When I’m out and about in the city, I don’t plan my route even if I have a destination. I keep it loosely structured to allow for the whims of walking. If I’m out for a run or workout walk, I leave all decisions up to my feet, and they know that if presented with two options, one of which includes a dog, we take that one since that’s one of the major incentives to leave the house at all. Otherwise, we Robert Frost it (yes, I used his name as a verb and deserve censure), and see what happens.

September 21st was a workout walk. My only “goal” was Whole Foods on the way back, about a mile from home, to pick up some salad greens. Other than that, the city was my oy-ster and my only “rule” was Ten Thousand Steps Before Going Home, or TTSBGH, or, further, Titsburgh (you’re welcome).

My fleet feet took me down Central Park West. At the corner of 62nd and CPW, I saw a little bird on the sidewalk, on his side, and was glad that I’ve begun carrying a sheet of paper towel in my running belt for occasions like this.

I couldn’t tell if he was alive or not, but when I picked him up using the paper towel, he was warm and I could feel his tiny heartbeat, which made my own heart break and burst simultaneously. I talked to him, telling him it’s okay, it’s okay, little love, I’m taking care of you, and placed him in a square cement planter about hip height, several feet from where I found him. He rested among the plantings, and I instantly texted a friend who works with documenting birds who have crashed into buildings to ask how to handle this.

In the meantime, I Googled the World Bird Fund, on Columbus Avenue, and read what to do. I needed a paper bag to put him in, to transport him to the WBF for whatever attention he needed, which opened at 9:00, about an hour and a half away. I told him I’d be right back and ran to Whole Foods at Columbus Circle, bought two containers of salad greens using self checkout, where I procured the bag that was the real reason for my trip. I dashed back to 62nd and CPW to help him, praying he was still there.

He was there, and had moved from where I’d positioned him on his side, to an upright roosting position, much more alert. I opened the bag to scoop him into it and fold it over twice, per the WBF instructions, to walk him up Columbus Avenue. (My friend had messaged me back while I was running back and forth from Whole Foods, and I updated her on my progress.)

When I made contact with his little body with the paper towel, he flew away without hesitation, his wings flapping strongly, and flew across Central Park West to the park side!

I flailed with so much delight that I almost took flight as well, and clapped my hands, and said, “Good boy! Good boy! Good boy! Go! Go! Go!”, tearful and grinning like an absolute lunatic, gazing off into the part of the world where my little charge headed, relieved, elated, and filled with awe for his resilience and pluck.

I named him Thor in that moment, because it was a Thursday, he was a mighty warrior (even if he may have been a she), and he swung the hammer of his beautiful wings into the heavens like a tiny god.

I’m not a “No one’s going to see me; I’m just at home bingeing on Doris Day movies all weekend” kind o’ girl. If, knock wood/god forbid/etc., a fire breaks out in the building and I have to evacuate, I want to look cute when I’m out on the sidewalk, especially since I’m sure one of the firemen would be looking for a girlfriend while he’s doing his job and fall in love with me pronto because, “Wow,” he’d think, “dig those pajamas, and hey, she’s kinda cute too, especially because she offered to bolt back into the burning building to get me a nice glass of pink lemonade.”

Anyway, these darlings are from the ’60s and never worn. YET.

I’m so sick of the abundance of “athleisure” and people schlumping around the city like slobs. Where’s the fun in looking like you just rolled out of bed, literally, shuffling down the street in shoes that look like slippers because they probably are, pants that are probably pajamas, and an attitude to match.

I can’t imagine anyone, years from now, looking back at this shitshow, getting nostalgic for the non-existent style, panache, and elegance that, when I look at old photos, makes me ache for a time machine.

I refuse to devolve. Give me real shoes and clothes any day.

Super-proud of myself for not only not devouring the entire package (family size!) of “peanut butter pie” Oreos last night but limiting myself to four, which I ate slowly enough to actually taste rather than wolf down like a rabid hobo. At room temperature, they were too easy to deconstruct, though, meaning nibbling off one of the cookies, revealing the filling, then scraping a bit of that off with my front teeth, leaving the other cookie and some filling for the next step, so I placed the remainder in the freezer and am already daydreaming about my next round of “fourplay”. (Ew.)

