METROPOLITAN DIARY
Strangers No More
Dear Diary:
I stepped into a large, empty elevator in Midtown on my way to a doctor’s appointment.
As the doors were closing, one woman, and then another, rushed toward the elevator. I held the doors, and the three of us, masked and standing six feet apart, nodded to one another.
There was a mirror in the elevator. I turned and got a look at my reflection.
“Oh, God,” I blurted out. “My hair is so awful!” (I had not colored it in 19 months and had cut it only once in that time.)
The woman to my left spoke softly.
“I’m so unhappy,” she said.
The woman to my right chimed in.
“I need to see a psychiatrist,” she said.
We all began to laugh. And when the doors opened at my floor, the three of us, intimate strangers now, said, “Have a nice day!” almost in unison.
— Kathy Talalay
New Routines
Dear Diary:
I was chatting on the phone with a friend while walking through SoHo one weekend last fall. We were about to meet for breakfast, and I was warning her that I had just rolled out of bed.
During the pandemic, I had gotten in the habit of waking up first thing in the morning to walk my dog without showering or changing my clothes.
“I haven’t even brushed my teeth,” I told my friend.
Just as I said it, a woman walked past me.
“Don’t worry,” she yelled, “Neither have I!”
We high-fived and went our separate ways.
— Allison Abrams
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/20/nyregion/metropolitan-diary.html
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