for me to take you seriously as you make bold historically significant stylistic choices in your own filmmaking.

At the other end of things are movies like Basic Instinct or The Devil Wears Prada 2, titles that roll onto screens riding a tsunami of buzz about performances, budget, locations, casting, costumes, art direction, etc. These tend to be perceived as a bit more fluffy because they enter the market already popular and sell out their first weekends based largely on carefully manufactured fevered curiosity and anticipation. They are event movies. And as a result, tickets can be hard to get for those who aren’t quick on the draw. And movies that sell out quickly and present extra oniine hurdles to ticket buyers tend to inspire groups of friends to organize themselves around group outings to individual screenings sharing popcorn with 6-12 of your closest pals, passing candy seat to seat, whispering with the person sharing your arm rest in agreement as to the successful realization of the vision. As such, the fluffy highly anticipated event movie is in many ways tailored to the necessary pacing of sharp comedy playing to a full and noisy house.

The important new foreign film that I must not miss before it vanishes from theaters just as quickly as it’s arrived is paced differently too. It plays just as effectively at 10AM on a weekday morning to an audience of 3 individuals scattered to the corners of the house and it doesn’t necessarily inspire a trip out to the concession stand to load up on candy that reminds me of moviegoing in the 7th grade.

I think I’ve always felt more comfortable sitting alone in a movie house to watch something serious and less well attended than filling just one seat in a packed house made up mostly of large groups of giddy friends who have gathered to enjoy the latest buzzworthy show.

But today, following my second negative CoVid test, I will be treating myself to some much-needed fluff in the form of Devil Wears Prada 2. I grabbed an aisle seat and plan to arm myself with popcorn, Diet Coke and Twizzlers and try to enjoy both shows that will unfold before me — the movie itself (which better be great) and the giddy ballet that accompanies any largeish group of friends who has waited long enough and are really really ready for the house lights to dim and the show to take off.

I’ll report back on how it all goes tomorrow.

In the meantime…

Have you run to see it opening weekend like me? If so, what did you think? Did it measure up? Leave your experience in the comments.

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Today is April 26, 2026. CoVid_19 arrived in this country in early 2020. And a couple years ago I’m pretty sure more than one public health official referred to this as a post-pandemic period, which it is, technically. And yet, a few days ago I received a CoVid diagnosis, which came as a bit of a shock. Not because my symptoms were negligible (they continue to be intense) but because I had unconsciously moved on.

I thought I was living in a proto-post-CoVid era. Or something.

A few details that emerged around this in recent days suggest a few ways in which in this “post-CoVid” life, we could stand to just shift our mindset ever so slightly.

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It’s human nature to look for the most obvious explanation for something and then stop considering other possibilities.

Last week I spent a long weekend visiting my grand nephew and grand niece, both under the age of 3. And I had the time of my life. I’ve always said, uncledom is where it’s at. All the fun. And zero responsibility.

Almost within minutes of arriving at my nephew and his wife’s house in Milwaukee, I was on the floor, picking up a wooden cow, reaching for a dropped pacifier, kissing this one’s forehead and that one’s elbow. We had fun.

So when I started to feel a little under the weather the night before flying home to New York, I chalked it up to that whole “toddlers are walking petri dishes” thing and as a single man who never had kids I figured it was just a mismatch of my immunity to their flora.

So, from Monday evening until I received my diagnosis Wednesday morning, I was a person with CoVid thinking I just had a cough and runny nose.

And but for a few happy accidents just think how many people I may have infected.

Coughing in Public

By Tuesday afternoon as I boarded my flight to La Guardia, my cough had stayed occasional but I was starting to wonder if I was running a fever. Of course in the airport terminal I didn’t have access to a thermometer but when I stared into my eyes in the men’s room mirror, they didn’t quite look right. (And I don’t mean they looked 30 yrs older than expected!)

I had a KN95 in my carry-on because I always do. But truthfully, I had started forgetting to wear one.

Why?

