August 29, 2007

What New York is your New York?

I wonder about women in New York and why we're here. It's a difficult city to inhabit if you want to have respect in your job, live in a nice apartment, afford the occasional new outfit and meet a decent man. Yet we're here en masse, and everywhere I look there's all trying to make it happen, all attempting to piece together their lives in a city of 8 million people.

There is the woman who gets on the bus and sits down next to me with her three handbags because one has documents for work, one has her after-work gym clothes and one has the lunch she makes at home the night before and brings to the office every day because she's trying to stretch that paycheck as much as possible. She finds a seat and quickly opens her book, (probably Eugenides because Oprah told her to), and doesn't look up or speak to anyone until she signals it's her time to deboard.

New York is not only her home, New York is her part-time job.

Of course there's always that other woman, who for some reason or other, always finds a spot right near me on public transportation as though I (intently reading and always determined to talk to no one that I don't absolutely have to) have a sign over my head with a bright flashing invitation that says: Sit here please! Annoy me!

This is all much like the woman from yesterday whose elbow was thrust into the back of my neck while I was reading, because apparently when she talks on the phone she has to gesticulate wildly. I was then forced to turn around to give her my best passive-aggressive, are you kidding me? look, however she was too busy on the phone (or I was too insignificant) for her to notice.

Now, leaning forward slightly, I listened (who could help but hear?) as she hung up and began to talk to the woman next to her about New York. About her New York. Not so much a part-time job as a paid vacation.

She also mentioned how time in her New York doesn't really start until people are up on the west coast. "I mean right?" she said, her voice sounding so girl-like for her age that it made my teeth itch. "New York is dead until people in LA are near their phones."

I couldn't hear a response from the woman next to her who she apparently decided to just start spouting off her opinions to. I can only imagine she nodded in passive-aggressive agreement.

"But I mean, I love New York. And really, it’s just like I’m Carrie from Sex and the City."

What is it with women all over the country who can't let go of that ridiculous show? No one writes a column and lives in a rent-controlled $700 a month apartment and can afford $300 shoes. No one should even acknowledge someone who has the ability to do that. And what's funny about it, is that any true New Yorker will tell you that the women depicted on that show really are irritating and live in a Manhattan that doesn't really exist, and it's always the non-New Yorkers who can't help but insist on trying to compare their lives to it.

"I really am. I mean, I'm a writer, I live in New York, I absolutely love shoes, and I actually have the same birthday as Sarah Jessica Parker! So I mean, it's totally me."

I laughed because I couldn't help it. I laughed because her voice was so serious and proud of those similarities that she made appear as though took her months to put together. I laughed because she was so utterly unaware of how pathetic and sad and how non-New York she really was.

It was all I could do to stop myself from turning around and seriously asking her, you're a writer?

She didn't hear me laugh of course, and even if she did this late-twenty-something clad in a too-short dress clutching her Treo and Louis Vuitton handbag (just one) would have been too caught up in her own world to notice.

As I watched her leave the bus loudly and with great drama, and then watched the woman next to me reading heft her three bags out so fast and so silently that I almost didn’t even see her leave - I thought about both and what New York must mean to each of them.

Sure, the SATC wannabe probably has a better apartment, more new outfits and a different man every month - but who appreciates it more? Who really understands it?

I guess it's difficult to say and I’ll never really know for sure, but I do know who I was rooting for. I know who would probably be here longer and who would learn more and who, living around these 8 million people, would be more likely to piece their life together. And who, upon deboarding, was at a great risk of being eaten alive.

August 27, 2007

You could be happy.

I know there are a ton of movies out there that talk about chance, about taking a chance on love, a chance on a friend or a family member or a job or a new city - all of which will ultimately lead to the happiness you’d been searching for during the past 65 minutes (or your whole life up until this point). But what I want to understand, (and what I’m guilty of myself), is how much we manage to leave to it and why.

I just let things hang out, collect dust, eventually to be forgotten all because I was fairly certain chance would come along for pick-up and take care of everything I wasn’t willing, (or was too scared) to do something about myself.

