It is unseasonably warm here in New York.

If nothing else there is (and will always be) the common bond of weather. It’s always there in the background, the topic of so many conversations, the easy ice-breaker. All comments always echoing the same thoughts: it’s so warm, can you believe all this rain? And the wind, my god the wind...

But whether the weather New York stays the same, and sometimes all you want is to get the feel of it the way the tourists do - this being a city of nothing but lights and excitement and possibility. Because once you’ve lived here a while all that can start to fade. It becomes just a place where you live, where you commute to work and come home and make dinner and go out for drinks with friends. So that’s why sometimes I like to walk down 5th avenue because it reminds me of how New York looks through outsiders eyes.

I walked down 5th avenue and sat on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral among the hoards of people and watched as they passed and I hugged my knees against my chest, (not from the cold) but from the rest of the world.

A middle-aged Italian couple sat down next to me, he had a map and she, donning a tan fedora, jeans and knee-high boots sat beside me and started smoking a cigarette. They were trying to find somewhere that I couldn’t understand, and while I cursed the fact that I took Russian in high school, (and that the wind took her smoke directly into my face), I wanted to go where they were going, I wanted to venture off with them, strangers who couldn’t understand.

She finally finished her cigarette with one last heavy drag and left it on the steps in her place. They must have figured it out finally, a destination, because they bounded right towards an empty cab and hopped in. The smoke still lingered in her absence and I thought about them as people and where they’ve come from and what their lives must be like. I’m sure they’ve had some tough times, (we all have) but there they were still, figuring out places to go and bounding towards taxis. That’s what I wanted to do at that moment, I wanted someone to come up to me with a map of where to go and take me with them, lead me by the arm into a yellow cab that would take us somewhere I wouldn’t have to think at all.

The wind picked up and the smoke from the fading orange ashes burnt out. That’s it. Sometimes it takes just being next to someone you don’t even know to make you realize the things you need to figure out in your life. I realized there on 5th avenue (and what other avenue in the world could afford such clarity!?) that I needed a map or a plan or a speeding cab or all three. I watched more people pass, cameras, necks tilting back so they could see the tops of the buildings, perhaps even the clear sky, all thinking: it’s so unseasonably warm, isn’t it?

The bells of a distant Cathedral started chiming Amazing Grace. I felt myself start to drift and the people passing now were just feet, just shoes, boots and sneakers and high heels. I watched them pace by, left right, left right, all with a plan or a map or a destination. They had it all figured out and I needed that too (don’t we all in a city so big and life so confusing?). Yet I remained motionless on the stairs, arms wrapping tighter, because I realized (the way you realize things on 5th avenue) that I am not a tourist. I am not passing through. I am here and so is New York, and the lights and the excitement and the possibility all just simply shift the longer you remain.

The weather here doesn’t make any sense, but then again nothing makes sense anymore. I sit directionless (and what is direction anyway?) as the bells ring in the air louder and echo over and over again how sweet, how sweet the sound.

Thanks for being so difficult.

Everyone talks about this time of year as a calendar opportunity to give thanks, and I don’t quite get it. What I figure, year after year of people talking about all the traveling they have to do, the traffic, the annoying family members, and the fact that The Today Show has both hosts reporting from traveling hotspots: Meredith in Atlanta Airport and Matt downtown at Grand Central Station, only proves that all that really comes with this holiday, is stress.

And here I am having panic attacks about cooking a five-course meal. Are there even any turkeys left in Manhattan grocery stores? I wouldn’t know, because I haven’t even started shopping yet. And that’s the thing - throughout all of this, sold out trains and delayed planes and a turkey at 350 degrees for three hours – it is seemingly only after overcoming these obstacles that we’re supposed then come to a spiritual clarity of thankfulness.

