Today being my first whole day, I plan on heading downtown to wander and explore this afternoon, having already spent the morning walking around uptown where I'm staying, and getting lost carrying bags of heavy groceries so that I ended up walking like 50 blocks with them. Did you know New York City is uphill? All of it.
Anyhow, these are the words that New York made me think of the first day I was here.
Contoured: Now I'm no country bumpkin. I mean, I am a country bumpkin, hailing from Marengo and all, but I've lived in Chicago for the past two years (real Chicago, not Palatine or Barrington like the rest of you have to say when you're asked what part of Chicago you're from), so I'm used to city. And a lot of New York is just like any other big old block of city: cars, pavement, people, tall buildings, scaffolds, honking. Walking around 168th & Broadway here looks pretty much like walking around Wilson & Broadway back home.
But on the ride from La Guardia to Manhattan on this gray-skied day, I looked out at the skyline and realized it never fucking ended. The New York skyline never fucking ends. The Chicago skyline is a beautiful cluster surrounded by lake and fields. The NYC skyline is like someone taped building-shaped paper cutouts in a circle all around you. The hazel color of the heavens and the vaguely foggy distance amplified the effect, so it looked like the front skyline of skyscrapers had silhouettes projected behind them, and then silhouettes in between, just filling the distance. I almost laughed, thinking this was an optical illusion playing out on me.
But it wasn't. It was New York, on the way in.
Friendly: Believe it or not, fearmongers. Don't get me wrong, I know you have to have a certain kind of toughness (self-sufficiency, independence, imperviousness to insult, ability to work under pressure) to make it here, but the myth of the hateful masses didn't play out for me.
First of all, my plane was about 4 hours late getting in. So the apartment owners' friend who was supposed to give me the keys did not get to meet me at 2:00 as agreed; instead I called her apologetically at about 6:00. Was she upset? Not at all. She was the friendliest, bubbliest person on earth, excited that I had made it and eager to help, and so on. Now to get to her downtown. The driver who was supposed to meet me 4 hours ago, once I called, was busy with other jobs of course, but he hastily called other drivers and set it up with them to come and get me as quickly as he could. I accidentally told that driver the wrong terminal on the phone, so an old man nearby came and tapped me on the shoulder, smiling, to give me the correct terminal name and tell me he didn't want me to be sitting there stuck waiting. That driver then took me into Manhattan on a Saturday night and was willing to get stuck in traffic doing circles while I found the girl who I was supposed to meet, who darted out into the street to give me the keys in the car on the road before the traffic around could shoot us. Because, you know, New Yorkers are so mean and all.
Forgiving: It bodes poorly for my future decent self that I can get away with pretty much being as rude or dismissive as I desire. Where in other places, if I ignore people when they talk to me, push past crowds to get where I'm going, etc, I would get dirty looks, here I feel I have impunity. Now, I've always prided myself on being at least a little gentlemanly, if only because it fits into my quixotic self-delusions, but I have to say it's pretty freeing when an annoying street vendor or someone pretending to need directions so they can ask you for money to feed their drug addiction approaches you and you can just pretend they don't exist and keep on going.
In Chicago, bums were incredulous when I wouldn't give them money. There was one who hung outside the Dominick's parking lot every day, asking for money, and one time (when I'd lived there for like 2 years and had seen him there) he came up and said, "Hey, I ran out of gas. Can you spare some money for gas?" "Sorry," I said and kept loading groceries into the car. "Come on," he insisted, "I just need some money for gas." He didn't have a car, mind you. I shook my head. "Sorry," I repeated, just trying to get my groceries in the car. "Are you serious?" he sneered. "You're not gonna give me anything?" I ignored him. "Fuck you," he told me, "you're not even from this country." And he walked away.
Forgiving: It bodes poorly for my future decent self that I can get away with pretty much being as rude or dismissive as I desire. Where in other places, if I ignore people when they talk to me, push past crowds to get where I'm going, etc, I would get dirty looks, here I feel I have impunity. Now, I've always prided myself on being at least a little gentlemanly, if only because it fits into my quixotic self-delusions, but I have to say it's pretty freeing when an annoying street vendor or someone pretending to need directions so they can ask you for money to feed their drug addiction approaches you and you can just pretend they don't exist and keep on going.
In Chicago, bums were incredulous when I wouldn't give them money. There was one who hung outside the Dominick's parking lot every day, asking for money, and one time (when I'd lived there for like 2 years and had seen him there) he came up and said, "Hey, I ran out of gas. Can you spare some money for gas?" "Sorry," I said and kept loading groceries into the car. "Come on," he insisted, "I just need some money for gas." He didn't have a car, mind you. I shook my head. "Sorry," I repeated, just trying to get my groceries in the car. "Are you serious?" he sneered. "You're not gonna give me anything?" I ignored him. "Fuck you," he told me, "you're not even from this country." And he walked away.
Now, angry bums I can get used to. But xenophobic angry bums? That's just sad. I actually am a native-born citizen, but come on, why would they be against immigration. It's not like someone's gonna steal their jobs.
Nice work!
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