My name is Shelly Greene and it is 6:45 AM on Sunday, March 12th. I awake like many mornings that have come to pass before, with my Scottish Terrier, TJ, greeting me at my bedside. I live in The George on E 58th Street and frequently wear outfits composed entirely of moss green. Some mornings are better than others, but I love it nonetheless. 

Today on my way out of the building my friend and local homeless man, Joe, is sleeping on the small foam bed that he makes for himself every day in a nook that leads to the service entrance. I turn north on 1st Ave, passing the white bubble tennis courts before entering into the relative safety of TJ Maxx. TJ Maxx is a marketplace of the metropolis—a basilica if you will. When I’m done shopping I walk home carrying my purchases like saddlebags.

Usually on the way back I’ll stop by the Shadmoor Café on 2nd Avenue, but recently I’ve been on a diet where I am not supposed to chew. Occasionally on Tuesdays I’ll drift into a Lenwich and order the mac and cheese. I know one bowl isn’t enough, but I also know that two is too much, so I only have one.

New York is an environment of decay that enters into you. Nothing necessarily happens—you are not robbed, drug addled, or beaten. But the overall environment of squalor and strife has a never-ending impact upon the way you think and see the world and yourself.

Back at The George I notice that Joe has awakened and is rummaging through his things with energetic homeless pomp. Sometimes I imagine the world as he sees it. Seeing the news exclusively through headlines read at a bodega, or how intimate his connection to objects is. For Joe, tragedy is a river that has carried him constantly downstream.

Later in the afternoon in the rain I go for a walk to Sutton Place Park. In front of me on a ledge overlooking the East River, an older man is fondling his toddler-sized gay lover’s ass. Behind me, in the relative safety of the city, one of the new skyscrapers is wrapped in plastic like an Italian-American families couch. The plastic blows in the wind.