It’s easy to lose touch with people. Life in New York (and everywhere) gets busy quickly and suddenly that plan for an email, or a drinks meet-up or weeknight dinner has come and gone, leaving you wondering if perhaps too much time has elapsed that you need to rethink the relationship altogether.
A longtime friends birthday arrived last week and I sent a text (why I never call anyone on their birthday anymore I can’t say) with well wishes and signing off by telling them how much I love them. Five minutes later I got a text back:
Wrong #.
(Love hurts.) Mz. Auterberry.
Wow. So much time had elapsed that this close friend had changed their phone number and I wasn’t aware of it. Actually, much more to the point, this friend changed numbers and never even bothered to tell me!
I always say that maintaining a relationship of any kind is a lot of work, but this was just too much. Mz. Auterberry (whoever she is), basically summed of my overall feelings on the subject, literally sending me a text with what very well may be the story of my life: terribly sorry, wrong number, try again, better luck next time.
September 28, 2010
September 22, 2010
Fall is here, hear the yell. Back to school, ring the bell.
Fall is here (tomorrow, officially) and I can tell because there is a chill in the air and I suddenly feel compelled to purchase #2 pencils.
There’s a school across the street from my apartment for little people who look to be in kindergarten, and now each morning as I (late, tired) run out the door to a day I know will keep me in front of a computer at a desk dealing with things of moderate to high importance, I think briefly as I see those faces about what it was like to be young, and naïve and blissfully unaware of just how crazy this life can be.
They are outside, usually running around or playing with friends as the parents section off into groups and talk about their latest purchase at Bergdorf’s. Some I pass on the way to the subway being dragged by their parents as they cry and scream that they don’t want to go (I know the feeling), as though sitting through a day of kindergarten is the worst thing in the world that could possibly happen to them.
I don’t remember much of kindergarten but I happen to recall just sitting around being read to. I think I wrote my name a lot, which was easy enough after the first few tries. I attempted drawing pictures in crayon of stick figures, (my talent hasn’t changed much over the years) and was praised as a great artist. In the morning my mother picked out my clothes, provided me with a lunch (it was always there, like magic!) and transported me to and from the institution leaving me with basically nothing to worry about aside from making friends (all it took was a cookie swap!)
After a long subway ride I got to the office in my last clean dress (dry cleaning is expensive!) I opened an inbox with over 100 emails, had an alert that my credit card payment was due (the horror), I had a meeting in an hour, and having been late and skipped breakfast, my stomach was beginning to make all sorts of noises.
So, at the start of what promises to be a long day, I feel confident that in time those children I passed this morning will look back and realize, like I do, like we all do, just how great they had it when they didn’t have to do anything at all.
There’s a school across the street from my apartment for little people who look to be in kindergarten, and now each morning as I (late, tired) run out the door to a day I know will keep me in front of a computer at a desk dealing with things of moderate to high importance, I think briefly as I see those faces about what it was like to be young, and naïve and blissfully unaware of just how crazy this life can be.
They are outside, usually running around or playing with friends as the parents section off into groups and talk about their latest purchase at Bergdorf’s. Some I pass on the way to the subway being dragged by their parents as they cry and scream that they don’t want to go (I know the feeling), as though sitting through a day of kindergarten is the worst thing in the world that could possibly happen to them.
I don’t remember much of kindergarten but I happen to recall just sitting around being read to. I think I wrote my name a lot, which was easy enough after the first few tries. I attempted drawing pictures in crayon of stick figures, (my talent hasn’t changed much over the years) and was praised as a great artist. In the morning my mother picked out my clothes, provided me with a lunch (it was always there, like magic!) and transported me to and from the institution leaving me with basically nothing to worry about aside from making friends (all it took was a cookie swap!)
After a long subway ride I got to the office in my last clean dress (dry cleaning is expensive!) I opened an inbox with over 100 emails, had an alert that my credit card payment was due (the horror), I had a meeting in an hour, and having been late and skipped breakfast, my stomach was beginning to make all sorts of noises.
So, at the start of what promises to be a long day, I feel confident that in time those children I passed this morning will look back and realize, like I do, like we all do, just how great they had it when they didn’t have to do anything at all.
August 2, 2010
America is my country, Manhattan is my hometown.
Yes, it’s possible to be away from home for so long that upon returning you come to appreciate it a bit more. It’s also possible to become so caught up in this burnt-out, over-worked, worn-out culture, that the world you see around you on a daily basis can come so become so tedious you no longer see it anymore. There comes a point when it is just a place with concrete sidewalks filled with lots of people and lots of cars and you yourself are just there in it, drifting, until the next day happens to find you.
I’ve been away for a while at a time when I think it could almost be defined as divine intervention (if such a thing should exist). The city and its heat were weighing extremely heavy on my shoulders, and in twelve days away I found myself on a plane every morning, and every evening going to sleep in an entirely new and foreign place (Oh, what a thing that can do for a person if the timing is right, indulging that urge to run away!).
And then I was back, and after traveling around the country for almost two weeks there wasn’t any better sight than the Manhattan skyline looming in the distance. I also found it very reassuring that at the end of this long and tiring time away from the buzzing streets of this place, that once I got off the train at Penn Station I was immediately thrown right back into my old life. Within moments I was out on 33rd and 8th vying for a taxi cab, arm up, suitcase in tow, with people all pushing and yelling and trying to get one before me. A great thing about this place (a trait I wish more people had), is that it doesn’t waste any time getting reacquainted with you - what you see is what you get.