Well… chalk it up to a combination of peer-pressure (no one else in the herd seems concerned) and inconvenience (I like to drink a lot of water during a flight and it just feels silly, pulling the mask away from my face to sip sip sip) and forgetfulness.

And, now, keep in mind, it may be hard to imagine but even with a slight cough and the possibility of a fever, CoVid had not yet crossed my mind.

So I sat down in 6B, my aisle seat. Pulled out my kindle and my yellow pad because my goal was to finish up a few paragraphs I was working on for Suze Allen’s afternoon Memoir workshop which I would log into from my desk in New York.

And then it happened.

I coughed.

Once.

But these days once is all it takes.

Two women — one to my left and one to my right across the aisle — visibly straightened their backs at the sound of a cough.

And I thought to myself. I’ll put on the mask. That way people will be more relaxed.

I didn’t put it on to prevent a CoVid outbreak.

I put it on to make other people relax on a crowded flight.

I think that’s an important distinction to ponder.

The Undiagnosed Among Us

As I waited for an elevator in the lobby of my apartment building in New York, people kept coming in just as an elevator arrived and so I found myself urging them in and waiting for the next one because by this time I was quite sure I was coming down with something.

Possibly the flu.

Still not thinking it was CoVid.

I ended up opting for the stairs. Climbing 5 flights had me winded.

Jesus, Roland, you said you were going to get your ass back to the gym, I thought. No thought of CoVid.

I just didn’t want to infect anyone in a tight space like our elevators. And the mid-afternoon traffic was unusually high. And I was no longer wearing a mask.

I had discarded my KN95 in the LGA men’s room. And let me tell you, it felt wonderful. So you don’t have to explain to me how much better breathing is without a mask.

On my floor, I ran into hallway mates Ed and Carole and immediately insisted they keep a safe distance because I thought I might be coming down with something.

Ed is a wonderful guy who offered to bring me anything I need from the bodega. Just call.

And I disappeared down the hall and into my apartment.

During Suze’s class, I started feeling feverish and spaced out. And when the class ended I made a B-line to my medicine cabinet and took my temperature.

101.5

Why are you making such a fuss? (The power of family)

At the urging of my sister (Thanks Leora!) I made a telehealth appointment for that evening. One of the great things about my current primary care physician’s practice is that they partner with hospitals to provide telehealth access pretty much 24/7.

The doctor was reasonably convinced by my usual talent for downplaying my symptoms. “I have a sister who worries about me,” I added.

And yet, she suggested that I purchase one of the new Covid + Flu all-in-one home test kits. The delivery person at my local pharmacy had gone home for the day so I said that delivery first thing Wednesday morning would be fine.

After all, I was only testing to rule out everything. Not to rule anything in.

I received an email from Ed asking how I was feeling. And also had a phone call from a friend who had noticed my cough on a call the day before and just wanted to see how I was feeling.

Something’s Going Around.

In both cases, describing my symptoms to a random sample of two, each volunteered that “There is something going around.” “I know two people who had just what you’re describing.” “Get some rest.” “Don’t forget to push fluids.” etc.

Not one of these people referenced CoVid. And so I assume these anecdotes about the lady down the hall who was bedridden for 8 days with a cough and fever and the co-worker who missed half a week with a terrible head cold.

The phrase Something’s going around has made a comeback. It took a vacation during the height of the pandemic. Remember?

I assume there’s a good chance that we are seeing a lot of CoVid misconstrued as almost anything but. (Because we’re human. And we want to believe it’s anything but.)

But precautions around CoVid have their own tight features.

My wish for us all would be this. As much as we wish we would never have to speak that name again or even let it into our consciousness… it would serve us well to apply CoVid level restrictions around “under the weather” conditions.

Just to be on the safe side.

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As of this writing,(Day 7) I am still symptomatic. Temperature fluctuates between 95 and 101. Cough comes and goes. But sometimes when it arrives without warning it can cause me to sink to my knees on the floor for fear of fainting. But I know I’m doing fine and will be fine.

How do I know this?

There’s an empty pint of Hagaan Daaz on my kitchen counter to prove it.

Listen to Roland reading this piece.

