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Ready to Go

Dear Diary:

I was cycling through Downtown Brooklyn on a rainy night, weaving between brake-lit bumpers and horns crying out for free passage home.

Stopped at a red light, I jockeyed for space among the riders on e-bikes delivering dinner, batteries duct-taped to rugged frames.

I blew a fog of hot breath onto my cold fingers and braced for the Myrtle Avenue hill we were about to climb. The light turned green.

“You ready?” a voice beside me said.

I turned to see an e-bike rider staring ahead, dripping in his marshmallow puffy, only his eyes showing above a mask. Was he talking to me?

As he blasted up the steep hill, I saw who was ready: a skateboarder gripping the bike’s rear rack as water sprayed from the wheels.

I cranked hard to follow them. As they crested the peak, the skater let go and swooped left to fly back down the hill, curling wide arcs in the momentary space.

The delivery man continued into the dark, never looking back. I wiped water from my eyes and turned onto a quiet side street.

— Grace Ballard

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Loose Shoes

Dear Diary:

My sister and I visited New York City in October 2023. One evening, we walked about 26 blocks from our hotel on 43rd Street to a cocktail bar in the Gramercy section. I was wearing a pair of semi-dressy shoes I had found used on eBay.

By the time we got to the bar, one shoe was loosening up. After having a cocktail, we walked a couple of blocks to the Union Square Cafe. My shoe continued to loosen, and the other shoe started to do the same.

After dinner, we started to walk back to our hotel, but after a few blocks, my shoes had totally fallen apart. I decided to take them both off and walk the next 24 blocks or so in just my socks.

Thankfully, it was a nice night, the sidewalks were clean and no one so much as glanced at my feet.

— Marjorie Martin

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Monster Moves

Dear Diary:

In 1975, I was 16 and attending a school that overlooked the East River in Manhattan. I lived with my family in an apartment two blocks away.

Instead of walking on East End Avenue, I usually strolled home along the East River Esplanade and through Carl Schurz Park.

One day, as I walked with a friend past the concrete chess tables near the basketball courts, we noticed a large man with a familiar bald head who was engaged in a chess match.

“It’s Peter Boyle,” we squealed.

The movie “Young Frankenstein” had come out the year before, and I had seen it because my father was a huge Mel Brooks fan.

My friend and I ran unabashedly up to Mr. Boyle gushing about the movie. He was gracious, taking time to chat with two goofy teenage girls.

Realizing that we had interrupted his game, we backed up and watched silently from a distance. It looked like Mr. Boyle had the upper hand.

“Wow,” I whispered to my friend. “Look at that. Frankenstein’s got moves.”

— Kim Jones

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Punk Rock Interruption

Dear Diary:

I was working in the financial district and would walk out of my way to catch the E at the World Trade Center so I wouldn’t have to transfer to get home to Queens.

Because I got on at the first stop, I could choose my preferred seat: tucked away in the corner of the second car, where the doors would line up with the staircase that led to the exit on my side of Queens Boulevard.

I had a young child, and my five-day-a-week commute into Manhattan often felt long and lonely. I had perfected my working-mom subway routine: headphones on, eyes down.

One day, I was a few stops from home and listening to a relatively sedate podcast when punk rock music began to blare through my headphones. I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from.

Then I glanced through the window. There, in the next car, was my husband. Having just gotten on the train, his phone had automatically connected to my headphones and begun to play his music for me.

After the grinding slog of another workday, I had found my way home.

— Rachel Nobel Fields

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Bus Stop

Dear Diary:

I was walking on 77th Street to catch a bus up Amsterdam Avenue. And just before I got to the corner, I saw a bus sail away.

While I waited for the next one, an older woman joined me.

“We’ve just missed one,” I said. “Eight minutes to go.”

She said she was just taking a rest, not catching a bus.

Her accent was definitely British. Being British myself, I asked what had brought her here, and we began to chat.

I said I had married a fabulous American and had been happy for 56 years.

“I married a really dreadful American,” she said.

— Janet Nelson