A woman sits on the steps of the neighborhood church with her head bowed. I assume she is praying, but her head suddenly lifts. She is straining to see every follicle of her right eyebrow, tweezers in hand. A statue of Jesus looks on.
Posts under ‘I Live NY’
Riding into the flames
The sun sizzles upon the pinstripe-clad white meat of my thighs. I’m in Westchester County, home of NYC’s closest suburbs, and I can’t believe I’m in a cab with no air conditioning, much less a shared cab with no air conditioning. This is the land of in-house washer/dryer combos and attic storage - luxuries magnified by their proximity to Manhattan, where someone regularly pees in my building’s basement laundry facilities and I have to call on the professionals. Frankly, I’m disappointed.
Life inside and outside the walls
Nora Ephron on living, loving, and leaving NYC:
“Whenever you give up your apartment in New York and move to another city, New York turns into the worst version of itself. Someone I know once wisely said that the expression “It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there” is completely wrong where New York is concerned; the opposite it true. New York is a very livable city. But when you move away and become a visitor, the city seems to turn against you. It’s much more expensive (because you have to eat all your meals out and pay for a place to sleep) and much more unfriendly. Things change in New York; things change all the time. You don’t mind this when you live here; when you live here, it’s part of the caffeinated romance of this city that never sleeps. But when you move away, you experience change as betrayal… You’ve turned your back for only a moment, and suddenly everything’s different. You were an insider, a native, a subway traveler, a purveyor of inside tips into the good stuff, and now you’re just another frequent flyer, stuck in a taxi on the Grand Central Parkway as you wing in and out of La Guardia. Meanwhile, you read that Manhattan rents are going up, they’re climbing higher, they’ve reached the stratosphere. It seems that the moment you left town, they put a wall around the place, and you will never manage to vault over it and get back into the city again.”
But soft! It’s fall
Three types of people pepper the streets of NYC tonight: the people in shorts and tank-tops who refuse to accept it’s fall - so fall, in fact, that the temperature has dipped to the fifties; the people who embrace fall and swish around in scarves, woolen knits, and knee high boots; and then there’s the category into which I fall - the people wearing long sleeves and flip flops.
Because NYC masturbators come in pairs
I lived in New York City over two years before I ever saw someone masturbating in public. This has got to be some kind of record.
Fashion gimps
We’ve all heard of fashion victims, but how about fashion gimps?
Working in midtown now, I raptly watch a fashion show of professional attire during commutes and my lunch break. Professional clothing can be somewhat unique, but the shoes are the best part. I’m just as guilty as the next person of shoe envy, but there’s a limit: I absolutely refuse to commute in heels. I won’t risk blood and bunions to walk the Grand Central Terminal catwalk. I am not a fashion gimp, but the women below are:
Gettin’ that paper
You see a lot of weird things on the subway: people eating everything from greasy fried chicken to sushi, making out, sleeping, dancing with and without the poles, fighting…
Housekeeping
The trouble with having a blog is that it gets to be a garden that needs maintenance. The blogger has to fill the roles of plant, soil, shovel, etc. Anyone who has read far back enough knows I’m no good at that manual labor stuff, especially when it involves dirt. Even when it’s completely metaphorical labor involving completely metaphorical dirt.
Manhattan Mini Storage gets my vote
I really appreciate Manhattan Mini Storage’s billboards.
So does my uterus.
*brought to my attention by www.feministing.com
Baby Jesus knows
I’m on my way to a job interview. It’s hot outside, and I’m starting to sweat in my suit jacket. I’m on the East Side, which I don’t normally go to. I came out of the wrong subway entrance and am trying to figure out how to get to Third Avenue. I approach the first person I see - a homeless man.
