Deep Thoughts from the Raucous They Call NYC

By Mink

So a lot has happened since our last meeting: O.J. made his triumphant return to the slammer; Columbia University took a wonderful stand on the freedom of speech by allowing some dude, with a last name I won’t even try to spell, to speak on their campus; my beloved Baltimore Orioles made history in my presence by allowing Texas to score more in one game than even your mom did before you were born (sorry I woke up this morning with a major urge for a good old mama joke---please share your favorites in the comments section); and oh yeah I moved to NYC because I was running out of blog material down in Bmore.

Here are a few first impressions:

• I would have to say that my first few weeks in this crazy town have made me feel quite a bit like Brooks from Shawshank Redemption when he finally re-enters society after years of incarceration. Yes it is true; New York City has made me feel like an average 75 year old paroled ex-convict. The cars are moving faster, the people are pushing and everything is kind of one overpriced blur. In Maryland, people are waving you into their lanes, and saying excuse me but in the apple of bigness every step outside in the crowded streets can result in a mini-world war, often involving collisions and coffee spillages on freshly dry cleaned shirts (which by the way are not anywhere near the 3 for 2 dollars that I am used to).

• Living here with a car has also turned me into the crazed traffic-report-seeking middle aged man that I swore I would never become. It has come to a point where I could be listening to the best Madonna song in the world (“Like a Virgin” with a “Borderline” a close second) when the traffic report alarm goes off in my head and I immediately am compelled to switch the radio to the 1010 WINS “traffic and transit on the 1’s” report. And I now am often finding myself talking about traffic patterns and the like at Bar Mitzvahs and weddings. But my favorite part of being a driver in this area is that I work in Jersey and live in NY. This means I get to beam with pride when everyone reassures me “Oh yeah that’s not too bad, its reverse commute.” It also means I become giddy like a school girl every time I see the cars across the highway crawling like even younger school girls.

• Besides for allowing me to experience “reverse commute pride,” having a car can be a real pain in the bum bum. Although going through the EZ pass lanes is kind of fun, they take a lot of my money every day. But far more annoying is the parking situation. I have become much more proficient at finding spots, but I never really go to sleep feeling confident that I am parked in a legal spot. These fears were confirmed one special Friday morning when I arrived to my parking spot only to find the car missing because I apparently parked too close to a bus stop. A friendly local was nice enough to reassure me about the whole thing. She informed me: “It’s not stolen; I saw it get towed 10 minutes ago.” So I then learned another cool thing about NY---not all impounding fees will take your money. In my case, they towed the car to 203rd St but they told me on the phone that there was no cashier there so I would have to pay for it down on 37th St. Need to ride a subway at 3 AM? Sure no problem, Want to pay an insane amount of money to get your car back? Sorry, the next impound with a cashier is five miles away from where your car is located. What a town!
• When I am not in the car, I am excited by the wonderful world of public transportation here. As I have mentioned before I have a real issue keeping my eyes to myself and it is supposedly bad subway etiquette to look directly at anyone. So I fully expect a subway smackdown in the very near future. Stay tuned ... Call me weird, but I also happen to think that the woman's who says "Stand clear of the closing doors please" has an extremely sexy voice. If anyone knows of her whereabouts please let me know, I would love to take her to dinner or at least ride the subways with her.
• In NY, for some reason people seem to eat dinner way later than they do down in MD. For me, this meal usually takes the form of a micro waved delicacy during the late innings of a baseball playoff game. More notably, however, some friends of mine randomly found me wolfing down a lamb kebob at a bus stop on 85th St. at 11:30 PM on a Tuesday night. After throwing some money at me, we then headed to one of the local bars for a round. Gotta love the city that never sleeps; that is until it wakes you up at 3 AM with one of its eight million sirens.