Ambulation, Part Two

On Friday, I had the pleasure of seeing my sashaying friend as I walked up Second Avenue. As I was heading uptown and arrived at 57th Street I saw her waiting for the light directly across the street. I have a terrible memory for faces and there is no way I could pick her out of a crowd, except for the fact that as she stood at the intersection across the street from me, she was singing to the music and getting her groove on. This was no gentle sway back and forth, rather I think I saw a step-ball-change thrown into the routine. As the light turned to "walk," she did a small hop-step and then started up her skip across the road.

The other people on the street, myself included, all managed to keep our poker faces as we walked by her. As I looked around, there was not one frown as people got out of her line of sight, only smiles and nods. I myself did a flap-flap-step- ball-change and shuffled off to the office.

You CANNOT try my new Gameboy.

Facing the skyline of New York and enjoying the light of sunrise as it envelopes the Empire State Building, I am reminded of one great and universal truth...

"You would not be crying if you did not put your fingers up your butt."

Sorry about that, I just got interrupted and noise is an everpresent phenomenon in the city. There is the background noise of the subway, the roar of the bus, people speaking in many languages and neighbors yelling. In this case, our neighbors, a couple with a problem grandchild, have hit the proverbial ball out of the park. Yes, I heard Grandma yelling that through our rather thick walls. What can I say when I see them in the hallway now? Grandpa yells about the vagaries of respect and elders. Grandkid yells that he hates them and he can't stand it here.

That afternoon you see your neighbors in the elevator. You talk about the weather. You mention the parking woes of the day. Worse yet, Grandkid is there and he asks me about my new Gameboy that he sees as I try to hide it as quickly as possible. Stay calm, stay focused, don't offer to let him try it...

There is an unwritten, unspoken rule in the city: With people living so close, eating so close in restaurants and generally "up in each others business" at all times, you do not comment, judge or ask too many questions. In restaurants, tables are frequently within a foot of each other. Conversations are brutally apparent. At the next table over, a couple may be talking about their dating life/crazy friends/canabalistic tendencies, but you do not look over, raise your eyebrow or comment in any way. Rather, you make a mental note of their conversations, continue with yours and then discuss and laugh when you are safely at home and... no one can hear you?

Tiptoe through the Tulips

As I walked to work the other day, I was walking up Second Avenue when I saw a heavy-set woman moving towards me. She had an I-pod and was skipping downtown. She was in her late fifties and was wearing sneakers and she was singing to herself and as she skipped, her arms swung wildly in time.

It is also surprising to see runners as they move down the sidewalk in some of the most non-residential parts of the city. The streets are incredibly crowded and they dodge through the people, run red lights and keep their heart rate in the cardio-vascular zone.

I suppose people can ambulate about the city as they please. I find myself taking the stairs, two at a time, up from the subway to the street in the mornings. If you take the E/V to the 53rd Street station, you will realize how hard this is. I am sure that I get strange looks from the riders on the escalators who are to my right. I zip past them and when I get to the top, I try to pretend that I'm not out of breath.

NYC: tranforming you into something cinematic.

I am not a particularly cool person. I play video games, wear comic book t-shirts and just last weekend I spent two hours watching a movie called, "Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter." While I am not particularly well-dressed, well-groomed and well-bred, I am occasionally reminded that living in this city can make you significantly cooler than the sum of your parts.

Case in point, on a grey morning as you walk to work, you can step off a sidewalk and walk through a blast of steam coming up from the subway. It twists around you and as you step out of that small cloud of white, surrounded by people walking perpendicular to you, that invisible movie camera zooms in towards you, time and fog slow down and you feel like you are in a John Woo film, about to face a million bad guys as an undercover cop.

Another example, you walk across Washington Square Park. The sun is shining and as you walk towards the camera, you can feel a flock of pidgeons behind you take flight into a blue sky dotted with high clouds. You walk forward and the camera circles around behind you. It sees you as you walk towards a beautiful woman with curly hair and you walk up to her and take her in your arms and give her a passionate kiss for the whole park to see... Is it a scene from the latest romantic comedy or is it daily life in the city?

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I am a fairly cool guy. I have an interesting career, I occasionally wear frappachino glasses and I can relate well to many different types of people. While I have an attractive wife, friends from all walks of life and I write a blog, I am occasasionally reminded that living in the city can make you significantly lamer than the sum of your parts.

