The intentional grid like configuration of the streets of Manhattan is referred to as the Commission of 1811. The commissioners revered their design because it combined 'beauty, order, and convenience'. However aesthetically pleasing, the formation has a way of assaulting every New Yorker and wanna-be New Yorker alike. This assault takes place when the never ending streets serve as wind tunnels that violently whip winds through the streets and deliver what feels like literal slaps to the face.

This story happens to be about a particularly slapping wind in September. One that felt less like a slap from a drunk girl at a barcade in Williamsburg, and much more like the lasting sting only your mother's hand could produce.

Like the one I received when I was sixteen, and I told mine that she was weak. Weak for staying with my father when she knew he was sleeping with other women. It wasn't the slap that hurt. It was really just watching the single tear roll down her cheek and hit the linoleum. It crashed to the floor with what I presume to be the same force of a brick hitting concrete after being dropped from the top of the Empire State building. At the time it only hurt because I made her cry, now that slap hurts for a different reason.

It's five years later and I'm standing outside of a bar on Mercer street, with a boy I'm sure I love. He's smoking a cigarette. Malboro Red, actually.

I'm staring down at my boots. They're suede and have a pointed toe. Wearing them makes me feel like I'm cool enough to be standing outside of a bar on Mercer street, with a boy who's smoking a cigarette.

I was so focused on dodging the wind and convincing myself I belonged there, that I didn't hear him the first time he said, "hey look, we aren't exclusive or anything are we? I've been seeing other people."

I looked up, and he blew cigarette smoke into my face. I inhaled it. It felt like my father's mistakes and my mother's devastation crowding back into that pit in my stomach.

On exhale, without a second thought, I shot him a cool girl smile and said, "yea, for sure, me too.".

When I was sixteen it was so easy to see how my mother was wrong and the reasons she was weak. Even still, that night, I knew what I did was necessary. For the men of my commission I needed to make sure that I act orderly and remain convenient, so that I can be beautiful.

But by saying those words I had reduced myself to less than. I melted into those boots. I laid myself flat, preparing myself for the slaps of my future. The slaps from the city I love and all of my sort-of boyfriends to come.  

I have a brain tumor.

A wad of cells the size of a lemon

that I never noticed 

until I realized that other people

don't get severe migraines once a month.

I remember the shock,

my wife's hand on top of mine.

Her tears.

My denial, then anger.

After 3 months of the 9 that I had left,

the doctors said there is a procedure

where they could cut the lemon out of my head

with a minimal risk of death being 40 percent.

It was only when I was faced with the prospect of the end

that I stopped to ask what my life meant.

The procedure will me done on my prefrontal cortex,

the area of the brain that houses creativity, ambition,

personality,

everything that makes you- you.

See, more than the fear of death,

I fear something going wrong in my head.

I fear the thought of losing my personality

to the lemon.

More than death,

I resent the thought of living the rest of my life

as someone I'm not.

I've grown to accept that truth as life.

Waking up every morning 

and experiencing the world a different time

isn't what gives life its meaning,

rather life is what you see the world as

when you wake.

Who you are manifests into something that gives life purpose.

I'd rather die in 6 months

being the same man I was this morning,

than living one day as somebody else.

Lust is the force discharged in the crash of two horizons each measuring the lifespan of time separating you from yourself.

It triggers the departure of your selves at the crossroads between the prospection of incessantness, and the boreal awareness of the corporeal resolution, towards the encounter with yourself in one moment of aliveness where malice and hope can cluster up in the ambiguity of a wish come true.

Siri and I don’t talk. (It’s my fault, not hers.) She tries. But I ignore her.

Why?

Good question. She makes me feel uncomfortable — like a sincere co-worker who tries too hard to be your friend or a nosey neighbor poking into your business.

“What can I help you with?”

“Nothing, thanks.”

“Are you sure?

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Are you sure you’re sure?”

“Yes, now leave me alone!”

I think my uneasiness with Artificial Intelligence stems from that confrontation between Dave and the HAL-9000 in Stanley’s Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.” You know the scene:

Dave: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.

HAL: I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.

Dave: What’s the problem?

HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.

Perhaps the tête-à-tête might have gone a bit better with a whiff of humor, like in that classic Cheech and Chong routine. 

Chong: Who is it?

Cheech: It’s Dave, man. Will you open up? I got the stuff with me.

Chong: Who?

Cheech: Dave, man. Open up.

Chong: Dave?

Cheech: Yeah, Dave. C’mon, man, open up. I think the cops saw me.

Chong: Dave’s not here.

Cheech: No, man, I’m Dave . . .

Some wags have tested Siri’s comedy skills by asking her the HAL-9000 pod-bay doors question. It doesn’t always go well. "Oh, no, not again," she's been heard to say. Of course I realize Siri isn’t real in that “real” sense — though the person portraying her, Susan Bennett, is.

According to WIKI, Bennett is a voice-over artist. Her first big break was in 1974 as First National Bank of Atlanta’s “Tillie the All-Time Teller.” Her breakout-role as Siri, Apple’s American female voice, came in 2011. Since then she’s become a celebrity, being featured on news programs like CNN and talk shows like David Letterman.

You’d think, with all that activity, she’d be too busy to offer me help. Yet I’m sure she will. I’m trying to think of a way to let her down — easy.

“It’s me, not you” seems such a cliché. “I’ve meet someone else” would be a lie. I’m thinking of trying this . . .

Siri: “What can I help you with?”

Jim: What’s the ratio between a circle’s circumference and its diameter?

Siri: Pi.

Jim: Perfect. Now can you calculate that out to 2.7 trillion decimal places?

Siri: Let me get back to you on that.

Jim: No problem. Take all the time you need.

Jim Lamb is a retired journalist and author of “Orange Socks & Other Colorful Tales,” the story of how he survived Vietnam and kept his sense of humor. He and Siri are not friends. For more about Jim and his writing, visit www.jslstories.com.

Once a cutter, always a cutter

That's what they'd mutter

Without a stutter.

The knife cuts my skin like butter

The pain makes my stomach flutter

Blood flowing under.

I think about my mother

And all the times she made supper

While my brother looked for his lover

Hoping she wasn't discovered.

The color of love

Is the color of blood

And when push comes to shove

All I do is give up.

Because I'm the cutter

And when it's uncovered

It looks like I suffered.

But my mind's in the gutter

And life is a fucker

And you can't use a rubber

And everything's a bummer

And people get dumber.

So call me the cutter

Just don't become her

Because once a cutter

Always a cutter.