Whatever happened to being thankful that things were easy? Perhaps this kind of bitter clarity can only come from living in a city where everything is, all of the time, difficult - difficult with money, with living, with commuting, with meeting a decent man. So why should I spend the day slaving under the false pretense of thanks? Well I’m not this year. This year I’ll eat my turkey not thinking about thanks and pilgrims and those cut-out cardboard turkeys in the shape of a hand – no, I’ll just enjoy it and this city and how I've made it this far.

By all means New Yorkers should do this more often. The smart ones have figured it out and won’t be leaving the city tomorrow. They’ll stay up late, like me, and walk over to the west side and watch them rehearse the parade and blow up the floats. They’ll look at the day once removed knowing in their hearts what everyone has yet to catch on to - that giving thanks just once a year, and going through hell to get it, is highly overrated.

The secret is not in the potatoes.

The word tradition comes from the Latin word traditio which means "to hand down" or "to hand over."

Most of our lives, it would seem, are deeply imbedded in tradition. Things have been handed down and given over to us even if we didn’t want them, and now they’ve stuck and have become like so many things we didn’t choose as part of our identities.

Example: I don’t know how many people have had the chance to choose what may be the largest part of one’s identity – their name. No, you didn’t. You’re Marcia or Roger or Nick or Cathy because tradition dictated that your parents would name you. Marcia, Marcia, Marcia, when you longed to be a Heather or Kimberly.

How we celebrate the holidays is another thing we ourselves didn’t choose, but someone somewhere along the way specifically designated things like turkey and stuffing and Santa and cutting down trees to be the traditional ways to spend these times of year.

But what I want to know is - what do you do when these traditio become the traditio of yesteryear? I didn’t choose my name and people always get it wrong, (the equivalent of calling a Laura, Lucy or Leslie or Lucretia just because it starts with an "L,") and I didn’t want to have to choose to be the one to cook the Thanksgiving dinner this year. However things change and at the exact moment I was ready to throw it (tradition) out the window (9 floors up), the thought of a stuffing-less second to last Thursday of November made me start to feel all sorts of panicked.

Of course, in the end traditio persevered (as it always does) and I have to carry on whatever way I can along with it. So, now, I’ve been left in charge of the great undertaking of fitting a 12lb bird into a New York City apartment oven within the confines of a New York City apartment kitchen. "Oh, tradition," I’ve been muttering under my breath with no small amount of gravy-soaked bitterness.

So while it may be too late to change you name (all those monogrammed sweaters...) you can change some traditions enough to make them work for you - despite perhaps, the overwhelming feeling you might be getting at the very thought of having to stick your hand (the horror!) up a turkey’s bottom.

Oh, tradition. I don't think that was the "hand down" they were referring to.

It's red, again.

So it's here. Apparently. We've already gained that hour which doesn't feel much like a gain at all (can someone give me a few more, please?) and its dark around 3PM and by 6 it feels as though surely all stores and restaurants in all the city should all be closed and you should be getting ready for bed, poised to start brushing your teeth.

Needless, getting off of the subway today and walking towards the office I was half asleep thinking about daylight and savings and time and how it's all just a stupid tradition that happens every year (and we don’t know why) that we’re just OK with for no particular reason and have incorporated into our lives like the mundane chores of breathing and eating (“Time to turn back time? Oh, right right, just let me finish my coffee dear...”) And speaking of coffee, (as I do frequently), my thoughts of turning back time a la Cher (no one in New York ever seems to notice or care when you sing to yourself in public) were interrupted by bright flashes of red that caught my eye. What? And then flashes of green. People were carrying these colors in their hands as though there were a part of their briefcase or purse or and extension of their hand itself.

Could it be? No certainly it could not be. But then, upon closer inspection of a woman who blew past me, it was The Truth - Starbucks holiday cups are here.

And that's only the cup we're talking about. Around the corner I entered the store in need of my morning fix and I saw (who could help not to?) that the whole store was an explosion of red, with shelves upon shelves of holiday flasks, mugs and other festive paraphernalia. I looked around at all the happy red-cup-holding-New-Yorkers in desperate concern - can't we even get to Thanksgiving first?