In a cab, windows down on a warn night in Manhattan speeding up West End Avenue, home (one of the best feelings in the world), I thought that yes, it’s possible to be away for so long that when you come back you have a new appreciation for the world and your place in it, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant.
One just hopes the feeling lasts, of course. At least until the next chance there is to escape.
June 7, 2010
What is it that you want?
At 10PM on the uptown 1 train I was headed home when at 23rd street, a man, drunk, got on my subway car and promptly sat directly in front of me. Ok, so maybe not directly, but he was across from me and I knew right away it was going to be trouble. He starting talking, about what I couldn’t at first say as it was a lot of words grouped together that didn’t make much sense. However it was the emphasis behind each word he spoke that made me wonder if maybe he was trying to say something important.
So I did what I usually do when I think I’m on the brink of hearing something really juicy that I’m perhaps not meant to, I kept my eyes on the book in my lap, and kept my ears open.
"What is it you want?" he asked. He was slurring really, so it sounded more like, "Whatisityouwant?" really fast and all smudged together, but I got the message. I’m not sure who he was talking to exactly, because at this point, around 42nd street, everyone who had been sitting on his side of the car was now on mine, a group of about eight of us all sitting there crowded on one side, and him, sitting there across from us alone.
"Whatisityouwanthuh?" he asked, perhaps to all of us. I look at him and then to the man next to me, my eyes leaving my book for just a moment because it seemed to me that our guy across the way was making eye contact with him. "Whatisityouwantouttalifemanhuh? You wannajob? You wannalady? You wannanicelady?" he said, and then I saw he was making eye contact with me. I looked back to my book.
He then proceeded to pontificate on things like, "Materialism," and "Capitalism," while now laying down along the seats across from us, talking up at the ceiling as though to some audience out there who really needed his help. He was actually making a few points for someone so drunk he couldn’t really keep his eyes open.
"Mayflower!" he said suddenly and sat up. At this point he was on the edge of his seat and I felt like this was it, this was what I’d been waiting for. This was what had been keeping this guy up at night. This guy who, obviously has a job, is old enough to have worked some years and seen some things and to have lived a life where it hasn’t always been easy. This is what has caused him to leave work early and head to the bar and sit there and throw his hard-earned money away on beers so that he could try to forget or make sense of this one thing that he just couldn’t seem to get past.
"Mayflower," he said again, his finger pointing at us like a teacher in front of a classroom. We all sat there as the train rattled on, some of us pretending not to see, some of us (including me) now looking straight at him, this one man in the middle of an otherwise empty subway car.
Mayflower," he said seriously. "I know ain’t from the Mayflower. Maybe you are, maybe you all come over here on that ship cause you got a purpose," he said. "But me. I ain’t from the Mayflower. No, Iain’tfromtheMayflower," he stopped and lowered his head, shaking it slowly before looking up at us again, "So," he said with what I thought was the perfect amount of dramatic affect for someone so obliterated. "Where does that leave me? Where does that mean I’m from?"
I looked back at him in the silence he’d created and wanted to tell him that it didn’t matter where he was from, surely it mattered more now in this instant that he had some idea of where he was going to (and that he hadn’t missed it a few stops back).
The guy next to me shook his head and laughed.
"Oh, yes," he said softly and nodding his head. "I knowI knowIknow, man. You gottajob you gottagetupfor in the mornin. I know," he said and laughed and leaned back in the seat and smiled like he knew something we didn’t. "I get you. I get you’re tired, I know. But c’mon man," he said and then after some thought decided to apparently really cut right to the chase and shouted: "FUCK THE JOB! WHAT IS IT THAT YOU WANT?"
We sat stunned. Satisfied and letting this sink in for a while, he smiled, closed his eyes and lay back down on the seats.
Fuck the job. Hm. Now that’s something. What is it that I want?
When my stop came he was passed out and snoring loudly. I left him there, figuring that maybe he never got around to asking himself what he really wanted until perhaps maybe today, when he had a particularly bad day at the office, and looked around and realized that he in fact somehow didn’t have anything he wanted at all. Perhaps then he proceeded to drink until he couldn’t remember what those things he wanted were in an effort so it wouldn’t hurt as bad not having them.
Whatisitthatyouwant? All I know is I hope he finds it, and that one way or another, he makes it home.
March 22, 2010
Of all the mornings.
We all come to New York because we want to get somewhere. No matter where we’ve come from or where we’ve been before, none of it matters. Because. It’s here on the surface of this town that we know (hope, pray, wish, dream, pray some more), we’ll get to where we’re meant to be. But. What’s so funny, (and sometimes you have no choice but to laugh) is, that at the exact moment you find yourself in a rush to get to what could be, The Next Big Thing of your... LIFE, (and maybe it’s LIFE, not just New York), the exact moment you’ve got that somewhere there right in your sights, is, (undoubtedly) the exact moment you find yourself stuck underground on the downtown 1 local train for 40 minutes, and miss it (poof!) entirely.
February 16, 2010
Empire State of Mind.
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve wanted to say something. To the stranger sitting next to me on the subway whose earphones are so loud I can’t concentrate on the A section of the Times, because all I can hear is Jay-Z talkin’ bout how he grew up in a place famous for movie scenes where people take Gypsy Cabs (Actually, these streets won’t make you feel brand new. In fact, more often than not, they’ll make you lose your mind).
