22/ The Phone Booth

Back when we lived in Manhattan and had a weekend house in Pennsylvania, I had not yet made friends with insects and spiders, and cell phones were no more than a gleam in some inventor’s eye. Because of the latter, when we were a couple of miles into our trip back to the city one Sunday evening and I needed to make a phone call, we pulled over by a phone booth.

Remember phone booths? The ones I’m familiar with had a folding door and glass (plastic?) walls. And an interior light. I entered the booth, closed the door, and the light came on automatically. I made my call, and something—I don’t know what—made me look up. Daddy Long Legs spiders (“Harvestmen,” technically not spiders—but I wasn’t thinking technically), covered the ceiling in a mass many spiders deep.

21/ The Brainwashing of My Country

The scariest thing I can think of these days—and I think of it every day—is the loathsome individual who somehow got himself elected to the presidency of the United States. Equally frightening is the resulting state of this country. The midterm elections were held two days ago, and while I’m pleased at some of the outcome, he’s still there, doing and saying his horrible things. And his “base” (I’ve come to despise that word) is still cheering him on. 

When he first took office it was shocking. How could a president—the leader of the free world—be so infantile, so mean-spirited, so inarticulate? I’m afraid now it’s not shocking anymore. I fear this is what much of the population wants: daily entertainment from the White House. I wish everyone would watch this documentary. America is becoming brainwashed.

The Brainwashing of My Dad

20/ Insects and Me

I grew up in an apartment in Queens. The only insects I saw—and rarely—were big black beetles we called “clocks.” They appeared in the basement laundry area occasionally. We were all terrified of them. Oh, wait—I forgot about the multitude of mosquitoes that feasted on me every summer on Long Island.

When I was 15 or so I saw a giant moth in the hallway of our building. I now know it was a Cecropia. It frightened me, and I was so relieved when it flew out the window I opened. A little later my grandmother entered our apartment holding her hands together as though they held a treasure. She opened them to reveal the moth! I ran and hid behind a chair.

Moving to the country was an education for me, with a long transition to first acceptance and then appreciation of insects. This is why I say Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is a book that changed my life.

19/ Alone in the Subway

I was on the subway all by myself in an empty car, but it was during the day, when everything somehow seems safer. I was reading as usual, but when someone sat down directly across from me, I could see his lower pant legs and feet without looking up. They started twitching, then jumping up and down, which wasn’t all that unusual because young males often rode the subway carrying a boom box back then, and he could have been reacting to the music. But I heard no music, so when the jumping grew frenetic I looked up. He was masturbating, completely exposed.

I ran to the end of the car and opened the gates. I’d changed subway cars before, but it wasn’t my favorite thing to do. So dark in the tunnels. So much movement from the cars. Cold black air rushing by. The next car was empty too, so I opened two more gates and ran on. Found a conductor. Told him.