A “gentle reminder” to myself to stop eating more than one serving of Kashi Go Lean daily, not only to keep down expenses but to eliminate the fallout from consuming too much bran in one day.  My cereal of choice used to be raisin bran (Trader Joe’s with clusters), but after I demonstrated an alarming inability to not devour the box in one sitting, I banished it from my home.  I don’t want Kashi Go Lean to suffer the same fate, so after two egregious episodes with it, I’m enforcing limits.  My wallet and my digestion system sigh with relief.

I want to become a mime just so I can be called “Auntie Mime”, learn how to do makeup to look like Rosalind Russell, and dress in stunningly fabulous ensembles, including silken tunics, turbans, kitten heels, and other extravagant accoutrements, flitting around a variety of gorgeously appointed rooms with elaborate curving staircases, waving around a cigarette holder sans regular disgusting cigarette but into which a chocolate or candy cigarette was inserted instead, acting out all sorts of outlandish reactions to what everyone else was saying. But then again, there’s the little matter of mimes being annoying as hell. Oh well.

One year ago today, five excruciatingly long days after my first biopsy, the radiologist called with the imaging results. “How are you doing today?” she said.

“Well, that depends,” I said, my heart already pounding like mad, “on what you tell me.”

So she told me. And my heart pounded even madder as she explained my diagnosis and told me the next steps to take, which I wrote on a piece of paper with all the lip-biting carefulness of a first grader trying to get an “A” on a spelling test. Immediately upon that call’s end, I initiated those steps.

Over the next three weeks, I had two biopsies and more imaging (I got to experience a charming variety of biopsies, each more delightful than the one before), and three weeks and one day after my first diagnosis, in the relative darkness of the radiologist’s office, she delivered more heart-pounding news, and I almost literally fell out of my chair.

At that moment, everything around me seemed to be outlined in black, like a cartoon, so vivid and sharp, even in the low light, and I felt simultaneously numb and like I could feel every atom making up my body.

They were waiting for me one floor down at the surgeon’s office. I asked countless times if they knew I was coming, if they knew why I was coming, if all I had to do was go down there and they’d know what to do. Each time I was assured yes, yes, and yes.

And then I took more steps, both in terms of procedures/appointments and in physical steps to and from them.

Thus commenced the worst year of my existence but also the best, because I’m here in a chair now with no signs of falling out of it.

That is all. That’s the post. It kinda speaks for itself, no?

The surgeon’s new digs are fabulous, swanky but comfortable, and I want to hang out for hours in the waiting room with the woman I’ve been chatting with. We’ll call her “D”. When the receptionist calls me in for my procedure, I want to do the equivalent of hitting a snooze button a few times, because I haven’t had the chance to ask the woman if she’s on social media or if we can exchange contact information. I have her name, though, and I know where she works, so I plan to call to say hi and hope she doesn’t think I’m a stalker.

Several days later, I call D’s office. The receptionist asks which client this is in reference to. I say, “I’m not a client. I’m a personal person,” with magnificent eloquence, and state my name. She puts me on hold, and when she returns, she says D isn’t available, which naturally means D said, “JFC, what a stalker. Tell her I’m not here,” which I believe even more when I don’t hear back from her.

“Oh, well,” I think. “One less person to make lunch plans with that I’ll want to cancel.”

At the very end of my run this morning, or, more technically, my cooldown walk, I ran into my buddy Charles, the overnight manager at Fairway in my neighborhood,

He was on West 75th, at the back of his car, with the trunk open, and inside were several big bags of potato chips, mostly the Ruffles depicted here, and one bag of Lays ruffled chips as well. I made some remark about how wherever he was going was the place to be because of the potato chips.

He immediately grabbed a bag and handed it to me, and I told him he just made my day. He said, “What, you’re not allowed to have chips in your house?” I told him that I have absolutely no control when it comes to chips, so I usually don’t allow them in my house.

I said that for a lot of girls, diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but for me Ruffles are. He laughed his big laugh and told me I was silly, and the entire exchange was just so giddy-making.

Anyway, this reminded me of Charles Chips, which we used to have delivered to our house back in the late ’60s in a big mustard-colored tin with a brown logo, which always delighted me. So today’s exchange really was, literally, Charles chips!