To the person standing on the left side of the escalator in rush-hour, I resist the urge to yell – STAND TO THE RIGHT! To the person who stops just at the top of the stairs to check their blackberry, I resist the urge to inform them - OTHER PEOPLE EXIST! And on and on and on.
However after over four years in this city, I’ve come to find that you really have to pick your battles. Because the moment you choose to address each irritating thing that happens to you in the course of say, just your morning commute, pretty soon you’ll have to start resisting the urge to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.
This morning was a prime example. An emergency on the 96th street downtown local tracks made me take the train from 86th up to 96th only to transfer then to a downtown 2 or 3 train (it’s early, it’s snowing and I’m already irritable). By the time I made it down to Houston, the local 1 train was packed. Upon exiting the crowded, hot train, one rider made one of the most common (and most irritating) mistakes – she shouted “excuse me!” to everyone in front of her while also trying to push her way through the crowd. Note: this is the most irritating when it’s clear that everyone else is also trying to get off the train as calmly and semi-orderly as possible.
True to form, I resisted the urge to say something. However the gentleman next to me had apparently had enough. To the woman, (who like most people in these situations thought she was the only person who mattered), he said: “Calm down lady, we’re all trying to get off here too.” The woman, (not surprisingly) didn’t take this very well. She proceeded to tell him to “fuck off,” to which he replied, calmly and loudly while shaking his head, “Boy, are you fucking irritating.” The crowd laughed and I smiled inwardly.
The best part of this little tableau however, was that after such a declaration I would think the ideal thing to do would be to deliver the stinging comment and then flee from the scene. But karma being what it is, after telling this woman in front of a train full of people that she’s “fucking irritating,” the button on the cuff of his winter jacket got caught, (in what looked odds-wise to be tantamount to hitting the lottery), on the small little fabric handle of her umbrella.
Oh.
I then watched as these two enemies had to stop, (attached now), and work together to disentangle themselves. As I passed by and he was finally freed, I’m fairly certain I heard him tell her he was sorry.
Let’s hear it for New York.
To the person standing on the left side of the escalator in rush-hour, I resist the urge to yell – STAND TO THE RIGHT! To the person who stops just at the top of the stairs to check their blackberry, I resist the urge to inform them - OTHER PEOPLE EXIST! And on and on and on.
However after over four years in this city, I’ve come to find that you really have to pick your battles. Because the moment you choose to address each irritating thing that happens to you in the course of say, just your morning commute, pretty soon you’ll have to start resisting the urge to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.
This morning was a prime example. An emergency on the 96th street downtown local tracks made me take the train from 86th up to 96th only to transfer then to a downtown 2 or 3 train (it’s early, it’s snowing and I’m already irritable). By the time I made it down to Houston, the local 1 train was packed. Upon exiting the crowded, hot train, one rider made one of the most common (and most irritating) mistakes – she shouted “excuse me!” to everyone in front of her while also trying to push her way through the crowd. Note: this is the most irritating when it’s clear that everyone else is also trying to get off the train as calmly and semi-orderly as possible.
True to form, I resisted the urge to say something. However the gentleman next to me had apparently had enough. To the woman, (who like most people in these situations thought she was the only person who mattered), he said: “Calm down lady, we’re all trying to get off here too.” The woman, (not surprisingly) didn’t take this very well. She proceeded to tell him to “fuck off,” to which he replied, calmly and loudly while shaking his head, “Boy, are you fucking irritating.” The crowd laughed and I smiled inwardly.
The best part of this little tableau however, was that after such a declaration I would think the ideal thing to do would be to deliver the stinging comment and then flee from the scene. But karma being what it is, after telling this woman in front of a train full of people that she’s “fucking irritating,” the button on the cuff of his winter jacket got caught, (in what looked odds-wise to be tantamount to hitting the lottery), on the small little fabric handle of her umbrella.
Oh.
I then watched as these two enemies had to stop, (attached now), and work together to disentangle themselves. As I passed by and he was finally freed, I’m fairly certain I heard him tell her he was sorry.
Let’s hear it for New York.
February 10, 2010
The snow, today.
By the time I reached the office this morning (early, 8) I had accumulated about an inch of snow on my overall person, and three inches on the grande bold from Starbucks that I had just purchased a block earlier.
If there’s one thing worse than the grumpy crowded morning rush-hour subway crowd it’s the grumpy, wet, cold, morning rush-hour subway crowd, so I did what I could today to avoid them.
I, like everyone else, wanted to stay in bed and watch the snowfall from under the warmth of the covers through the little windows of my little apartment. Upon waking up I remembered the time when Snow Days were an actual possibility, when I would wake up at ungodly early hours just to turn on the local news and wait eagerly in the darkness of the living room for the name of my school to scroll across the bottom. Even then, it rarely worked out in my favor.
I wish sometimes (more often lately) that the world weren’t as serious and that when a blizzard hits a city with 8 million people, we’d all collectively agree that the best thing to do by far would be to simply not go outdoors.
But we’re all here now with wet hair and wet socks and cold coffee agreeing that being an adult really sucks. Especially in this kind of weather. I suppose all we can do now is accept it and keep our eyes on our computer screens and wait (eagerly) for an announcement that we’ll all be able to go home early.
January 4, 2010
It’s so cold in Manhattan I can’t feel a thing.