Granted, of course, there are a lot of things I don’t leave to this one word and idea that no one has any control over or real understanding of outside of the overall concept that it is, in fact, a savior if you’re lucky enough to have it fall in your lap when you really need it. Because there is a line we each know we have to walk up to eventually (but dare not cross) when it comes to our own happiness.
But of all the things to give up on, of all the things to leave the important things in your life to, aren’t we too generous to chance? We give it too much, surely, so much so that one day we might be able to actually recognize all the things we lost because we believed in it so much.

And like any religion, a blind faith in a higher power that is somehow creating meaning for all of the arbitrary things that fall upon us while we’re waking (and are waiting for us while we sleep) - it’s so much easier isn’t it, safe, to believe that even if we’re too scared to do something chance will always be there looking over us, somehow watching out as it secretly and silently weaves the pieces of our lives together, until one day, (maybe), we might be able to actually recognize that chances only really happen, (perhaps), if you make the choice to take them.

August 16, 2007

A hippie according to Starbucks.

Its been a while. Not since I’ve gone to Starbucks (obviously) but since I’ve written about it. Mainly it’s because our relationship has been a little strained ever since they decided to raise the prices behind my back by 9 cents. (The horror!)

It was a blatant betrayal of my trust and a total attack on my unwavering commitment to them (for the most part) as my sole provider for my morning coffee du jour.

Was it callous of them? Yes. Was insensitive? Obviously. Have I forgiven them even though I have trust issues and a self-realized tendency to like things/people who are bad for me? Of course.

We live in a society, as this article states, where "…you either define yourself as part of the Starbucks community or as someone ‘who doesn't do Starbucks.’" I think the answer is fairly clear about which side of the line I’m on, and I have to admit there something overwhelmingly snobbish and irritating about these people who are all "I don’t do Starbucks."

What does that even mean? Are you saying that if the only coffee you could ever get again for the rest of your life was indeed, Starbucks Breakfast Blend, you would give up coffee forever simply because you "don’t do" coffee from the corporate coffee king? I mean, that’s a little more ridiculous than $3 a cup, don’t you think?

And where does such anger come from? Why the hostility? I’m turning the tables on where the snobbery lies in the Starbucks equation and it isn’t the Starbucks-goer with the elitist attitude, it’s the Starbucks-nongoer, (under caffeinated), who chooses to go out of their way simply to criticize and belittle previously mentioned coffee drinker for their provider of choice.

I don’t go around telling them that I "don’t do" PBR, or that I "don’t do" you know…dread locks and skinny jeans. So, I mean, why all the hate? It’s not your money I’m spending on my grande soy latte on only odd-numbered days in only the two weeks immediately following the arrival of a paycheck. Is it?

I didn’t think so. And to anger them even more I’ll continue to do so despite the fact the Starbucks Oracle as defined me as (when entering soy latte as my drink of choice):

Personality type: Hippie

In addition to being a hippie, you are a hypochondriac health nut. You secretly think that your insistence on only consuming all-natural products is because you're so intelligent and well-informed; it's actually because you're a sucker. You've dabbled in Wicca or other pseudo-religions that attract morons and have changed your sexual orientation a few times this year. You probably live in California. Everyone who drinks grande soy latte should be forced to eat a McDonald's bacon cheeseburger.

Also drinks: Beverages with lots of marketing that says they're herbal and organic
Can also be found at: Whole Foods, indoor rock climbing facilities

Well, I’ve never been to California...but I definitely don’t do McDonald’s.

August 14, 2007

A quiet night in the Bronx.

I was at the stadium tonight for the most un-thrilling, un-fantastic game I've seen in a long time (is this batting practice I'm watching?!). Basically I was there just in time to watch the Yanks throw away their winning streak and lose to Baltimore 12-0.

It was a rough night in the Bronx and starter Jeff Karstens couldn’t seem to make it happen (though pitching for the Yankees at age 25 made me wonder what I’m doing with my life) and nary a run was scored for the pinstripes and with Boston beating Tampa Bay 2-1 we're now officially losing the momentum we'd gained since Kansas City, and slipping behind our committed adversary, the Sox.


