NO MORE PAPER

I lie supine on my fold out chair (my Lafuma) as Susan washes vegetables in the kitchen.

I lie in retreat - like a protected child (or) the blind, being read to.

(Ah yes, scrubbing vegetables, cleaning the floor! I can feel that... remember that).

I tap away on an addictive game on my i-phone.

Susan and I audaciously discuss which nationalities we dislike and prefer. We are both lefty liberals. This makes it okay. Its tongue in cheek.

The Chinese are liars. The Italians sexy and dumb. The English funny cross dressers.

The Dutch seem cool but where did they go? The Danes are having a good time.

The Africans. Too hard to talk about.

We discuss the atrocity of slavery in this country and then worldwide.

If African Americans are angry and defiant - so they should be.

As we talk, I distract myself with my iphone game. I insist Susan try the game.

She kneels by my Lafuma chair and capitulates to my request. She's easy to push around. Whatever I want, I get.

I only have so much time.

Susan's game is interrupted. My sister texts. My mother can't speak and is back in ER in CT.

I go back to the game. I am exhausted from trying to process.

I have to assume my mother will be okay because it is all I have room for. If she isn't alright, I will have to punch out more room. I will have to expand.

I change clothes as Susan tidies the kitchen.

We'll go to a movie!

The Paris (on 58th) is easy for me - there are no cavernous hallways to walk through.

As we taxi there, we pass the (new) New York Times building.

"I love that building, I almost considered applying for temp work there because I thought it would be so great to work in that building."

"I still get a subscription to the New York Times" Susan says.

"Me too!"

"It's a luxury I really can't afford."

"I know but, the paper newspaper is on its way out. So while it's still here, it's fun to get. It will disappear soon enough. Digital, it will be all digital."

"I feel sorry for the Times."

"But then they'll have these foldable plastic sheets. Everyone will carry them around, like water bottles. And the news will just show up digitally on these plastic sheets."

"I love that."

_____________

The Paris is lovely (I've decided). The Paris is the antidote the cineplex. The Paris is my favorite New York Movie Theater (now). The Paris is the hard copy newspaper.

I glide down the aisle with my walker. The slight slant downwards propels me.

The movie-screen is big, the theater - old fashioned. We are two of six or seven.

When the movie starts, I fall in love with the glamour of the big screen. The intoxicating soundtrack.

Susan and I both "ooooh" "ahhhhh" at the expansive beauty like we've never been to the movies before.

"I don't go to the movies much " she concedes. "The last time I went, was with you - (Nine - I was on canes then).

"The Last Station" begins and it's just wanted I wanted to see, old fashioned story telling with sweeping scenery, a rising orchestral soundtrack, excellent actors hard at work in period costumes.

I was fascinated by the diaries. Helen Mirren (Mrs. Tolstoy) screamed at people to put their little notebooks away.

Tolstoy was a Luddite. The movie gently compares today's struggle with technology to Tolstoy's time. The phonograph, the silent films, the reporters (paparazzi). New technology destroying the peace.

And I think about our desire and sentiment for the simplicity of the past.

Susan points out all the surfs in the background throughout the movie. The past may have been beautiful, but only for the rich, for the rest, it was probably dismal.

____________________

We taxi home. I spot (one of those) terrible mini grocery-stores -delis with steam tables and tables and chairs in front.

"See that? That is where I have eaten most of my adult life. And you know what? Sometimes I wonder if that is why I am -where I am - right now."

"What?! You don't think you got ALS from a poor diet? "

"No, but eating at places like that couldn't have helped. All I'm saying, and I'm speaking like Jacob Marley to Ebenezer- take care of yourself, eat right, relax. When you live alone, and you're living under stress, there were days or stretches of time when I simply wasn't taking care of myself. So, take care of yourself."

"I'll have to move in with you.... and torture you."

______________________________

When I get to the lobby of my apartment building there are two large flat screen TVs on either side of the lobby desk.

"What are those for?" I ask Petroff.

"We're doing away with paperwork. No more leaving notes on tenants mailboxes. Every note will be posted electronically. And all work orders from tenants will be done with emails. No more paper work. No more paper."