Ever notice how sometimes people blow into your life like the chilly winter air whipping down Broadway, and just when you think that they’ll become a permanent thing (like you do when it’s 17 degrees out but feels like 2 and you can’t even imagine what the city felt like in summer when you were walking around in shorts and t-shirts...), they suddenly blow out again without you even realizing it?
It hits you - bam! - the way that first warm day does when you open your door and the sun’s out and you realize that you no longer need to push your hands so far into your coat pockets to protect yourself.
I wonder why it is that some people are like the seasons, and can never seem to manage to stick around for very long.
All I know is I can’t wait for spring.
It hits you - bam! - the way that first warm day does when you open your door and the sun’s out and you realize that you no longer need to push your hands so far into your coat pockets to protect yourself.
I wonder why it is that some people are like the seasons, and can never seem to manage to stick around for very long.
All I know is I can’t wait for spring.
January 3, 2010
Another year.
On New Years Eve I was at a dinner party downtown, and as the ball dropped forty blocks away in Times Square and I had no one to kiss (will that ever change?) I have to admit I thought seriously about how wrong I’d gotten so many things over the past 365 days. I resolved then and there that in the New Year I’d try to get a few more things right.
On my way home I got on the uptown express train and sat across from a guy who, after a few minutes, closed his eyes, turned green, and then proceeded to throw up all over himself.
I guess some things never change, no matter how hard you try.
On my way home I got on the uptown express train and sat across from a guy who, after a few minutes, closed his eyes, turned green, and then proceeded to throw up all over himself.
I guess some things never change, no matter how hard you try.
December 8, 2009
it's always the last thing you see.
it’s always the last thing you see -
after he's been sitting across from you in a suit for almost eight stops on the subway
and he’s smiling at you and you’re too scared to smile back.
it’s always the last thing you see -
after he asks you where you’re headed
and if anyone has ever told you that you have the most extraordinary eyes.
it’s always the last thing you see -
after you, for a split second actually think this could be the beginning of a great New York love story you’ve been hoping for,
the wedding ring.
November 30, 2009
December 1.
We’ve made it through Thanksgiving. The turkey has been cooked for over four hours and we’ve eaten it in under four minutes. Now Christmas, the other big holiday that they’ve so cruelly dropped in between now and New Years, is now upon us.
I’ve tried to look the other way for weeks now, since Halloween when stores were already promoting their holiday merchandise in windows all over the city. I’ve tried to look the other way, but I’m poised again to now send out cards and buy gifts I can’t afford for people I care about but certainly haven’t seen enough of since last Christmas.
Why is that? Busy I guess. Lost in our own lives, which is easy enough to do. This morning watching the Today Show, my coffee was getting cold as they told me that the tree lighting is in two days (I nearly dropped the cup). Two days. And in 31 days this year will officially be over. I now know what Charlie Brown was talking about when he said Christmas just ended up making him feel depressed. And no amount of gifts, glasses of highly-caloric egg nog (note: now available in grocery stores) and tidings of good cheer can do much to change that (back off, Linus).
Last night as I was walking up Broadway in 65 degree heat (global warming?), I saw on almost every block, wooden stands holding up trees. Like clockwork they appear every year right after Thanksgiving, and as I passed one near 87th a signing voice imploring me to dream of a white Christmas drifted through the tinny speakers of an old radio. A family of four picked out the perfect Fraser Fir ($90?!) and the Dad hefted it over his shoulder to walk it back to their apartment.
Ok, so I guess I can’t look the other way any longer. December and Christmas in New York are staring me right in the face. And while I can hardly believe it, (and can’t afford a tree) they’ll light the tree in Rockefeller in two days and I’ll eventually go over to see it. I’ll get used to the smell of pine walking to the subway just in time for it to be replaced by dried old trees thrown out and left behind on the sidewalk.
It’s the holiday cycle, and as much as I try to resist it every year, it’s unavoidable. But I figure I’ve made it through Thanksgiving, and if I just keep my head down long enough I’ll make it through to January soon enough, too.
November 19, 2009
taxi cab confessions.
At one o’clock in the morning after a long night at Smith and Mills, half-drunk on Jameson’s in the back of a cab speeding up the West Side Highway, one of the last things I expected to have to deal with was a meaningful conversation with someone…especially not the driver of my cab.
"Gray’s Papaya," he said.
I think we were out of Tribeca at this point and nearing the 20’s, but I was barely paying attention. I was looking out the window at the city flying by, already trying to figure out how I was going to make it to the office in the morning.
"I’m sorry?" I asked.
"Gray’s Papaya, you know, the hotdog place on 6th?"
"Yeah I know it. What about it?"
"I got a ticket there today. Picked up a passenger while stopped in the crosswalk and the cop gave me a ticket, can you believe that?"
He sounded baffled.
"Is that illegal?" I asked.
"Well…yeah," he said. "But that’s not the point. You know those coppers got nothing better to do on a Wednesday night than write me up picking up someone by the curb."
"Yeah. Really ridiculous," I said. It didn’t sound like much of an outrage to me, but he seemed terribly upset.
"Of course it is!" he shouted.
"Well it’s near the end of the month, you know how those cops are…" I said cringing.
What was I even saying? I don’t how those cops "are," but it felt like the right thing to say.
"Oh I know it," he said. "And I should have known that woman was going to be trouble when I saw her standing there. Should never have picked her up."
We were quiet for a while and I wondered if maybe I was supposed to say something else, like about how women are trouble and that I was sorry he’d had had such a bad night.
