I'm baaaaaack!

It is all too apparent that my record is against me when it comes to blogging. Despite my insistence that I would keep up this project during my 10 months in New Haven, it turned out that the blog's theme was too intricately tied to the daily insanities of life in New York City to be effectively transplanted. Happily, my let's-try-living-in-Connecticut experiment is now over, and I am back in the land of laundromats, halal carts, and rush hour subway commutes. Accordingly, my interest in examining the micro-sociological minutiae of Manhattan living has been rekindled and, since I find myself dreaming up ideas for blog posts in spite of myself, I've decided to give this another go. Reader beware: I make no promises of regularity.

In many ways, it feels like I've landed right back in the midst of my old life, like I'm picking up exactly where I left off. I live about 3 blocks from my last domicile, in a beautiful, gloriously affordable, and uncannily quiet apartment with two wonderful roommates (added bonus: we seem to be the only tenants not in some way affiliated with the Manhattan School of Music, which means that we are near constantly serenaded). My apartment is, geographically, in the same area I lived in before but, as it is south of 125th St, technically in Morningside Heights instead of West Harlem. The difference in vibe is actually pretty shocking. Despite rapid gentrification and Manhattan's inherent predilection for urban blending, 125th St really is a dividing line of sorts. It was less obvious to me when I lived north of 125th - whether because of my racial identity, because of how Manhattan is laid out, or simply because I was new to New York, I'm not sure. But now that I live south of the divide, I see through different eyes. In terms of day-to-day errands, there's little need for us southerners to go too far into Harlem; it generally makes more sense to go south. Harlem is less feared than it is unknown.

I hardly claim to be an expert on Manhattan human geography, but the demographic shift is clear. Go just south of 125th and you're in the land of university superabundance. As our building demonstrates, nearly everyone is associated with one of the academic institutions and the stores, restaurants, and lifestyle clearly reflect that truth. Go just north of 125th and you're in the land of lower-middle class, working, largely black (though increasingly Hispanic) families. Bodegas. Storefront churches. Projects. The physical transition and the wealth disparity are far more gradual, far less jarring than they were in New Haven, but they are still quite noticeable. My curiosity has definitely been piqued.

But what really piques my curiosity when it comes to cultural, micro-sociological, and - increasingly - racial dynamics is not my own neighborhood, but a strange and foreign land commonly known as the Upper East Side. This land that MTA forgot when creating the public transit system is not one I ever had the need or desire to frequent because, perhaps more than any other Manhattan neighborhood, the UES staggers under the weight of its acquired stigma: wealth. And so, due to the combined force of its lack of accessibility and its reputation for having a stick up its ass, the UES has managed to remain a strangely isolated enclave of wealthy New Yorkers with raging superiority complexes. It's like urban suburbia. The schools are better. The parks are nicer. The grocery stores stock more organic food. You cannot walk 6 inches without tripping over a stroller, as well-to-do families flock to the East 80s to raise their young at a safe distance from the city's less desirable characters. It is really not, in any way, New York City as I have ever experienced it. And now I work there. As a nanny.

Please believe me when I say that being a nanny on the UES entails equivalent culture shock to being a chaplain in Port Newark. After two immersive service years whose focus was, in brief, being in solidarity with the poor, to suddenly find myself amidst people who say things like, "I'm just so upset, the St. Regis didn't have the Bentley available to take us to the Bronx Zoo; the children were devastated," is, to put it mildly, a bit disorienting. At times frustrating. And unfailingly fascinating. Because, as a white, college-educated, young woman, I fit the demographic of the UES more closely than I fit that of West Harlem. And yet, I function in what should be my cultural milieu as a member of the servant class. That a white baby should have a white nanny seems to mess with everyone's heads (except, I presume and hope, the baby's): parents who assume he's mine; nannies who assume I'm just another crazy, condescending white mom; children I meet in the park who treat me differently than they do the other nannies. It is most certainly messing with my own head, bringing to light all manner of racist and classist assumptions I had no idea I had.

And so, dear readers, there's a long-winded taste of what you're in for, should this actually work out: rambly musings on urban geography, a foray into the racial dynamics (a subject which, it should be clearly stated, I know next to nothing about) of the nannying world, and, of course, the inevitable absurd stories one can acquire simply by walking around this city.