I'm sure they're gloating in Boston, as that's what Boston is good at - being bitter, moody, temperamental - and then gloating. And they never do give up, either. Walking out to the 4 train after the 7th inning (no need to stick around to witness the end of that kind of massacre) there was That Guy, that typical Boston Guy who is seemingly at every sporting event you'll ever go to in your entire life, screaming repetitively and loudly from the Upper Deck "Lets go Red Sox."

I mean, I get it. It’s a dual to the death at this point (and always has been in the eyes of the tried and true Fenway Faithful), and it doesn’t matter if the Yanks win as long as the Sox lose. However, had I seen his face I would have given him a fair rendition of a withering look and said: We’re playing Baltimore. The Sox are in Florida. Get it together man.

Because baseball game, hockey game, basketball game - it doesn't matter where you are or who is playing, whether the game has innings, periods or quarters, that guy will be there shouting at the top of his lungs simply to solidify the opinion of everyone everywhere that sports fans from Boston really just need to get over themselves.

And now, just 5 games out, there’s still hope (and isn’t it hope that Boston has thrived on for decades?) that the Yanks will cinch the AL East title and shut The Boston Guy up for good…or at least until April.

August 9, 2007

Wednesday!

Obviously I'm not writing about this until today because the day-of I was too offended, tired and did I mention offended? By what had happened to actually re-live it by writing about it. And I'm not even going to write about it that much because that's all anyone in New York has been talking about for the past 48 hours - "How the Rain Ruined My Wednesday."

And yes it was rain, just a lot of it, that forced me to have to walk 40+ blocks to work this week. And I won't even go into the heat, the crowds (your poor, your tired, your huddled masses...), my overall confusion that didn't clear until I walked from 68th to almost 34th (which didn't include my cross-town excursion) that we weren't in fact, being attacked by terrorists, and the sad, painful state of my feet (poor little toes!) by the time I reached the office - two and a half hours after I left my apartment.

Around 34th street I had been looking for a place in which to buy some cheap flip flops for the rest of my journey, when I spotted two people ready to grab the one seemingly free cab in the entire city, and chased them down and demanded we spilt it. Had I not done so, I'm not entirely sure I would even actually still have feet right now.

I digress. The point here isn't to write angrily about the MTA and how they, the largest mass transit system in the world, totally dropped the ball yet again and ruined the Wednesday (and a perfectly good one at that!) of millions of honest working New Yorkers.

The point is, is that we’re all just trying to make it happen in what sometimes truly becomes the most difficult and frustrating of places to live in of all time. And yet we know this, and we still think it’s okay. We accept it like you do the snoring habits of a significant other.

Yeah, it’s annoying, and yeah, you can’t remember when you last had an uninterrupted nights sleep and sometimes you think about leaving them in order to find someone without that deviated septum. But in the end I guess you realize that it’s worth it, to overlook such things because in the end they really are, despite their faults one of a kind.

August 7, 2007

Who needs sleep?

Well August is here and August in New York means that suddenly the summer is coming to a rapid end, and everything you told yourself you were going to do way back in the spring, ("as soon as summer is here I can’t wait to...") you realize that you haven’t even attempted.

All those movies in Bryant Park, restaurants known for their patio tables, hotels and their roof decks, Shakespeare in the Park (p.s. the most difficult thing to make happen in New York)....and that grand plan to befriend someone with a house in the Hamptons.

I know, a lofty expectation, however I’d like to note that it’s The Gay who came up with the whole friend-with-house-in-Hamptons scheme. He’s only just gotten a dresser (pls. refer to The Dresser) so I think obtaining a friend with a nice by-the-beach pad is a little grandiose at the moment.

Regardless,the point is, is that it’s so much easier to talk about doing things than actually doing them. I think in New York we do so much all the time that if we were to actually go through with everything we talked about, if we actually took advantage of everything that is available to us at every moment of every day - we’d never sleep. Ok, ok, I realize now that yes, New York is known as The City That Never Sleeps - but let me tell you, it does. And we do. We have to.

And maybe it’s not enough for all we do, the long commutes, the constant barrage of people all pushing you to get somewhere, the heat the seeps up from the pavement and closes in around your ankles every morning and makes the air heavy to breathe. The late nights at the office, the pressure that you’re not staying late enough, the pressure that you’re not in the right office or the right apartment or the right place at the right time (New York should be known as The City That Never Has Time).