"You know what I really want to do?" he asked, and I had a feeling he was going to tell me regardless.
"What’s that?"
"Be a doorman."
I nodded in the backseat but I don’t think he could see me.
"And not just any doorman, not an apartment building doorman, a hotel doorman. That’s where the good money is. Good money."
"That sounds like a great idea," I said thinking it over. "Why haven’t you done it?"
He was quiet for a moment before he spoke.
"I don’t know, actually," he said and it sounded like he surprised himself.
"That doesn’t really sound like a good enough reason to me," I said.
"I know," he said shaking his head. "I don’t know what I’m doing, why I keep putting it off…"
"Listen," I said, taking my A-1 professional tone. "What you need to do is make a list of the top ten hotels in the city you think you’d like to work for, and then call them. Get your resume ready and just show up, talk to their HR departments, whatever it takes."
"I know," he said, and he sounded like he really knew. "I know you’re right. I mean there’s the Sheraton, The Marriott, the Hilton…"
"All good places," I said channeling my best Dr. Phil. "But you need to actually do it, talking about it won’t actually get you the job."
"But…what if I’m not qualified?"
"You’re qualified. Of course you’re qualified. Look, you must be pretty prompt, I mean you’ve got to get in this car every day don’t you? And you’re a people person, right? I mean you’re in here all day talking to customers. What more could a doorman need to do?"
"You’re right," he said, nodding his head now. "I know you’re right. I don’t know what I’m so scared about."
"I don’t know either. This is New York," I said. "You can be anything you want as long as you try hard enough."
When we reached my corner I felt in that moment a great love for this city surge up in my chest.
Why in the world would anyone ever want to live anywhere else?
"You’re right. I’m really going to do it. I am. Thanks so much for your advice," he said and then turned back and smiled at me through the hole in the partition. "You owe me nineteen bucks."
"Gray’s Papaya," he said.
I think we were out of Tribeca at this point and nearing the 20’s, but I was barely paying attention. I was looking out the window at the city flying by, already trying to figure out how I was going to make it to the office in the morning.
"I’m sorry?" I asked.
"Gray’s Papaya, you know, the hotdog place on 6th?"
"Yeah I know it. What about it?"
"I got a ticket there today. Picked up a passenger while stopped in the crosswalk and the cop gave me a ticket, can you believe that?"
He sounded baffled.
"Is that illegal?" I asked.
"Well…yeah," he said. "But that’s not the point. You know those coppers got nothing better to do on a Wednesday night than write me up picking up someone by the curb."
"Yeah. Really ridiculous," I said. It didn’t sound like much of an outrage to me, but he seemed terribly upset.
"Of course it is!" he shouted.
"Well it’s near the end of the month, you know how those cops are…" I said cringing.
What was I even saying? I don’t how those cops "are," but it felt like the right thing to say.
"Oh I know it," he said. "And I should have known that woman was going to be trouble when I saw her standing there. Should never have picked her up."
We were quiet for a while and I wondered if maybe I was supposed to say something else, like about how women are trouble and that I was sorry he’d had had such a bad night.
"You know what I really want to do?" he asked, and I had a feeling he was going to tell me regardless.
"What’s that?"
"Be a doorman."
I nodded in the backseat but I don’t think he could see me.
"And not just any doorman, not an apartment building doorman, a hotel doorman. That’s where the good money is. Good money."
"That sounds like a great idea," I said thinking it over. "Why haven’t you done it?"
He was quiet for a moment before he spoke.
"I don’t know, actually," he said and it sounded like he surprised himself.
"That doesn’t really sound like a good enough reason to me," I said.
"I know," he said shaking his head. "I don’t know what I’m doing, why I keep putting it off…"
"Listen," I said, taking my A-1 professional tone. "What you need to do is make a list of the top ten hotels in the city you think you’d like to work for, and then call them. Get your resume ready and just show up, talk to their HR departments, whatever it takes."
"I know," he said, and he sounded like he really knew. "I know you’re right. I mean there’s the Sheraton, The Marriott, the Hilton…"
"All good places," I said channeling my best Dr. Phil. "But you need to actually do it, talking about it won’t actually get you the job."
"But…what if I’m not qualified?"
"You’re qualified. Of course you’re qualified. Look, you must be pretty prompt, I mean you’ve got to get in this car every day don’t you? And you’re a people person, right? I mean you’re in here all day talking to customers. What more could a doorman need to do?"
"You’re right," he said, nodding his head now. "I know you’re right. I don’t know what I’m so scared about."
"I don’t know either. This is New York," I said. "You can be anything you want as long as you try hard enough."
When we reached my corner I felt in that moment a great love for this city surge up in my chest.
Why in the world would anyone ever want to live anywhere else?
"You’re right. I’m really going to do it. I am. Thanks so much for your advice," he said and then turned back and smiled at me through the hole in the partition. "You owe me nineteen bucks."
November 16, 2009
It's unseasonably warm in New York.
I know now that I have no idea where summer went. In fact, as I walk down the streets of Manhattan, leaves turning yellow and falling making the ground slippery in the rain beneath my feet, I wonder where the last year of my life has gone to.
I always hate people who lament the passing of time as though they weren’t awake for it, as though they’d gone out of town or fell into a coma and can’t at all be held responsible for what’s happened while they weren’t paying attention. Where has the time gone?! they plead to each other. Its been flying! Time just packing its bags and settling in first class on a trip far away while their backs were turned.