It is so good to be back.

Ode to Laundry

I knew I was going to miss New York spectacularly, and I have not disappointed myself in this respect. Obviously, I long for the predictable NYC staples, like Central Park, the West Village nightlife, and the ubiquitous froyo joints (duh). Even more obviously, I miss the subway. But in the two times I've revisited Manhattan since my departure two months ago, even I have been surprised by what evokes pangs of nostalgia. The smell, for instance. Yes, you can laugh. For those of you who can't conjure up an olfactory image of what New York smells like, may I refer you to Christopher Solomon's recent description in City Room: "you always smelled like Spent Camel Lights, and warming urine, and the No. 14 bus - a perfume I never could quite embrace." (In my defense, New York also consistently smells of food - that's got to be what I miss, right?)

But there is another component to the perfume particular to Manhattan: the cloying scents that waft out from the laundromats that punctuate its streets. If the subway is my favorite New York social institution to analyse, the laundromat is a close second. The washer/dryer-less state that screams of poverty anywhere else in the nation is an accepted fact of life in New York City. The idea of having room for a washer/dryer in the average NYC apartment is laughable at best. And so New Yorkers flock to laundromats in droves, toting their dirty clothes in granny carts that, once again, would elicit jeers and sneers outside of the nation's hippest city.

When I, privileged suburban kid that I am, arrived in New York and was told that I, too, would be reporting to the laundromat with regularity, I was less than thrilled. Laundry is heavy. Laundry is expensive (especially in New York). Laundry is time-consuming. I could have written you a novel about the things I would have liked to do instead of carrying my duffel bag (I was too cheap to invest in a granny cart - bad move) full of dirty clothes to Ms. Bubbles in the rain. Laundromats are dirty. They are crowded. The machines often don't work. If you run out of quarters or forget something, you're out of luck.

But doing laundry, I gradually discovered, is a social bonding experience. As the subway is the perfect microcosm of the metropolis, so is the laundromat the perfect microcosm of the neighborhood. Local culture thrives amidst the whirring and clanking of the machines. Harried Hispanic mothers sing to their toddlers. Columbia undergrads study their biology flashcards. Elderly African-American women counsel the clueless Columbia co-eds on how to separate their colors. Should a washing machine selfishly gobble up your quarters and refuse to give them back, you can rest assured that everyone in the sweltering, overly-perfumed room will offer you a sympathetic look - and, if you're lucky, some extra quarters. They've all been there, after all.

It never ceases to amaze me how, behind its polished façade of anonymity, New Yorkers manage to assert and satisfy their need for human connectedness in ceaselessly innovative ways. By the end of the year, I loved going to the laundromat, even when I was so busy that I had to do it late at night. The laundromat was my secret community. And I miss it. Here in New Haven, I am blessed with a washer and a dryer in my kitchen. I don't even have to contend with stairs. It is easy. It is efficient. It is free. And it is a ritual that has been robbed of its meaning.

City living

The children at St. Martin de Porres Academy are the most stereotypical city kids you will ever meet. The only time they ever see nature or wildlife is when we take them on school-sponsored trips outside of New Haven, when they are appropriately fascinated by said phenomena. Last week, I accompanied a group of kids on a trip to a retreat center on the Long Island Sound and spent most of the day convincing 6th graders that a) the crickets weren't harbingers of the apocalypse, b) the seagulls weren't going to swoop down and eat them, and c) the seaweed wasn't going to come creeping out of the water and attack them.

Intrigued though the children may be by fishing nasty seaweed out of the Sound, their chief source of fascination seems to revolve around cattle. To encourage a college-bound culture (one of my school's maddeningly catchy catch-phrases), I have mounted a UW pennant above my desk. Invariably, the students who come into my office to work on applications are far more interested in the minutiae of my personal life than in their application questions, so "Ms. Saylor - you're from Wisconsin??" is a frequent avenue of distraction. Naturally, they all want to know if I spent my childhood communing with my bovine companions in the middle of a field, drinking milk straight from the udder. The answer I give all depends on how much crap the interrogating child has given me on the day in question.

Two bovine conversational gems for you, my neglected readers:

1) While in the middle of a where-do-you-want-to-go-to-high-school interview, a particularly ADD 8th grader interrupts my interrogation to ask: "Wait, you're from Swiss-consin? That's where all the swiss cheese comes from, right?"

