Fourteenth day of Lent: Occuopoly

3/8 

An old man has come in. One of the Upper West Side tweedy types. Another never saw these doors open type. Says he used to perform here with musical groups. Wants to make a contribution. Does not want to be on mailing list.

Richard walks in  with  bouquet of flowers with red and blue balloons attached. He was one of the older guys attached to our frst #ows groups. Because of his age and bearing, I always assumed that he was one of the inner circle, to the extent there was one. But then I increasingly would find him sitting alone on the steps. And seemingly separated from the others. He has walked in to thank us. Tells us he’s moving on. Not sure where. There is a look of the deepest, profound sadness on his face. 

John H is in to talk about a follow up meeting with Melissa from Galapagos to happen later that day. He considers listening to Matthew rehearse, decides not to. Will wait in the sunny warmth outside.  

Runi has been up until the wee hours playing Monopoly. Seems she likes winning. Gets competitive. The others tease her, call her a one-percenter. You have to try and win. After all, it is monopoly. It is not a cooperative game. (I alwasy found those cooperative new games annoying.)We start a conversation about what an occupy version of monoply might look like.  Call it occuoply. If you land on a vacant property, you don’t have to buy it, just occupy it. Instead of houses and hotels, tents.  Chris laughs and says you’d have to greatly increase the number of go directly to jail spaces. Instead of Boardwalk and Park Place, Wall Street. There’d be a 60 Wall Street. What color would West-Park be?  Baltic and Medterranean filled with squatters. This could go on.....

Things are looking up for Rudolfo. He’s got an appointment with La Migra. La tarjeta verde still a possibility. 

Outside on 86th, I greet Marty. After he says, Hello father, he expresses concern that I don’t have my hat on. It’s windy, he says. I tell him I left it inside. You mean you fogrot it?He aks. My father always said, if you want to remember one thing, remember two. That ways, you’ll remember one of them. And my mother told me, if you want to remember something  tomorrow, tie a thread around your wrist today. I thnak Marty for thsi advice.  He shares some more words with me, then tells me he’s got to head back

 home. Got to get to my paerwork, he says. And off he goes north on Amsterdam. 

Melisa comes in with her two partners, Peter and Matthew. She’s developing a plan to potentially become the booker for the Center. This could be what we have been looking for. Would solve a lot of problems.  Relieve Danielle and I.