Case in point: You are walking up the stairs from the subway. It is a gray rainy morning. You are wearing a pretty cool black jacket, nice slacks and a matching belt and shoes. As you take the last step up, a huge gust of wind blows up. You see four people walking towards you and the gust of wind pops each of their umbrellas out like kids popping the tops off of dandelions. The gust of wind carries a wall of water that drenches your pants through. By the time you get to the office, you look like you have walked through a typhoon, with leaves stuck in your hair, pants two shades darker from the water and socks that won't dry out until lunch. The camera zooms in on the pathetic temp worker arriving for another miserable day of work.

Another example, over the course of your first two weeks, you receive three parking violations for some damned thing or another and you curse your luck as you enter an intersection on a yellow light and there is a flash of light behind you... you just scored ticket number four. You are sitting on the subway, enthralled in your book and as you get up to leave, you realize that the person who you thought was coughing a little bit was an ancient woman with a cane and four bags of groceries who just stood for the last four stops because you didn't get up and give up your seat (as you normally would). The camera follows you out of the subway door, only to turn around and show the disgusted faces of your fellow commuters. You try to walk out with some sense of pride but you can't help feeling like a total jackass.

7.9 miles, 20 thousand steps, borders broken and home found.

(ed.- I started writing this on January 1st, 2006. I finally finished writing it today.)
My wife, Kitty, asked for a pedometer for Christmas. Today was her first day using it. And what a day it was. Christmas proper was spent in Rochester, visiting my family and friends. It was a whirlwind trip. The weeks leading up to Christmas were packed with gigs, rehearsal, travel and more gigs. We missed the sights and sounds of NYC at Christmas time and now was our chance to appreciate them.

Our day didn't begin as an attempt to catch the Christmas spirit. Rather, it began with the search for the cheapest haircut in New York.

It Takes a Village...

to score the cheapest and best haircut in New York City.

My previous haircuts have been a real mixed bag. The first was good. I went to a local salon in Brooklyn. DeeDee cut my hair and she seemed a little intimidated by the weird white guy coming in to get a trim. She was probably about as intimidated as I was. It turned out well, but on my second trip, I got her assistant. If I had not helped him out, I would have looked like the youngest, thinnest Stooge of the bunch. It was a truly appalling cut and I called Kitty, who was out of town, to lament the loss. Let's just say that if it had been a bris, I probably would lost the ability to procreate. (non-Hebrews should google the word “bris”)

Here we are in the East Village, this morning. I walk past a hip (and very empty) salon and turn into a training school for barbers. Barber Juan doesn't really speak English, but his teacher does. I feel the pressure rise, as I try to explain my current “look” and the way I'd like my hair cut. I can see Kitty in the mirror as I try to explain. She's trying to look as positive as possible. “You can do it!” her smile seems to say as she nods along with my description.

The teacher looks at the back of my hairline. “You've got little pony-tail... You want to keep?” No, it's just the way my hair grows, I hate that little thing... cut it off. He goes to work and shows his student how to carefully remove the repugnant growth of hair from the nape of my neck.

About forty minutes later, three conversations with teacher, translator, barber (-in-training) and Kitty, the cut is finished. Voila! It's great and one of the best in the recent past. Cost? $5 (plus $2 tip). It's unbelievable and I'm sure I'll never get the same cut again.

The Hike Begins...

Step 4,000. Our next stop is two storefronts north of the barber school, a place called the East Village Cheese Shop. Or, heaven, as I like to think of it. The cheese is inexpensive but it feels like a premium cheese shop. We kept our purchases light, knowing that this would be a long day of walking. A small package of low-fat havarti and a roll of fresh goat's cheese.

Kitty and I now are on a mission. We start roaming down St. Mark's and stop in at a comic book store (for me) and some fun boutiques (for her). We find some incredible menus at the restaurants around there, but our lunch has been packed and there are too many to make a choice. We make mental notes of names and locations and swear that we will go back some day.

After a quick break from lunch we decide to explore neighborhoods that we have not gone to before. Since we have arrived, we have spent a great deal of time in Chinatown, the Village and Chelsea. Yes, we have made the occasional trip elsewhere, but we have primarily foraged in these three areas. Today is our day to break down those borders, one step at a time.