What does it mean that in the wake of the seismic shift that was the pandemic, a time when all humanity found ourselves suddenly locked away from friends, colleagues… and for those of us who live as single people, family…

What does it mean that after a global orgy of loneliness which went on for months and months and months beyond our ability to fathom….

What does it mean that I have parted ways with so many?

Too many to list here.

My walking partner, neighbor. I had two.

These days I see neither.

One I don’t see because she decided something about me was lacking and that she needed distance, space… I don’t know. Of course it’s hard for me to be clear about her departure because we never had a conversation about it.

One I don’t see because of my own laziness, fear of bringing my protruding belly to share a walk with a person who walks multiple times each day. And I still hold shame over the time we took a two mile walk and I had to beg her to let me rest several times in the middle.

My own failings are easier to ignore in isolation. Bring another person into the room to bear witness and I find myself almost unbearable.

What about the people who died? Mom at 92. Bradford and John and of course, Ariel. And Dad, too. They really died. In some ways they are more present than those I never see who still breathe air and walk this earth. Because at least with them, I can have a conversation.

My childhood best friend I cast away after deciding unilaterally that he was abusive towards me.

My most recent ex, the same. Several things he did, or refused to do or say convinced me that he was, as he had confessed over our first dinner date together, “incapable of love.” I figured it was time to take him at his word in the spirit of Maya Angelou.

The ex before that had been a dear dear friend and then something cracked. Something I wrote or said or failed to do or say made him determine that I was too difficult or painful or toxic to keep around. (Of course in this age of disappearing acts and disappearing texts I’m only speculating) And so my texts requesting a chance to talk it out went unanswered.

Unless I believe that the likes of Apple and Verizon et al have finally flipped that switch I imagine them to have built in the back back bowels of their architecture which they save for that rainy day they imagined they might finally need to tear us all apart from each other by arbitrarily sending our missives into space into the black void instead of the eyes, ears and hearts of our loved ones… An engineered global unraveling. Unless I believe that that has come to pass, I choose to believe he read the text I wrote, considered it, deleted it and moved on.

Simple, clean. Clear. Like the difference between a One and Zero. There is no grey in-between.

So where does all this leave us?

Or leave me?

And should I mention the others, we know who we are. Still in each other’s lives, sure, but somehow a little bit less so because without meaning to exactly, time, life, circumstances, inertia… whatever it is that plagues us, has kept us calling just a little less, leaning apart instead of in, falling back, forgetting to remember. A slow unintended fade.

Trouble is, I’m still a person who wakes from every stupid dream with a childish giddy impulse to share it with someone who will listen who will answer the phone at a ridiculous hour, cradle it while making their own coffee and endure the dull tedium of my most recent collection of partial memories, blurred images, vague wishes and worries… even though wisdom dictates that one person’s dream is another person’s boredom.

But isn’t that what friends are for?

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Hakeem Jeffries made a victory lap on MSNOW following tonight’s redistricting victory for Dems in Virginia’s special election.

And once again, I’m sorry to have to say this (because I really like him very much on most issues) but Jeffries is stuck in an autopilot style of political rhetoric that may have worked in the Pre-Trump era but will not work anymore.

In an interview on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell he could be heard queuing up and then delivering a hackneyed so-obviously pre-manufactured cutsie line… the kind of cute line that worked in 1992 but is deadly today.

Because it makes him sound like a politician who workshops every word that comes out of his mouth.

He awkwardly inserted a reference to the line Of the people, by the people, and for the people so that he could follow it with a tired attack on Trump and MAGA as Of the Billionaires, by the Billionaires and for the Billionaires.

And judging by the perceptible self-satisfied smirk he was unable to conceal after having delivered this second-rate tired Line (with a capital L), he has no idea why that kind of rhetoric will continue to be deadly for Democratic Party candidates.

I wish Sarah Longwell would get in a room alone with Jeffries to talk some sense into him. If he’s going to become Speaker of the House (which I very much hope he will be), he’s going to need to completely develop a new more natural style.

