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.