The Best Electronics Store in the City?

Step 7000. We have walked uptown to B&H Electronics. Our excuse is that we are looking at digital cameras. Honestly, we heard that it was a neat experience. I've read a lot lately on the Internet about the death of the intelligent, computer/electronics salesman. These days, when you walk into an electronics “Superstore,” you find high school kids who don't really care, middle-aged men who try to sell you up to something you don't need, or worse. Gone are the days of people who actually know what the hell they are talking about.

B&H was a far different experience. Here are some observations: The store store was packed with customers and you checked all bags when you arrived. Salesmen helped you find the exact item you want. The items were placed in small bins that traveled via an elevated conveyor belt to the front of the store. You paid your bill, went to the pick-up counter, got your items and then got your other bags and left the store. I have no idea how anyone could shoplift. Yes, it was a lot of layers to buy an item, but considering the cost of the items, it seemed perfectly logical to try to protect themselves. Also, the salesmen were entirely men and most were Hassidic Jews. The only women we saw at the store were serving free soda and pretzels. All over the store there were small bowls of fruit candy for the customers. The salespeople who helped us were incredibly helpful, well-informed, and made us feel very comfortable with any purchases we might have. I got the general impression that they did this for a living and they really enjoyed their job. Moreover, they were a pleasure to speak to. Though we didn't make any purchases, Kitty and I agreed that we would be back to make any purchases after figuring out exactly what we need and want. We both could have purchased several items after the salesmen took so much time with us.

Foreign Friends

Step 10,000. I find myself thankful that I have friends from foreign lands. In this case, we are grateful that one of my best friends married a woman from Korea. He had told us to check out a small row of shops on 32^nd Street between 6^th and 7^th Avenues. It was as if we had entered another country for that one block. Every store sign was in Korean and every employee spoke English as their second language. We walked by some incredible looking restaurants. In the end, we found a small 24-hour deli called, Woorijip. It had dirt cheap food and Kitty and I shared a small plate of Kim-chee pancakes. Though we would have browsed, we might never have taken the time to stop in if it weren't for our friends.

Christmas comes but once a year, so make it last!

Step 14,000. One would think that after Christmas, the celebration would start to taper off. No, the city basks in the afterglow of the holiday season, making efforts to liberate dollars from the tourists that hold them hostage. Case in point, the tremendously complicated window displays at Macy's.

It is a short walk from Woorijip to Macy's but as we neared the intersection of Sixth Avenue and Broadway, the crowds became a challenge. Yes, we were taking steps, but when they are slow steps, do they still count?

All of the Christmas lights were still on. It was becoming a gorgeous night. As we forced our way up to the window displays, we could look up and see the Empire State Building directly above us. For those of you who are reading this with your maps by your side, you will realize how far we have walked today. Upon reaching the displays, I was surprised to still be enchanted by something so simple. I have a high school friend, Roboguy, who now builds and designs very complex robots. I think he might have been impressed by the intricacy of these giant books that sat in the window and then opened up to reveal a scene of New York City at the holidays, all choreographed to some nice, jingle-belly music. We watched each little show and though the crowds were still terrible, Kitty and I agreed that kids in New York should see that yearly. It's a lovely (and inexpensive) way to celebrate the season.

It is Beer Thirty.

Step 16,000. We need a rest. This has been a long walk and I find myself in one of those rare moods where I have an opinion. Yes, humble reader, I don't like to make decisions. Not big decisions, mind you, but the little ones. Where to eat for dinner? Eh, I could have anything. What movie to see? I'd see King Kong or Brokeback Mountain. Both sound good. In the rare instance that I really want to do something, I just speak up and I usually get my way.

Kitty was happily shocked when I said that it was still happy hour at our favorite tavern in the Village. This time, though, we hopped on the subway to get downtown. I know that I've mentioned that Kitty can find a deal anywhere? Imagine a fun, college bar that serves $1-Sam Adams from 3 pm to 7 pm during the week. Usually, it is still quiet during those hours and you can still talk without needing vocal therapy the next day.

Home at Last

Approximately 20,000 steps later, we arrived back at home. Was it a good day? You betcha.