But this time, (I hate to admit it) I agree with them. I agree with every word they’re saying because the more I try to recall what I’ve done since this year began, the more I don’t feel like I’ve done much of anything at all. And instead of having the cold air of fall to numb my brain so I don’t have to think too long about all the time I’ve wasted (what was I thinking?), all the opportunities I’ve let pass me by (so many and I still can’t understand why...), I’ve got the warm humid air of spring coming through just a week before Thanksgiving to ensure that I feel it all. Each little pang of regret. Each fuzzy memory of an entire year gone - poof - just like that.
I want this warm weather to leave like the leaves on the trees will soon, entirely, so that I can try to pretend that next year things will be different. I’ll take the cold and snow now please, so that I can try to pretend that with another change of the weather (and trust me, it will happen fast) maybe I’ll be different, too.
I always hate people who lament the passing of time as though they weren’t awake for it, as though they’d gone out of town or fell into a coma and can’t at all be held responsible for what’s happened while they weren’t paying attention. Where has the time gone?! they plead to each other. Its been flying! Time just packing its bags and settling in first class on a trip far away while their backs were turned.
But this time, (I hate to admit it) I agree with them. I agree with every word they’re saying because the more I try to recall what I’ve done since this year began, the more I don’t feel like I’ve done much of anything at all. And instead of having the cold air of fall to numb my brain so I don’t have to think too long about all the time I’ve wasted (what was I thinking?), all the opportunities I’ve let pass me by (so many and I still can’t understand why...), I’ve got the warm humid air of spring coming through just a week before Thanksgiving to ensure that I feel it all. Each little pang of regret. Each fuzzy memory of an entire year gone - poof - just like that.
I want this warm weather to leave like the leaves on the trees will soon, entirely, so that I can try to pretend that next year things will be different. I’ll take the cold and snow now please, so that I can try to pretend that with another change of the weather (and trust me, it will happen fast) maybe I’ll be different, too.
November 9, 2009
Here's looking at you, kid.
“Are you here with someone?” he asked. He was stuttering and a bit drunk and in a bar crowded with so many people I really had to wonder how it was that he’d spotted me.
“Yes,” I lied. I know it’s a callous thing to do, but sometimes you just have to pick your battles when you’re found alone at a bar while your friend has abandoned you for the bathroom and a stranger approaches.
“Are you here with someone great?” he swayed slightly has he spoke.
“Uh yeah he’s pretty great,” I said. Why not? I mean, if I were going to be anywhere with someone wouldn’t they’d have to be pretty great?
“Is he as great a guy as you deserve, or,” he said and paused for effect. “Do you think I might be better?” He smiled slowly and blinked slowly and I had to give him credit for making his case as well as he was considering he looked to be about ready to topple over.
I checked my watch.
“I’d say he’s about as great as I deserve, yes,” I said suddenly wishing this person we were talking about actually existed.
“Okay,” he nodded, slowly, looking satisfied. “As long as you say so then I guess there’s nothing more I can do.”
“Afraid so,” I said.
He shrugged and stuck out his hand through the fog of his alcoholic overload to shake my own. It was as though we’d just had a sort of interview for a job he tried his hardest for, but had to now accept that he wasn’t the right man for the position.
“Really really great to meet you,” he said. “Let me buy you a drink.”
“Sure,” I said knowing what was inevitably going to happen next.
He never came back.
Of all the men in all the bars in all the city…
November 6, 2009
parade.
If I’m on the subway in the morning with sunglasses on trying to read the paper my head still fuzzy because I haven’t had coffee yet, please don’t enter the train at Penn Station with a bunch of your friends where you’re all obviously arriving, (already drunk at 9AM), from New Jersey being loud and in Yankees attire carrying open Bud Light cans in plastic bags talking in front of me about bad movies and pretzels and declaring you hate “The city,” and “Could never live here” (we know that) and “What stop is this? Is this our stop?” every two seconds because you have no idea where you are, while proving how amazingly unable you are to stand up in the train as it’s moving and ultimately stepping on my foot more times than I can count.
Because if you’re going to do that, “sorry” just isn’t going to cut it.
Because if you’re going to do that, “sorry” just isn’t going to cut it.
November 3, 2009
'tis the season.
Fifth avenue window displays.
Red Starbucks holiday cups.
Rockefeller Christmas tree.
Endless ads for animated movie retellings of old holiday classics.
I'm not ready yet.
Red Starbucks holiday cups.
Rockefeller Christmas tree.
Endless ads for animated movie retellings of old holiday classics.
I'm not ready yet.
October 12, 2009
Maintenance.
All the subways were shut down in the city this weekend. A/C/E/1/2/3 every train that we rely on to get us to where we need to go, stopped running on a regular schedule causing us to seek alternate routes. They said that they wanted to get to the major problems they’d been needing to fix all at once before the colder weather officially set in.
Waiting for over thirty minute for the only downtown local train (and note the cold weather is officially here) I started to think that maybe the MTA was on to something. We do always wait to the last minute don’t we, to address what’s wrong? It’s easy not to take the time to oil the squeaky parts of our lives, to replace the things that just aren’t working as well as they used to. In the end it’s easy to just convince ourselves that somehow, some way, magically our problems will just fix themselves.
J/M/Z/4/5/6 we never learn, do we? In a city that moves so fast who has the time to see the gaping holes in the frame that is holding us up, the parts that are starting to rot and wither and get worse the longer they’re left. Our trouble spots are there hanging in front of us and yet we hope and pray under our breath that not everything will fall to pieces all at once. Please, just not now, we plead. But somehow, some way, they always do.