Apparently not. It's November 8th and I'm already drinking Christmas Blend (smooth and spicy) out of a grandiosely decorated grande cup! "Pass the cheer," it implores me in white loopy writing. "Bequeath a wreath" it goes on to say, the words peeking out from under the bright green sleeve marked 60% post-consumer fiber. CAUTION: VERY HOT! How about a CAUTION: HOLIDAYS MUCH FURTHER AWAY THAN THEY APPEAR.

And that's the problem. Because holidays aren't always holidays. When you're a kid or when life is just swell, sure, you feel more than happy to "pass the cheer," while drinking from your snowflake adorned coffee cup. But once you get older and things in your life start to fall to shit, you can't help but feel annoyed at the early pressure to be happy. Bequeath a wreath? Are they out of their minds? I just had a man elbow me out of the way while getting on a downtown 1 train leaving me with that look of are-you-serious-we're-all-trying-to-get-to-work-here-too-you-know, so the only thing I'm looking to bequeath at the moment is a fast hard kick to a stomach.

But the truth is I'm not ready to be happy or excited about anything. I just can’t do it. Because the truth is you just can’t be when your life gets turned upside down and inside out and you have no idea which way you're heading. You lose someone you love (like I did), or you lose your job or your boyfriend or the thing you've been working so hard for so long to get, (poof!) and then sitting there drinking Christmas Blend you don't feel anything but the hot memories of a simpler time gone by getting caught in your throat.

Dammit.

Because we're all in this together.

I don't understand what brings us together in place so huge. It's like when you see that friend you've been trying to edge out of your life due to her sporadic bouts of insanity on the train and you try to ignore her but she inevitably sees you have you have no choice by to say "Jennifer! Hey!" when all you can really think about is that in a city with 8 million people were you really bound to run into each other at some point? (What luck!)

And as fate would have it, it’s always the people you don't want to see that you do, and the people you'd absolutely fall over to meet (dear gawker stalker, thanks for teasing me with those John Krasinski posts) you never ever do.

So when I was downtown at a bar with friends on Saturday night and noticed upon our exiting a belligerent guy in the street being held back by the bouncers, that while certainly being a bad night for him, I recognized him immediately as someone I didn't want to see.

Apparently, "dude grabbed me by the neck, man!" is what happened inside, and now this mussed up guy with his shirt half-tucked in is out on the street for merely "defending" himself. "Bro," he said pleading to one of the two tall body guards who wanted nothing more than to continue on with their mellow night of checking i.d's, so they told him they were sorry, but he really did need to leave. The drunken guy fell back on the sidewalk and I noticed it because like everyone else who happened to be out there at that exact moment, we all couldn't turn away. "C'mon man!" he said, floundering.

Walking away I was hoping I wouldn’t see one more thing I didn’t want to see, until we turned the corner and found someone's blackberry in a leaf-covered puddle. "Just leave it," someone said. However, being a true believer in karma, I took it with me determined to contact someone in this blackberry to perhaps finally reverse my never-see-anyone-I-want-to curse for good (John?!).

The key pad was water-logged, and after reading some recent emails I was able to determine that a Sam was the owner and it was, in fact, his birthday. (What bad luck!)

His friends were of course all too drunk to pick up their phones and so I took the blackberry home with me (determined!) and made a call to a friend the next morning. Sam ended up coming to my building to pick up his lost device which contained all sorts of well-wishing messages about his just having turned 28.

When Sam approached I realized that perhaps there is no such thing as karma, because dude-grabbed-me-by-the-neck,-man was indeed Sam. I don't know how he ended up losing his phone around the corner in a puddle while in the throes of being kicked out of a bar on his birthday in front of all his friends, but he did.

I know he didn't know what I knew, which was that I’d seen how much of a mess he really was. However now, in the light of day (and slightly more sober) he could have fooled me. Sam said, "thank you so much," and then handed me a $25 Starbucks card as my reward - and anyone who knows me, knows that there really is no better gift.