Ohhhhhh boy.

2) While driving an 8th grade girl to her shadow day at a Catholic high school a 45-minute drive into the CT boonies, we pass a field of cattle. I am busy trying not to get lost, not to get into an accident in CT traffic, and not to accidentally swear in frustration that I don't even notice. My student, however, nearly leaps out of her seat in fascination and concern. "What's wrong with the cows, Ms. Saylor? Are they dead???" Confused, I ask her what leads her to believe that the cows have moved on from their earthly life. "They're all lying down, Ms. Saylor! Are the cows gonna be all right??"

Apparently I have come to Connecticut from Wisconsin, via New York City, to be a specialist on marine plant life and bovine behavior. Who knew that's where a degree in religious studies would get me?

Ich bin...ein New Yorker?

I spent much of the last year trying to resist New York's charms. The City (as those of us who are unlucky enough to live tantalizingly close to New York, but not close enough to visit regularly, are doomed to call it) intrigues, fascinates, seduces, despite one's most valid and persistent reasons to hate it.

My decision to move to The City was made on such a whim that it took me a long time to realize that it takes a certain type to sign up to live in Manhattan. 90% of the Midwestern friends and family members who came to visit me in New York (and they were numerous) took one good look at the city and said, "It's nice to visit, but I could never live here." And so they don't try to. In my humble opinion, an attempt to live in New York can lead to one of only two outcomes: either you hate it so much that you leave soon after your arrival, or you're hooked. You may not know you're hooked, you may not really want to be hooked - but once New York has gotten under your skin, there is absolutely nothing you can do to change it.

For the last month, I feel like I have done very little besides pine for New York. Believe me, this mindset came as much to my surprise as it did to my housemates' annoyance - there are, after all, few things more insufferable than a sulky New Yorker.

...wait...did I just call myself a New Yorker? In many ways, I'm decidedly not - living in Manhattan for one year hardly qualifies as an ontological identity shift. Native New Yorkers would certainly never mistake me for one of their own. Besides, I'm a proud Sconnie, and will be til the day I die! But somehow, without my being aware of it, I made it to the point where my non-New Yorker friends tell me I've become a New Yorker. And that's more than a little disconcerting.

I think it took leaving the city to make me realize how badly I want to go back. The good news is that, after I finish this internship in New Haven, I can! And I probably will. If for no other reason that I'm nowhere close to done analyzing the microsociological dynamics of the subway system (you don't think I'm serious? I miss the subway so much that a compassionate New Yorker friend of mine took pity on me and mailed me a subway map to sustain me through this year-long public transportation fast.). I'm glad I'm here for the year. I'm glad I have this opportunity to experience a different kind of East Coast life (and I promise to blog about it one of these days - it's definitely not boring!). But I don't want to be a New Havenite. I don't want to be a Nutmegger. To my very great surprise, I want to be a New Yorker. At least enough to try living there again for another few years. By that time I should have the interpersonal subway dynamics figured out, right?

As I'm sure you all wanted to know...

There are many things that are readily available in New York, but difficult to locate in New Haven. Red lentils, for instance. Or taxi cabs. Or halal carts, should you fall prey to a sudden craving for a lamb kebab (it happens, you know). The list goes on and on. But there is one thing, I have been delighted to discover, that is plentiful here and virtually impossible to find on the isle of Manhattan: bathrooms.

Frankly I'm amazed I never got around to writing a post about the Manhattan bathroom scarcity problem while I was living there. It's honestly worse in New York than it was in France - because in Europe, at least, it's socially acceptable to pee outside in a state of bladder emergency. There are just NO public bathrooms! There are virtually no gas stations to rely on, and restaurants (even the McDonald's!) and coffee shops restrict their access by key. Even most libraries don't have them! There are few worse things than being downtown and having to go, especially if you're on a budget and can't afford a cup of coffee every time nature calls. All smart New Yorkers have their own, well-guarded lists of places they can depend on in a pinch (I won't share all of mine, but should you find yourself in need on the Upper West Side, may I refer you to the Cathedral), but still! So much unnecessary stress!