Walking forty blocks on a cold Saturday night to get home with the city getting operated on beneath my feet, it was hard not to realize that perhaps it’s time to start addressing all the things in my life that need fixing. Maybe then, in the end, I’d decrease my chances of getting hurt.
Waiting for over thirty minute for the only downtown local train (and note the cold weather is officially here) I started to think that maybe the MTA was on to something. We do always wait to the last minute don’t we, to address what’s wrong? It’s easy not to take the time to oil the squeaky parts of our lives, to replace the things that just aren’t working as well as they used to. In the end it’s easy to just convince ourselves that somehow, some way, magically our problems will just fix themselves.
J/M/Z/4/5/6 we never learn, do we? In a city that moves so fast who has the time to see the gaping holes in the frame that is holding us up, the parts that are starting to rot and wither and get worse the longer they’re left. Our trouble spots are there hanging in front of us and yet we hope and pray under our breath that not everything will fall to pieces all at once. Please, just not now, we plead. But somehow, some way, they always do.
Walking forty blocks on a cold Saturday night to get home with the city getting operated on beneath my feet, it was hard not to realize that perhaps it’s time to start addressing all the things in my life that need fixing. Maybe then, in the end, I’d decrease my chances of getting hurt.
October 7, 2009
conversations.
"If you think you’re old then I’m not too far behind. And at least you’ve been doing something that means something to you."
"You not doing something that means something to you?"
He seemed genuinely concerned.
"I don’t think so."
"How’s it you don’t know?"
"Well I guess because I came here for this job and that meant something at the time. But now, I don’t know, things have changed. I don’t how it’s supposed to feel."
"I don’t think anyone does."
"I figure once I find it I’ll know."
"You’ve got time," he said. "That’s the problem with this city anyway. People all coming here thinking that they’re lives will change just by packing up and moving into an apartment in the village. But they don’t get what it is about this place that really changes you."
"You not doing something that means something to you?"
He seemed genuinely concerned.
"I don’t think so."
"How’s it you don’t know?"
"Well I guess because I came here for this job and that meant something at the time. But now, I don’t know, things have changed. I don’t how it’s supposed to feel."
"I don’t think anyone does."
"I figure once I find it I’ll know."
"You’ve got time," he said. "That’s the problem with this city anyway. People all coming here thinking that they’re lives will change just by packing up and moving into an apartment in the village. But they don’t get what it is about this place that really changes you."
October 1, 2009
good city/bad city
There’s a lot of bad things about New York, and after a while like most things in life, all you start to remember, all you start to see, are the pock marks on the landscape of an otherwise wonderful thing.
It’s there every morning outside the door waiting for you, with it’s packed streets and people so close to you on the subway that you can’t remember the last time someone you hardly knew sat beside you (for over twenty blocks) with their arm so intimately touching yours. There are murders and muggings and people without homes, without jobs, without hope in front of you every day (and you pass them and pray that there will never be a day when it will be you). With so many people and opportunities and lost chances at love and happiness and success, at the end of the day it’s hard not to see the bad things about this place.
But then there you are near the end of a long week, (at the end of an even longer day), getting off the local 1 at 14th street and switching to the packed express 2 heading uptown at the last minute (and then find yourself stuck underground wondering why you always get on all the wrong trains at all the wrong times) and you curse New York for never giving you a break.
Finally at 72nd street you get off to switch back to the local in a crowd of people so big you barely make it in before the doors shut. And it’s the hand on your wrist that makes you look up, and you’re ready to say something to someone who is predictably going to bother you with some question about trains or directions on how to get to Times Square.
But then you notice the way you do when you’re really just ready to give up on something, how much just the littlest of things can change the way you feel about something. The face of an old friend you’d hadn’t seen in ages that you’d been meaning to call (but with everything else who can remember?) looking right back at you. Hi.
There’s a lot of bad things about New York, but there’s something to be said about the way it comes through just when you need it. Of all the streets we choose to take every day, of all the trains we happen to be on when we happen to be on them, I like to think that just by being here you’re part of the city’s larger plan (whether you like it or not). And perhaps the only thing we can do (the only thing left to do) is simply stop and accept it for what it really is - always surprising us.
There’s a lot of bad things about New York, but when great, seemingly impossible things happen (odds here are always against you), you remember just how meaningful it really is, and why every day when you get up you continue to make the conscious decision to stay.
It’s there every morning outside the door waiting for you, with it’s packed streets and people so close to you on the subway that you can’t remember the last time someone you hardly knew sat beside you (for over twenty blocks) with their arm so intimately touching yours. There are murders and muggings and people without homes, without jobs, without hope in front of you every day (and you pass them and pray that there will never be a day when it will be you). With so many people and opportunities and lost chances at love and happiness and success, at the end of the day it’s hard not to see the bad things about this place.
But then there you are near the end of a long week, (at the end of an even longer day), getting off the local 1 at 14th street and switching to the packed express 2 heading uptown at the last minute (and then find yourself stuck underground wondering why you always get on all the wrong trains at all the wrong times) and you curse New York for never giving you a break.
Finally at 72nd street you get off to switch back to the local in a crowd of people so big you barely make it in before the doors shut. And it’s the hand on your wrist that makes you look up, and you’re ready to say something to someone who is predictably going to bother you with some question about trains or directions on how to get to Times Square.
