The Luna Park Gazette

We lost such a beautiful voice last week. I’ve been taking this fabulous class “Five for Five” for the last three years and not only have I learned so much about the craft of writing, but I've also had the privilege of meeting some fabulous people. One of those people was Kathleen, a lovely woman and an amazing writer, who died last week from cancer. I’m still having trouble accepting this terrible news. The class is going to start up again in a few weeks and it’s hard to believe that we won’t see Kathleen again, that she won’t be sitting on the couch in our teacher, Rosemary’s, living room, sharing her writing, her thoughts, and her heart. Every week I looked forward to hearing her work, much of which was autobiographical. Kathleen was an Irish Catholic like yours truly so I appreciated her stories about our tribe. She was also so insightful and supportive when commenting on our work. One night I was suffering from a hideous cold and I somehow managed to drag myself to ...

I picked up my home phone’s receiver on Thursday and listened to something I hadn’t heard in months. A dial tone. Ever since my accident in December, I’ve been pretty much living off my cellphone. I preferred the mobile unit to the hospital’s phone and it was more convenient to use the cell when I got home and had to lumber around the house in leg braces for weeks. However, my old landline phone was getting ready to call it a day and I asked my sister to get me a new landline phone for Christmas. The new one is a beauty and comes with a spare receiver that I set up near the TV so I wouldn’t have to dash into my computer room every time someone called me. There was only one problem: I couldn’t get it to work. I read the directions over and over, but I couldn’t make sense out of them. I pressed the various buttons, plugged in all wires and the thing was still as dead as Kelsey’s nuts, as my father used to say. I should mention here that I have no idea who Kelsey was or wha...

I've been terribly alone and forgotten in Manhattan, but not this past weekend. In fact, I had a series of fabulous encounters that had me absolutely reeling with joy. It started on Friday when I was bouncing out of the Barnes & Noble at Union Square and spotted a gaggle of smartphones raised high in the air. The store routinely hosts authors of every sort and I reckoned these people were jockeying to get a photo of some cable news blowhard or the latest celebrity chef, whose overpriced cook book would probably end up in the dollar bin by Thanksgiving. Oh, get a load of these star-struck twits , I mentally sneered. They’re so pathetic . I was due to meet a friend for lunch on 28th Street and the only reason I was in the store in the first place was to use the facilities, as the old kidneys ain’t what they used to be. But I figured, what the hell? Let me at least find out which D-lister I’m snubbing. “Say,” I asked a nearby employee. “What’s all the excitement about...

We need to be more like Kelsie. Kelsie is a comfort dog I had the great fortune of meeting today during a 9/11 memorial service at St. Paul’s Chapel at Broadway and Fulton Street. Her handler, a very nice woman from the Tri-State Canine Response Team , told me that she and her canine colleagues respond to all kinds of emergencies, including the mass shooting at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando. And they were at Ground Zero today, where they most definitely needed, even after all this time. It’s been 17 years since I stood outside the Brook Brothers store across the street from the World Trade Center and watched smoke pouring out of the North Tower; 17 years since the second plane slammed into the South Tower moments later and we all ran, while the towers and the world as we knew it came crashing to the ground. I think about the people I met on that day, like the elderly lady I helped to her feet after she collapsed in shock when the attack began. I think about the Japanese busines...

“ Shift, shift, shift! ” I went back to boxing class last week for the first time since my accident in December and it was special kind of magic. I was thrilled to see Abby, my instructor and all my friends in the class, whom I haven’t seen in 9 months. But it also felt weird being back in the gym after such a long absence, like I was an imposter or a trespasser. Of course, the original prognosis said I’d be out of commission for 18 months, so I’m certainly grateful for that. And if I had fallen on my head, I wouldn’t be here at all. I had gotten used to sleeping later on Tuesdays and Thursdays, instead of getting up before sunrise and slogging into the city. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to roll out of bed that early or that I’d keel over halfway through the warmup or that I’d reinjure myself and wind up flat on my back again. For the last few months I’d been going for long walks in my neighborhood, lifting weights, hitting the bag at the gym and working out on the Sta...

Now I’ll have to get my wonton soup someplace else. My local Chinese restaurant, the Hot Wok, went out of business last week and yet I still have this urge to swing by and pick up an order. The Hot Wok was my go-to place on many a Friday night, when I gave into the call of the comfort zone, got a vat on wonton soup and a mound of fortune cookies, before scurrying on home to watch the latest offering from Netflix. (Exciting life I lead, no?) The Hot Wok is—was—located at 69th Street off Narrows Avenue, the middle store in a trio of businesses that I like to call “Bachelor’s Row,” starting with the pizzeria on the corner, the Wok, and then the deli, all lined up and waiting for the man who doesn’t feel like cooking. I had noticed their gate was down and I prayed that they were just on vacation, but when I called them, I got the “number is no longer in service” message. A few days ago, one of the customers at the deli confirmed the awful truth: the Hot Wok was no more. I’m still...