Here’s how Longwell recently so brilliantly explained what needs to be coming out of the mouths of any candidate working to take back our democracy. From the Bulwark Podcast. (subscribe if you haven’t)

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Yesterday as I was leaving the gym in Milwaukee, I wanted to confirm that my read of the Google Map was correct and that as I guessed the street I wanted to walk home along was behind me, not straight ahead.

“Excuse me. Do you know which direction North Water Street is from here?”

“Oh… gosh… um…” The friendly Planet Fitness Ambassador turned, squinty-grimacing toward her co-worker on the other end of the counter. “Kayla… Do you know… I’m sorry. What’s the street name?”

Kayla approached, with the energy of a first responder. She shot me a facial expression that was tilted and squinted to suggest a general question mark.

“I’m looking for North Water Street?” I asked with more upspeak tonality than a freshman co-ed from the 1990s.

Lips pursed, Kayla made a clicking sound with her tongue and teeth then added a vague “Mmm…” before sending me off empty handed with a shrug-smile.

“Thanks,” I offered as a means of showing appreciation for the effort if not the result. And I pushed out into the cold.

The river which had appeared further away on my phone greeted me almost immediately and I thought it couldn’t possibly be the road I was looking for right there not 50 feet ahead.

Squinting, I inched my way forward hoping to get close enough to read the street sign without crossing the river which at this stretch seemed more like a bubbling brook than a river.

And finally eyes adjusting to the light and clearing my natural winter wind tears, revealed: N. Water Street.

This morning I am fighting the urge to generalize about a younger generation raised on GPS and Siri et al.

I know it would be wrong for me and closed minded to wonder how two seemingly intelligent young women who have jobs behind the desk welcoming people to their service industry place of employment don’t know what street lies 50 feet from the entrance.

I tell myself it was just my dumb luck that had me asking for directions from two people unable to help.

Surely had I run into a third or fourth person nearby they would have lit up their faces with the glow of recognition and pointed me dead ahead.

It cannot be that all of us, cradled in a fluffy cocoon of A.I. are slowly losing our ability to know where we are from moment to moment.

No. That cannot be.

Am I right, Claude?

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Sitting in the lobby working on my. oatmeal at the “breakfast included” nook of the Homewood Suites Sarasota, I’m watching the breakfast captain (I believe that may be an official title) make her way from table to table checking in with early risers to see if all our breakfast needs have been met.

And I’m struck by something palpable.

It’s true that in any random sampling of hotel guests there will be those who wish to simply be left alone. And then, sprinkled here and there will be the occasional fellow traveler who enjoys a little casual banter, a friendly well-placed inquiry… count me among those.

Some would call us the over-sharers.

Lately, I’ve noticed a subtle shift in the air. Those of us who are prone to sharing, to leaning in, to lingering for one more Q&A with a stranger before heading back into our solitary journeys… we seem to be leaning in a little harder.

This morning, the few exchanges I heard at the waffle station, or waiting for more creamer at the coffee station…. these exchanges seemed to hold a little more glee, a little more passion… a little more hunger for the nourishment of human interaction.

Could it be that as our lives are stitched together with more and more of the fabric of A.I. (Approximate Intelligence, I say) that the places held together with the real deal… human-to-human compassion and curiosity feel even more urgently essential?

It felt this morning as though those little snippets of conversation I was able to overhear as I made my way through my own bowl and mug were more intentionally held, cradled, savored by all involved.

One of my best friends is known in our small circle for his penchant for oversharing with waitrons. And despite the groans and moans that we often shower him with whenever he lets our server in on some unnecessary tidbit of personal history… something softens and deepens whenever the oversharing begins.

You can feel it. Without fail.

i think it may be because in those moments, all of us — customers and servers alike — are given an invitation to be ourselves… if even for just a little bit.

And the invitation to be oneself, is a precious gift. Worth slowing down for.

More and more these days.

In my experience.

Or… have I said too much?

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I’ve spent most of my adult life running away from Connecticut. From as early as I can recall my answer to the question “Where are you from?” was always “New York.”

