ATC in NYC

Something as simple as entering the F-line station on 34th near Herald Square can lead to unbridled entertainment value:

It may be difficult to make out, but this man on the keyboard (who appeared to be asleep, I might add) is accompanied by a chorus of six Chucky and/or Bride of Chucky-esque dolls. They shook their hips. They sang along. Please note that the one in the foreground (obviously the Beyonce of the group… what a whore, right?) has a Discman. Enough said. This guy is the coolest thing since Eric Clapton. I shall call him “The Clap.”

How much do we owe the people we love?

I am so deep. If it sounds like I got that line off the back of a throwaway piece of fiction, perhaps I >did<. But seriously, it has been a question I have been considering as of late and I am not entirely sure I like the way I answer it. At least the way I feel I answer it in my own life.

Take today for instance. Internship was pretty standard issue for much of the morning. Little work here, little work there. A lot of surfing the web. Look important. And then, right after lunch, it swung into full gear and I had this major deadline I *had* to meet by 5 p.m. I was faxing, calling, e-mailing, proofing, saving the world, all for like three hours straight. I ended up having to work pretty closely with this lady in Miami. Over the phone, she did not seem too pleased I was pushing things so close to my deadline. (I had no intention of telling her she was now working with the intern because that might have really sent her over the edge.) But I tried my hardest bending over backwards to get her to like me. I made little jokes, I talked really slow and soothing-like (which sounds a lot sketchier than it actually was) and eventually she warmed up and started not to hate me.

Fast forward to leaving work and I had a pretty bad attitude. I was on my way to feed my friend’s cats about an hour and a half out of my way (both ways) and I really just wanted to go home. They didn’t have the cat food at the drugstore in Penn Station (really, how convenient are these things in the long run?) so I had to go to K-Mart. Then I missed the early train and had to wait even longer. So by the time I made it to my friend’s house, I was pretty angry at the world. Such a hassle. So annoying.

And then I thought about the arrogance of my sentiments. Why was I so ready to acquiesce to a perfect stranger on the phone but so unwilling to do a favor for a friend wholeheartedly? Granted, I do hate cats. I am allergic to them. They smell funny. And I am holding the gun in this picture. But really, this was an chance to do something for a friend and I treated it as a burden rather than an opportunity.

We owe the people we love at least as much (if not more) than the incidental people we come in contact with every day, but I’m not entirely sure we always live in that manner. I know I don’t.

In a perfect world, I would have been able to get off the plane in Newark, head to my temporary residence and begin blogging the second I arrived to this wonderful town known as New York. (Somewhere around July 28, to be exact.) That would have been the best way, in my estimation, to provide an all-encompassing view of my time in the city. Grand aspirations, eh? Journal from Day One to document my unparalleled growth?

Well, as you may very well notice, this spiffy little blog is coming your way exactly one month after I arrived in the city. There was no plane to Newark because my flight got cancelled and I had to jiffy on over to JFK instead where my friend Nicole picked me up. Our car proceeded to break down in the middle of the Van Wyck Expressway ten mintues after departing and I spent the better part of my first day in a tow truck fleeing from Queens to Hawthorne.

Welcome to New York, right?

But I tend to think it is better that I have had a month to reflect on all of the things I have seen and done thus far in the city. While the ignorant point of view is always amusing (especially in hindsight), I feel that my reflections from this point on will be just as rewarding.

Lesson #1 from living in the city? People are extremely nice if you let them be.

That tow truck guy that carted us around for the day had to lie to his boss just so he could get us across the New Jersey border. And I think I knew approximately 3 people in the greater New York area prior to moving up here and they have either (a) taken me to dinner and spent the evening with me on multiple occasions or (b) let me live with them… free of charge.

The misconception that New Yorkers are gruff little people who have no desire to help a brotha out are exactly that - misconceptions.

So if you’ve always dreamed of coming to the city and starting a big new life (and let’s be honest, who hasn’t?), come up and give it a month.

It will grow on you.