However: New Haven, while it hasn't yet realized that its denizens might occasionally want to hail a cab or crave an Ethiopian red lentil curry, has come to the enlightened discovery that its citizens have normal human body functions. Whether you find yourself on the Yale campus, with its blessedly unlocked buildings (take that, Columbia!), or simply near a restaurant that doesn't have dictatorial policies about restroom access, you don't have to plan a day in New Haven around your bathroom breaks. And it is absolutely glorious.

Why packing is a downright terrible idea

I am, by all accounts, not much of a procrastinator. I was always the obnoxious student who started the paper as soon as it was assigned, just so I wouldn't have it hanging over my head. Leaving things to the last minute stresses me out unbearably. Except when it comes to packing. Indeed, it seems that the whole of my ability to put things off has been funneled into this one realm. I'm heading to Connecticut Saturday morning, and I'll probably be cramming things into bags up until the last possible second.

For now, all I can motivate myself to do is to just...move things around disconsolately. For all my inability to actually pack, I am quite excellent at constructing and disassembling large, random, piles. I spent a few hours last night engaged in this pursuit, until I gave up and went out with my friends, hastily chucking the heaps of kitchen utensils and winter outerwear out of my bed and onto the floor.

I woke up around 3:00 in the morning with an inkling that something wasn't right. Sure enough, I quickly became aware of a sharp pain in my right buttock. Further analysis revealed that I was lying on some kind of sharp metal object: which turned out to be...a Lamb of God cookie cutter (from the Resurrection set - because every good Episcopalian girl has one?).

Gotta say,waking up in the middle of the night to discover the image of a divine sheep painfully imprinted on my rear didn't really do much to boost my motivation to pack. It did, however, give me a rather severe craving for cookies. Good thing I'm moving into a house with a real oven in 2 days. Perhaps I should acquire some non-Easter themed cookie cutters in the meantime? It would be another way to delay packing...

I ♥...the subway

Just to clarify: the reason that the only reflective, summing-up post I've written was a snarky list of things I won't miss is definitely not because there aren't things I will miss. Quite the contrary! There are SO many things I'll miss that I can't even begin to confine them to a bulleted list (though, again, that's not for lack of trying). As the blog attests, I have come full circle in my attitude towards New York: from unabashed enthusiasm, to frustrated disdain, to a more informed appreciation. I am excited for the opportunity to try out living in New England...but I can't help but hope that I'll wind up back in Manhattan someday. Not permanently, but maybe for a few years...

So! Things I will miss! The list is endless, really: acquiring crazy seafarer stories, my fabulous coworkers and roommates, the incredible people at St. Luke's, all the amazing cultural opportunities, etc, etc, etc. But one of the things I'll miss the most is also one of the most surprising (though you, my esteemed readers, may have guessed it): the subway. I have spent a minimum of two hours underground every day for the past year. I have had no shortage of horror stories: trains breaking down, accidentally going to Brooklyn, getting drenched in chocolate milk...after all I've been through, I consider myself thoroughly entitled to hate the entire New York City transit system. But I don't. I don't hate it in the least.

I feel like every college grad can point back to The Class That Changed Their Life. It's taken me a while to recognize that mine is not, as it perhaps should have been, the Introduction to the Gospels course that I took my sophomore year, but in fact L'Introduction a l'Anthropologie Urbaine, the urban anthro course that I randomly selected from the incomprehensible course list during my semester in Aix. Thanks to Mme. Abigail Peses (who spoke with such a thick Marseille accent that it's a miracle I learned anything at all), I was introduced to the fascinating world of microsociology - in particular the study of interpersonal interactions in public space. All of a sudden, I had an analytical framework for the largely unspoken rules that govern our public behavior. It is not an exaggeration to say that I have not been the same since.

I have often said that the subway is the perfect microcosm of New York society. It has, thus, proven to be the ideal arena for microsociological analysis. If an empty seat opens up on a crowded train, what factors determine who gets it? How do you react to the person who holds up an entire train by getting their bag stuck in the door? When the time comes to encourage people to move into the center of the car, do you make a verbal announcement, or do you just push? How does the size of a person's 'bubble' change as a train gets fuller? When is it acceptable to strike up a conversation with the person sitting next to you? Is it socially permissible to switch seats if your neighbor is particularly smelly? What can you reasonably eat on the train without attracting dirty looks? As anyone who has ever taken the train with me knows, I am fascinated by these kinds of questions to the point of obsession.