And technically, it wasn’t a lie. I was born in New York Hospital.

But my youth was spent in Westport, Connecticut. And it seems even before I left for prep school in New Hampshire at the age of 15, I was busy running as fast and as far away from Connecticut as I possibly could.

It’s time to better understand why.

As I prepare for my year without my New York apartment, my year of testing the waters of life full-time in Connecticut, it occurs to me how much of this landscape still holds for me prisms through which to examine my formative years.

There is the path from Rockyfield Road to Coleytown Elementary and further up the hill to Coleytown Junior High School along which I invented ingenious strategies for evading the sinister eyes of bullies and coaches and frenemies.

And the parking lot of Staples High School, a school I never attended, though in summertime the parking lot offered a place in which to park the car and dip my toe into adulthood.

Or the spots along Route 1 where we loved to pass the time on long summer nights at the bowling alley, Carvel, Dairy Queen, Baskin Robbins. For teenagers so eager to prove ourselves adult, we sure did consume a lot of ice cream.

And of course, Compo Beach, where Francine and I spent many a night asleep in the backseat of her red Cadillac Seville waiting for the sun to come up so it would be again safe for her to enter her house on the top of a very steep hill on Pequot Trail.

There are more spots for me to revisit. And despite many of them having undergone some cosmetic rearranging, it’s now impossible for me to ignore that one of the most important bits of business awaiting me in Westport is simply this.

Time to investigate who I and what I came to be. And how.

Wish me luck.

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As my year of living in Connecticut full-time grows ever nearer, I find myself keenly aware of so many of the things that make living in New York City magical.

One of them is this. That at 2:30AM on a weekday morning, I just ordered a medium pepperoni pizza to be delivered right to my door.

You may wonder what a guy with a gut and a chronic TUMS habit is doing ordering a pepperoni pizza at any hour, let alone 2:30AM… and to a certain extent, you’d be right to prescribe a little more caution. Or as one friend recently observed: “You really hardly ever do eat your age, Roland, do you?”

I have no idea whether the pizza will satisfy my craving or disappoint. But that seems far less important than the fact of its availability.

There is something quietly reassuring about living in a place that makes room for one’s chronic insomnia. Sometimes when I’m starving for something specific late at night in those pre-dawn hours, I just throw on my sneakers, a hoodie and elevator down five flights to cross 12th make a right on Sixth and within 20 feet awaits my corner bodega (not on a corner but wonderful all the same) where I can find something to satisfy my craving.

During the pandemic there were several weeks when the bodega closed for a few hours in the middle darkness. And that was terribly disturbing to me the first time I discovered it.

Knowing that these businesses cater to those of us whose habits float along the margins of what is considered wise, healthy, normal, is a great comfort. In its way the pizzeria willing to toss a fresh one into the oven 20 minutes before they close for the morning smiles in my direction letting me know I’m okay just as I am.

On those rare occasions when I’ve wandered into a pizzeria after 1AM, there’s an electricity that’s contagious. Young people — some if not all, under the influence of alcohol and other substances — have a way of turning such shared spaces into a temporary stage. Whatever interpersonal psychodramas find their way into the negotiations around what to eat and where and where to sit while they do it are played out unselfconsciously at a volume to match the glare of the flourescents.

We’re all loud. We’re all awake. And most of us are young.

And the rest of us are young at heart.

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I was headed uptown to meet my friend David for brunch. The 1 Train was virtually empty on a Sunday at 10:30AM. And I had no difficulty finding a comfortable seat.

At 28th Street, a homeless woman pushing a Shopcart Trolley bursting at the seams with a collection of bags of various origins, shapes and colors all covered by a bungee-corded fake fur wolf-grey blanket, joined us.

I was seated at the end of the middle row of seats. On the opposite side of the door to my right was the small collection of seats that makes up the end of the car. These little nubs located after the last set of doors can offer a bit of privacy to someone seeking it, particularly on a more or less empty train.

I watched her struggle to push her cart onto the train and hesitated to assist her for fear that she might interpret my touching her belongings as aggressive.