But then you notice the way you do when you’re really just ready to give up on something, how much just the littlest of things can change the way you feel about something. The face of an old friend you’d hadn’t seen in ages that you’d been meaning to call (but with everything else who can remember?) looking right back at you. Hi.
There’s a lot of bad things about New York, but there’s something to be said about the way it comes through just when you need it. Of all the streets we choose to take every day, of all the trains we happen to be on when we happen to be on them, I like to think that just by being here you’re part of the city’s larger plan (whether you like it or not). And perhaps the only thing we can do (the only thing left to do) is simply stop and accept it for what it really is - always surprising us.
There’s a lot of bad things about New York, but when great, seemingly impossible things happen (odds here are always against you), you remember just how meaningful it really is, and why every day when you get up you continue to make the conscious decision to stay.
September 28, 2009
Seasons of Love.
Fall, thanks for showing up. This summer was a total wash what with all the rain, and to be honest with you, I don’t miss sweating in front of the fan in my little apartment at all.
That being said, I hope you’re going to be kinder to me than you’ve been in the past. Remember those wind storms you make that always seem to blow up my skirt in the middle crossing Broadway exposing me cruelly to cab drivers and leaving me red faced? Yeah. I’m talking to you. And those wet leaves I’m continually slipping on in my black patent leather flats, and never once (not once!) has a passerby stopped to help me up. Repeatedly I’m spilling my caramel apple cider from Starbucks (a must in fall!) all over my hand on the way to the subway while juggling the Times and my cell phone (I think I still have some scars).
But the biggest complaint perhaps, is that you always leave me alone. When you show up and the air turns chilly it seems like all my single friends who were happy enough to be single when the summer was hot and humid, all suddenly feel the need to couple up because of you. Is it the idea of sitting in front of the fire with someone (ie: heat from the radiator. Who has a fireplace in Manhattan?) that is so appealing? No, it’s you and your brisk air and romantic-looking colored leaves that makes people want to stay in bed with someone else all day long until summer shows up again.
Sigh.
So maybe this time you can help me out? As much as I love those long walks through Central Park admiring your ability to change the leaves of the trees that nice burnt orange, it’d be nice if I could possibly walk along side someone. Too much to ask? I know, what with me spilling things all over myself and falling down so much it’s almost surely an impossibility. Even for you.
But face it, you owe me. In November I already have to lose a whole hour of my day, and upon leaving the office at 6PM it feels more like 10PM and that’s basically all your fault. And let us not forget that terrible holiday Halloween that you insist on bringing along with you every year. God what a nightmare. And I’m still not over that time when I was ten and had to spend the whole night walking around in your frigid air (20 degrees in October?! I mean really?) dressed as a bumble bee and getting nothing but a stint in the dentist's chair and four cavities in return.
Moving on though, I really am happy you’re here. Life just wouldn’t be the same without apple picking, kids dressed as insects asking for ridiculous amounts of sugar-laden treats and cable knit sweaters. Autumn, you’re the best and my favorite of all the seasons. All I’m asking is let’s just try a little harder this time before winter gets here, for my sake, to blow in (along with that embarrassing breeze in the street), a nice guy for me to share you with.
Because let’s face it, I need all the help I can get.
That being said, I hope you’re going to be kinder to me than you’ve been in the past. Remember those wind storms you make that always seem to blow up my skirt in the middle crossing Broadway exposing me cruelly to cab drivers and leaving me red faced? Yeah. I’m talking to you. And those wet leaves I’m continually slipping on in my black patent leather flats, and never once (not once!) has a passerby stopped to help me up. Repeatedly I’m spilling my caramel apple cider from Starbucks (a must in fall!) all over my hand on the way to the subway while juggling the Times and my cell phone (I think I still have some scars).
But the biggest complaint perhaps, is that you always leave me alone. When you show up and the air turns chilly it seems like all my single friends who were happy enough to be single when the summer was hot and humid, all suddenly feel the need to couple up because of you. Is it the idea of sitting in front of the fire with someone (ie: heat from the radiator. Who has a fireplace in Manhattan?) that is so appealing? No, it’s you and your brisk air and romantic-looking colored leaves that makes people want to stay in bed with someone else all day long until summer shows up again.
Sigh.
So maybe this time you can help me out? As much as I love those long walks through Central Park admiring your ability to change the leaves of the trees that nice burnt orange, it’d be nice if I could possibly walk along side someone. Too much to ask? I know, what with me spilling things all over myself and falling down so much it’s almost surely an impossibility. Even for you.
But face it, you owe me. In November I already have to lose a whole hour of my day, and upon leaving the office at 6PM it feels more like 10PM and that’s basically all your fault. And let us not forget that terrible holiday Halloween that you insist on bringing along with you every year. God what a nightmare. And I’m still not over that time when I was ten and had to spend the whole night walking around in your frigid air (20 degrees in October?! I mean really?) dressed as a bumble bee and getting nothing but a stint in the dentist's chair and four cavities in return.
Moving on though, I really am happy you’re here. Life just wouldn’t be the same without apple picking, kids dressed as insects asking for ridiculous amounts of sugar-laden treats and cable knit sweaters. Autumn, you’re the best and my favorite of all the seasons. All I’m asking is let’s just try a little harder this time before winter gets here, for my sake, to blow in (along with that embarrassing breeze in the street), a nice guy for me to share you with.
Because let’s face it, I need all the help I can get.
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