This fond discourse on the merits of the subway system is not to say that there haven't been days when I've longed for the ability to teleport from Harlem to Newark and back. There have. But, at the same time, I know that a huge part of my understanding of and appreciation for this city has come from the time I've spent zooming through underground tunnels, pondering the intricacies and idiosyncracies of New Yorkers' behavior. If I ever live in New York again, I will fervently hope for a shorter commute. But don't be surprised if I take up riding the subway for fun - or if my first book is an exploration of subway sociology :)

5 Things I Hate About You

My muse has utterly abandoned me of late. The number of unfinished blog posts queuing up in my drafts folder bears witness to that. I guess you're supposed to be consoled by the fact that, while I'm not actually producing a steady stream of witty, insightful reflections for your enjoyment, I'm going half crazy trying.

But fear not! As my departure from NYC (and, thus, my arrival in New Haven) looms increasingly large on the horizon, I suspect there will be no shortage of attempts at producing some kind of summative list of what the year has meant, what I've learned, what I loved, what I hated, etc. Hopefully a few of them will make it past the draft stage. Here's one for you now. The theme is cynicism.

5 THINGS I WILL NOT MISS ABOUT NEW YORK. not even a little bit.

1) La Granja. Wikipedia defines it as: "Spanish for 'the farm,' cf. grange, monastic grange," but don't let yourself be fooled by the idyllic connotations. La Granja is Harlemese for "the nastiest business establishment in all of Manhattan." It is, in short, a live poultry store. And I have the twin pleasures of living just across Amsterdam Ave. from it, and having to walk past it anytime I want to take the A train. It almost always involves fording a stream of chicken shit (and a veritable RIVER of chicken shit if it's raining). After seeing the conditions those birds live in, it is amazing that I have not reverted to my high school vegetarian state. Words cannot do justice to either the stench or my revulsion.

2) Newark Penn Station. One of few things that can be said for this transit hub is that it smells better than La Granja - but only slightly. For the past year, I have been lucky enough to get to pass through this fine establishment twice a day, five days a week. It is full of almost every kind of people that society labels as undesirable: homeless people, people who shoot heroin in the bathroom, people who beat their kids in the bathroom, people who expose themselves to you in the waiting area. On my better days, I am outraged that such destitution can go unnoticed by the tens of thousands of commuters who pass through the station each day. But 96% of the time, I avert my gaze, breathe through my mouth, and walk past the miserable hordes just like everyone else. A humorous child's misunderstanding of the Lord's Prayer reads: "Lead us not into Penn Station." The sad thing is, some days I pray it in earnest.

3) Marriage proposals. Getting hit on constantly. Being told I'm too skinny to have kids. Being objectified and sneered at. I have loved working at SCI, but these things? These I will not miss.

4) New York coffee norms. Go to your average Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds, corner deli, whatever; ask for a regular coffee and you will get a chocolate milk-colored concoction containing more sugar than caffeine. The first time I, an avowed black coffee orderer, made this mistake, I was annoyed but tolerant (different strokes...you know...I guess...). The next time I ordered my morning coffee, I was more specific: I asked for "Coffee. Black." To be fair, it was black in color. But it still contained more sugar than coffee. I was less than amused. By now, I have learned that, to get my coffee the way I want it, I need to say: "Coffee. Black. NO sugar. NO splenda. NO milk." This request is always, invariably, each and every damn time met with consternation and confused follow up questions. "No sugar...? You want flavoring...?" It makes me want to tear my hair out. Is it so inconceivable that a person could want black coffee? I simply do not understand.

5) Rush hour. I do not actually believe in hell. But if I did, my picture of eternal damnation would look a lot less like Dante's Inferno and a lot more like Manhattan on a Friday at 4:00. Before I moved to New York, I loved Fridays, for obvious reasons. I was, thus, astonished to discover, as the year went on, that the mere thought of Fridays reliably filled me with dread. It's that bad. The only way for me to make it through Friday rush is to turn my iPod to maximum volume, stick my nose in a book, and turn off my sensory capacities as completely as possible: the goal is for me not to even notice I'm on the train, much less smushed into a corner of an un-air-conditioned car, surrounded by angry, angsty New Yorkers, all of whom are willing to trample and/or bitch out anyone who gets in their way. I have seriously considered investing in a hip flask for additional support. That bikeable commute in New Haven cannot arrive quickly enough.