So I searched to make eye contact and just as I managed it, she seemed to have managed the requisite shove all on her own.

I smiled.

She smiled.

I relaxed in the understanding that she and I were operating on a similar mental plane.

She steered her cart into that empty nub of seats, took a seat herself, and deposited one black plastic grocery shopping bag on the seat beside her. As all her bags were opaque I could only guess at contents.

But the bag she’d placed beside her seemed to hold several orbs of various sizes and shapes and so I decided it must be a collection of various fruits. And that would explain why she carried it in her right hand and did not add it to the contents of the cart.

The bags which had been stuffed together under the blanket inside the shopping trolley seemed to contain larger items, softer things, perhaps blankets and clothes things which did not assert themselves into distinct shapes through the opacity of the plastic and fake fur coverings.

A couple stops later I heard her shriek.

It was the kind of shriek I no doubt make on my own while home alone throughout the day if I happen to… I don’t know… stub my toe, or crack an egg so the shell drops in with the yoke, etc. etc. It wasn’t too loud or crazy but the fact of her homelessness made it shocking to those of us who turned quickly in its direction just to be sure nothing horrible had occurred.

Nothing had.

And she didn’t look back in our direction.

So I figured whatever injury had transpired had already passed.

As we approached Columbus Circle I wondered whether that might be her stop since I had frequently observed unusually high numbers of homeless people congregating there.

And sure enough as we ground to a halt, she was up and ready to exit.

But luck wasn’t quite on her side this morning as the exit she chose presented a supporting pole smack in the middle. This meant she had to not only push her cart out of the train but simultaneously force it in through the too-narrow space between the door and the pole in order to escape the train’s closing doors.

Having established eye contact before, I felt comfortable helping with a push of my own and she smiled and thanked me but then the cart seemed on the precipice of tumbling over completely and she yelled for me to lift not push as the doors started to close on both of us.

I pushed against the closing door with my elbow unsure of whether this technique might do anything at all.

A man on the platform joined in our effort and lifted her cart to safety but not before the doors of the car almost closed upon her two more times.

As we pulled out of the station and I saw her frantic inventorying of her belongings disappear behind us, it occurred to me how frightening the last two minutes must have been.

Contained in that cart seemed to be her entire life. I felt confident in assuming as much. And as such, I suppose, the seven or eight bags she carts around amount to the equivalent of home.

It made me wonder… what would be my own home base? That ultimate ground zero which if I were to lose it suddenly, it would feel like losing everything?

Would it be my physical home?

Or my family and friends?

Or my memories?

I don’t know. But it seems like it might be wise for us all to take stock and figure out our own answer to that question… just in case… life ever deals us a really bad hand.

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My mother loved pumpernickel bread. These days you don’t see it everywhere.

But often, after waiting in line at Gold’s for bagels, I’ll ask what kinds are left and there are only a smattering of onion and pumpernickel. And on those mornings I’ll clean them out and ride home with a smile on my face.

Not because pumpernickel is one of my favorites.

But because I know I’m going to have a morning with Mom.

This morning I impulsively purchased Grape Nuts at my corner bodega.

Why?

Because Ms. Merle Perkins, one of my all-time muses, who has been featured in both my feature films and has sung my music and improvised with me for years… Merle loves Grape Nuts.

And my love for her propels me to give them another chance. Even though, I’m not thrilled. This morning, however, I mixed them with Special K and may have stumbled into a new taste sensation. (Try it, Merle. .. if you haven’t.)

I’ve always preferred my eggs scrambled. And if fried, done well enough so the yoke doesn’t run.

And yet, one of the most endearing images I carry around with me is that of my friend Rumi Matsuyama, who used to like to poke her yoke and then smother the plate with kestup, turning the yoke into a kind of bloody mess.

(Do you still do that, Ru?)

My college roommate Jody Alfred was the master of mac ‘n cheese… from a box, if memory serves.

And still, when I attempt to make it from scratch, I feel as though Jody is looking over my shoulder.

Someone please weigh in in the comments to tell me I’m not alone in this madness.

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