So in the end maybe karma isn't worth all that much, but $25 of free coffee, surely is.

Because everything gets lost.

We go out and
go to bars and
drink too much (sometimes) because we don’t know what we want or
who we are or
what we’re looking for.

But he was tall and
handsome and
he saw me sitting there and
asked me why I looked so sad.

"I’m not all sad," I said, sitting there
drinking a vodka soda in the middle of all those crowded people
waiting for a friend.

"You look it," he said, which might have been true but he didn’t know me or
who I was or
what I’ve been through (as
no one in New York ever does) - but
he felt strongly about me all the same.

"Well I’ve lost a lot, I guess," I said. "And sometimes it’s hard not to be."
He smiled and
shrugged and
said "Well I’ve just lost a girlfriend who has lost her mind," (calling him three times a day now!) and asked if I wanted to talk about it.

"Sure," I said, so we did, and
truth is Ashley really was a little bit crazy and
then he gave me his number on the back of a Come See Our Band Tomorrow Night pink flyer that was on the table, and
I folded it up and
put it in my pocket and
two days later when I did laundry I opened the dryer door only to see little pieces of pink paper scattered all about my towels.

Sometimes you lose things, (I guess), that you were never meant to have to begin with.
And
maybe for some of us,
(I guess) that goes for luck,
too.

New Yorkers we'll be.

It’s surprising how quickly you’re forced to grow up. Even on the eve of my 60th birthday (if I’m fortunate enough to make it), I’m sure there will be something that will surprise me, something that will make me feel what I even then won’t want to accept - that there’s no going back, and then wishing, (perhaps), as I blow out the candles, that wasn’t the case.

Because you can think a lot of things, I think, about who you want to choose to become. As a kid you think you can choose, let yourself think you have infinite possibilities and non-expendable dreams. You even sat at home, like I did, in your little room in your little town thinking about a world outside of your own backyard, and aspiring to one day be a part of it.

Then one day, far from that when everything in your life is falling away from you faster than you can reach out and take hold of it, you’re sitting on the subway, barely awake, unable to read, thinking about your life and what’s becoming of it as you speed and stop, speed and stop 72nd, 66th, 59th...feeling like nothing makes sense, when a flash of light shakes you out of your stupor.
You look up only to notice that the foreign couple across from you in socks and sandals, just took your picture. Your gut reaction is to think that you got it all wrong, that the camera perhaps went off by accident. However upon further inspection you see them looking at you still and you feel oddly exposed. Through their thick accents they try to explain away your confused look: "We just wanted to take a picture of a real New Yorker," the man says, innocently.

It is then, I think, at that exact moment that you recognize who you are in the world. That before long the place you live can define your life. That your identity lies now in the pavement that surrounds you. However what’s the most interesting, is that until that stranger across from you said it, you’d seemingly forgotten through all the mess of life, about that thought you had all those years ago about leaving your small room and your small town to become something more, to become...a New Yorker?

You grow up and meanings change and things can happen from one point to the next that take you away from those divine thoughts of infinite possibility and non-expendable dreams. You regard the strangers now with silent smile of thanks simply for reminding you that not everything gets lost along the way.

I am a New Yorker you think to yourself that morning and that day and maybe even the rest of your life. Maybe that’s what will surprise me when I’m 60 - that I still am. What’s surprising now? That no matter how far away from home I go, how many pictures of me be in other people’s photo albums, or how fast I grow up - it’s easy (even if I sometimes forget) to remember that what I’ve chosen counts for something, even if most of the time it may not feel much like anything at all.

The fundamental structure of the Universe. (Also known, as Time).

It’s October and I don’t know how any of us are supposed to be getting anything done now knowing how fast time is moving. I can’t even think about starting something knowing now how quickly the hours and days are turning into weeks and months.

