I'm The Fortieth Ugliest Man In This

By Reading This Message You Are Denying Its Existence And Implying Consent.

My Mother Cranes Her Neck. Her Ability To Be Fascinated By Things Is Her Best Gift To Me.

... I'm The Fortieth-ugliest Man In This Bar. But So What! So What! What If Someday She Lets Me Kiss Each One Of Her Freckles Again? She Has Like A Million. But Every One Of Them Means Something To Me. Isn't This How People Used To Fall In Love? I Know We're Living In Rubenstein's America, Like You Keep Saying. But Doesn't That Just Make Us Even More Responsible For Each Other's Fates? I Mean, What If Eunice And I Just Said No To All This. To This Bar. To This Facing. The Two Of Us. What If We Just Went Home And Read Books To Each Other?

My Hair Would Continue To Gray, And Then One Day, It Would Fall Out Entirely, And Then, On A Day Meaninglessly Close To The Present One, Meaninglessly Like The Present One, I Would Disappear From The Earth. And All These Emotions, All These Yearnings, All These Data, If That Helps To Clinch The Enormity Of What I'm Talking About, Would Be Gone. And That's What Immortality Means. It Means Selfishness. My Generations Belief That Each One Of Us Matters More Than You Or Anyone Else Would Think.

Every Returning New Yorker Asks The Question: Is This Still My City? I Have A Ready Answer, Cloaked In Obstinate Despair: It Is. And If It's Not, I Will Love It All The More. I Will Love It To The Point Where It Becomes Mine Again.