In fact, things get so bad that sometimes you don’t even realize you’re awake. Sitting on the subway the other day, I was jammed in against a woman who was taking up more than her fair share of the seat, doing a crossword puzzle over the top of her glasses, mouth open as she moved her pencil back and forth over all of the Up and Down clues. On the other side was a guy with the typical male uniform of a blue dress shirt and khaki pants reading The Post. I myself was reading a book, wedged in between.

I like to say I was engrossed in the inner witticisms of Evelyn Waugh - however the truth is - I think that whole pages elapsed where I didn’t have a clue what was going on, where I entirely spaced out - because in a moment I looked up and there was no one on the bench to the left of me. The woman and her crossword puzzle was gone, and all that was left in our car was a few people across from me, and the guy in the blue dress shirt reading the Post who I now realized I was leaning up against.

After the initial embarrassment settled in I allowed the next lurch and stop of the train to slyly propel me away from him, though I’m pretty sure he was inwardly wondering what was wrong with me, because at that moment he leaned forward, made a grand gesture of putting his elbows on his knees and spread The Post out in font of him as if to say, "umm, that was weird." (Whoops).

So we aren’t exactly the city that never sleeps, but we like to keep that overall glowing opinion of ourselves, so we try to hide it well. And August is here (already!) and we still have three weeks to make some of those spring promises happen before the chill of fall settles in (before we know it).

So I guess I’ll just have to be sure to make a note to get to bed early.

August 1, 2007

Bridge Over Troubled Water.

What are we really supposed to do with ourselves when we finally realize that we have absolutely no control over anything?

I started to feel that realization sink in when I was stuck underground today on the way home from work on the 1 train for twenty minutes. I was standing and trying to read while the announcement kept saying things like "smoke" and "at 95th street," and my brain couldn’t stop from turning to the same questions of: why aren’t we moving? How long am I going to be trapped under here? and, When did this become my life?

Give anyone some time trapped underground in a subway full of sweaty, tired, angry New Yorkers and you’re bound to question the deeper things in your life - namely all the things that seem to be going wrong that you can’t control.

The thing about realizing a thing like that, is that you don’t really realize it until it happens to you. Sure, you can walk about thinking you’ve had quite a few miles on the highway without a front wheel blowout. You’ve had perhaps one too many close calls where you weren’t entirely paying attention when you crossed the street. You can be like Gregory Wernick Sr. of Rockford, Illinois who
drove over the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis shortly before it collapsed.

He stopped to get a drink nearby and heard commotion, so he went back. "I figure I crossed about 10 minutes before it happened," he said. "That’s just too close to call."

Because that’s what life is anyway, isn’t it? A bunch of close calls. And when we think about those miles on the highway, or those times in the middle of busy 42nd street, or Gregory - we can recognize that its never actually happened to us.

What I want to know is: what are you really supposed to do with yourself when you’re one of those people who is just sitting there, sitting in rush hour traffic, stuck, bumper to bumper after a long day at the office, waiting to get home for an even longer night of making dinner and talking about your day and having sex and going to sleep - just listening to the radio or talking on the phone, or thinking to yourself that you still don’t know how it is that you ended up here, and the bridge you’re idling on just collapses beneath you.

What I want to know is: what is anyone supposed to do when they’re falling through the air and into the waters of the Mississippi, their cell phone dropping from their hand, their thoughts changing quicky to: What’s happening? What if this is it? How did it get here? Why have I not done more?

The only way, I’ve found, is to find a bright side. Not too bright of course, but bright enough so that you’ll have a way to get through the next day knowing that you’re just out there, every day, just out there in the open and anything could happen at any time.

The bright side, I figure, is that once the call finally isn’t close, once the call is actually for you and you alone - living through it will have reminded you that now, all those times you find yourself stuck underground on the 1, or idling in our car on a bridge and asking the questions of how you got here and what it is that you’re really doing - you should at least be able to realize that it’s quick, life, that’s what it is, and it’s all chances and calls (close or far away) and you shouldn’t waste any more time trying to figure it all out.

Because the water is always there, waiting.