October. There’s nothing in this month that’s worthwhile except maybe Columbus Day (Which is Monday. See? Time really does fly) because some people get the day off of work, but most of us don’t and it’s really just there as a reminder that a long time ago some guy showed up here so that today you can be going to work to an office where you sit at a desk and look at a computer and answer calls and questions and requests and don’t nearly make enough money per year to really make you happy in a city that’s all together too difficult to live in most of the time - simply because he showed up with a flag and staked the ground for your future.

And your future is your right now which is, as you read this, quickly getting away from you. I would think that if Columbus pulled into New York Harbor today with his Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, he’d turn his boats around right quick, not even stopping for oranges to help prevent the other half of his crew from getting scurvy on the journey home. That’s how bad I think life in New York can be sometimes because of its always-moving-never-stopping-pushing-you-forward-even-if-you-don’t-want-to-ness.

If I could venture a guess I’d say that Chris was an overall mellow guy who was OK spending three months getting from one place to another. Because that was before cars and jet planes and subways and trains. Things took time then - transportation and the postal service, and courtship and the building of cities. And I figure the longer something takes to happen, the more time you feel like you actually have.

So New York in all its fastness where you can get a job and lose it all in one day, along with your apartment, your subway pass, your boyfriend, your mind, and the building of your future, it can force you to look at the coming of October like the end of the (new) world, and have you searching the yellow pages as to where you can get a personal navigator all your own just to help direct you through the crooked passages of your life you have yet to get to (namely, November). Because if time is any indicator - it will be here (your life, your future and November) before you know it, so you might as well be prepared.

Tours

I’m not much for guided tours, though
obviously some people are.

They’re taken through the city
on tops of busses or in horse-drawn carriages.
And through the MET from the Impressionist Wing (now closed for renovations)
to the American Wing with head sets and
forward moving gestures giving them reassurance that
"This way please, folks, " will get them to where they want to go.

I figure I learn more just going out on my own -
and hoping for the best.

And don’t you usually, though?
Just think about all those hours in the classroom
or minutes in front of that overhead projector...

Don’t you learn the most when you get home
and get your head straight
and some peace and quiet
and
a chance to look at everything
the way you
want to look at it?

I figure I’ve learned the most important things
(and sometimes the hard way) of my life
just out there on my own.

Because maybe when it comes to learning
the most important lessons in life -
no guide in the world would, could, or can ever be great enough,
to get you through.

And your heart's still beating

When you lose something you can’t get back, it’s easy to feel like you’re lost yourself. And I don’t mean just misplacing things, I mean really losing them. You can re-trace your steps all you want, count through your entire day from the moment you pulled back the covers hating through every movement how much you have to face another day, suppressing the urge to throw that beep beep beeping alarm clock against the wall.

I’m not talking about misplacing. We can misplace all we want because with misplacing there’s a very distinct chance that whatever we’ve lost, we will inevitably get back. And that’s all we need isn’t it? That logical answer of: well it couldn’t have just disappeared into thin air?! Your keys, a book, your ipod, subway pass, glasses, cell phone, that coupon or letter or picture. I just had it, you think to yourself. I just had it.

When something is misplaced for too long you can tend to lose It. You start to open doors and drawers you haven’t opened in years. Suddenly you’re Uncle Billy in It’s A Wonderful Life when Mr. Potter takes George Bailey’s $5000 for the Building and Loan. Crazy Uncle Billy. But that’s just the thing. In the end there always is that logical answer when it comes to misplacing.. There is a Mr. Potter or a sneaky magazine just barely covering what you’ve been digging for. There are my keys! (d’oh!) Right there on the counter!

But there are some things in life that you can’t get back. They are missed, not just mis-placed. And your logical will struggle with your non-logical and most of the time you don’t even feel like you’re functioning on the same plane as everyone else. Because when you lose certain things for good, like a person or a love or a chance of a lifetime, you find yourself not only not believing that it’s a wonderful life - you find yourself not believing in much of anything at all. Because when you lose certain things for good, sometimes you can’t help but lose yourself.

