Valencia Diary

In Step

Dear Diary:

I was walking down East 86th Street on a Saturday afternoon. A middle-age man was strolling along ahead of me.

As I got closer to him, I could hear that he was singing “Baby Love” by the Supremes. I stayed behind him for a few paces, chuckling to myself. His voice wasn’t bad, I thought.

I quickened my pace. He turned toward me as I began to pass him.

“I need some backup here,” he said.

Without missing a beat I sang right on cue: “Baby, baby, baby, baby love, my baby love.”

We smiled at each other.

“You have a nice day now,” he said.

— Cara Schirrmeister

Train Reading

Dear Diary:

I lament not seeing what people read on the subway anymore.

I believe people do still read (although the weaker among us slip into gaming and video images). I just notice it less because I cannot see what’s on their devices. Somehow it feels too nosy to look at a device. A book or a newspaper seemed less private.

I miss seeing the racing sheet, the Polish-language press, the Chinese shopping circular.

I miss looking at the scripts read by actors, even though to this day I still see their lips move as they rehearse their lines.

— Teresa Santamaria

These are excerpts from The New York Times Metropolitan Diary series. I wish that I lived in New York so that I could throw my hat into this charming literary ring. Since I don’t plan on moving, I decided to start my own series headquartered here on the coast of the beautiful Mediterranean Sea (I always add the word “beautiful” when I name this body of water). Here is my first entry:

31DEC18

There is a supermarket on the first floor of my building. I worry that if I ever live anywhere else the absence of this convenience will kill me. Yesterday, New Year’s Eve, I stopped in and the place was insane, like people were stocking up against a coming hurricane or other disaster, natural or otherwise, instead of simply facing New Year’s Day which would find the supermarket closed.

I waited in line and put my items on the conveyor: 3 bottles of hand soap (for kitchen and bathrooms), a low wattage light bulb for a room I never use, cleaning vinegar (to remove lime deposits), and a couple of other odd items. Finally, it was my time to face the cashier.

I always say “buenas tardes” to whoever is helping me, just to be polite, but I wanted to go a bit further.

“Can you guess what all of these things have in common?” I asked the beleaguered worker.

I didn’t give her time to think—or to be annoyed—so I answered.

“They are all things that I forgot to buy the last 25 times that I’ve been here,” I said. "You'll notice that I haven't forgotten alcohol or ham on any of those past trips."

I didn’t get a laugh, but she smiled. I almost never get a laugh when I try to joke with strangers. I usually get a look like they are desperately pressing the hidden emergency alarm as they wait in panic for the men in white coats to come throw a net over me.

01JAN19

When you drop a water glass on a ceramic tile floor, it breaks into literally a million pieces. I counted. I broke a glass in my kitchen and I’ve been finding shards of it weeks later.