There you have it. A more optimistic list to follow, I promise.

On Wisconsin!

And now, for a change of pace. Up until now, the mission of this blog has been to describe, depict, and demystify New York City for an audience primarily made up of Wisconsinites (though I am consistently astounded by the unlikely reader locations turned up by my ClustrMap!). But now that my readership has expanded to include a large number of New Yorkers, I thought I'd turn the project on its head and do a bit of marketing and demystifying for my home state, where I currently find myself on a week of much-needed vacation. Because, seriously, New York friends: you have NO excuse not to high-tail it over here and come visit. For brevity's sake, I'll limit myself to 5 selling points (though I'll be happy to provide more via private correspondence to any interested parties!).

The top 5 best things about WI:

1) Lake Michigan. Dear Coasties, New Yorkers and otherwise who think of Wisconsin as "just another one of those good for nothing states in the middle of the country": we are not a Great Plains State. We have over 800 miles of Great Lakes Coastline, including both a breathtaking Milwaukee harbor and no shortage of gorgeous state parks. And FYI? When you look out at Lake Michigan you can't see the other side. It is not your average pond. It has waves. It has tides, even if they're not nearly of the same magnitude as the Atlantic. Best of all, it is BEAUTIFUL. Absolutely, mind-blowingly beautiful. I miss it every day I'm away from it.

2) Spotted cow. Aka, the best beer ever brewed by humankind. Made by the New Glarus Brewing Company, a small, local enterprise that refuses to sell its products out of state. Spotted was the first beer I learned to like, and I have yet to find one that can compete. You would be loathe to find a liquor-licensed establishment within our state borders that doesn't have it on tap. Better yet, it's affordable (having spent the past 11 months in a city where I can only afford to have one drink at a time, I appreciate cheap WI beer prices more than ever)! With these facts in mind, it's a wonder I was ever sober during my college years...

3) The Dane County Farmers' Market. Makes the Union Square market look like a dinky little Greenmarket cart. Held outdoors every Saturday from April through November, the Madison market winds all the way around the Capitol Square, and it is GLORIOUS. It is The Madison community event each week; virtually the entire city is in attendance. Go early if you actually want to beat the crowds and snatch up the best produce (and squeaky fresh cheese curds!), go mid-morning if you want to marvel at how utterly food-obsessed this lively, ultra-liberal city of not even 600,000 can get. Not a summer Saturday goes by when I don't wish that I were back on the Square with my camera and my tote bag. My enthusiasm about being there tomorrow is threatening to reach dangerous levels.

4) The Memorial Union Terrace. Aka, the best place to hang out in all of Madison, if not in the entire state. If you don't believe me, just check out the super cool Terrace webcam and see for yourself. Between the scenery of Lake Mendota, the easy access to Babcock Hall ice cream (made on campus from campus cows! most delicious ice cream you'll ever taste!), the constant free concerts and movies, and the endlessly flowing (and, once again, affordable!) pitchers of beer, you really can't go wrong. It is the quintessential Wisconsin experience.

5) Frozen custard. Now, you may think you have tasted this Most Hallowed of all Dairy Desserts, but seriously: unless you've been to Wisconsin, you haven't. This recently published article from the Village Voice is only half right: "Though first popularized in Coney Island, frozen custard—a soft extruded ice cream rich with egg yolks—is now primarily a Wisconsin phenomenon. In the city, you can get excellent custard at Timmy O's Frozen Custard...and at any Shake Shack location." While I cannot personally vouch for Timmy O's, I can assure you that Shake Shack's products, while tasty, do not even begin to approach the excellence available at places like Gilles, Michael's, or, my personal favorite, Kopp's. Not even in the same category. To get your custard fix, you'll just have to visit the Dairy State in person.

Sold yet?

Pride pictures

...and the internet is magically fixed, so here are the promised pictures (sooner than anticipated! Even I, the world's slowest blogger, sometimes manage to deliver). In reality, I was too busy having a blast to bother capturing the full, colorful spectrum of the Pride Parade, but here are a few random shots.

.