I just had it. Just, just, just. You can just have a lot of things before they slip through your fingers. Just-had-it becomes never-will-again. So what do you do then? You keep a closer eye out (watch, wallet, keys, check! check! check!), file things away, classify and organize and try to take part - all while reminding yourself that your heart's still beating, and justs are just justs, and there’s nothing you can do about it, and you will find what you’re looking for eventually.

I-knew-it-all-along

I always leave New York thinking things will make more sense somewhere else. Away from the hustle of the packed streets, the people and the noise, somehow everything in my life that doesn’t make sense (and right now that seems like most everything) will become more clear,(surely it’s all this smog that’s been making things so hazy?).

Going to a different city is like booking a ticket to your own hindsight. The ability to take yourself out of your daily life gives you the ability to look at your life once removed. In a foreign place surrounded by unknown people you can look at yourself in a different light (and a different time zone). And while looking back is dangerous (oh, the mistakes I’ve made), it (like bleach) helps to clarify things.

Looking down on the patchwork quilt of the Midwest you can begin to wonder about those stretching miles of grass and trees with long and winding roads and find the answers to some of the questions you’ve been asking yourself back in the city (out out damn spot). Life isn’t just street corners and traffic jams and high-rise apartments. There is a world of open space and fresh air and quiet and reasonably priced real estate that’s easy to forget exists after too much time in Gotham.

But you can learn just as much about things flying back to a place as flying away from it. No matter where you travel to, hindsight (like life) stays the same, and some stains can never be removed. But you can at least take comfort in the perspective that comes at 30,00 feet, and recognize when the topography gets less flat and is suddenly full with lights, that it sure is good to be home.

Everything...leaves.

I think it’s strange how I’m always surprised at the end of every season how quickly it leaves. It’s like a trick that time plays on me, a magician in charge of their passing, and in one quick movement of a handkerchief - they’re gone. Poof.

Walking through Central Park tonight (as it’s getting darker earlier) I think I saw summer leave. There were the same people about, running or walking, seeing the sights in horse-drawn carriages taking in, perhaps, their last night in Manhattan, ready to fly off tomorrow morning back to where they came from, back to...home.

Walking down 5th avenue alongside the park, I could see in the distance the rows of lining trees, from 86th to 58th, their leaves spreading thin - burnt orange and tan, dry falling fall leaves already collecting on the ground. Summer left, you see, and I hardly noticed. Another summer, another year. I could see the city then at the height of summer, all bright and green, full of warm breezes and sweltering sun.

We never notice, do we? what’s there when it’s there. Like the seasons, these things we take for granted that slowly incorporate themselves into our lives that soon we come to depend on them (our sunny Saturdays and sweet Sundays) - leave fast.

Because like all good things you can’t always see (these too shall pass), one afternoon when the sun is setting far sooner than it should, you’ll find yourself walking through Central Park and see that The Chill has set in yet again -as quickly as light now turns to night, before you even had a chance to say goodbye.

What is it about fall that makes me want to buy #2 pencils?

Maybe it’s because then, when people still felt #2 pencils were of the utmost importance (caution: please use only a #2 pencil for this exam!), life was simpler.

Filling out bubble sheets was easier than filling out time sheets.

But so much then (with important #2 pencils), I couldn’t wait for now. Oh how silly and stupid I was, wanting to rush rush rush through the ridiculous (remarkable) routine of childhood. From the future (now) I would go back and talk to my little self and say (along with re-thinking those penny loafers) "Slow down, please. Because where you are now is better than where you’re going."

Now, it’s 9-5 or 9-… and time is short and life is up, work, sleep, repeat.

Then, time was infinite, awake, bed time? and I read Where the Red Fern Grows maybe a hundred times.

If I could, from the future, go back and talk to little me, I would tell myself a few things:

Slow down, read Where the Red Fern Grows 101 times, appreciate grass stains and no deadlines and not having to count calories. Stand up to/then stay away from Alex Webber, who always tormented everyone (me) during recess, and most importantly, never ever be caught without a #2 pencil.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.