Tuesday, November 4, 2014

New York State of Mind

Despite having grown up a paltry 3-hour drive from NYC, I am ashamed to admit that I've never spent quality time in the Big Apple. In college, I attended an off-off Broadway show in a cramped theatre-come-apartment, but the good Catholic girls of Notre Dame were hustled onto a bus as soon as the actors took their final bow.

My ignorance about New York City is a source of embarrassment, but also of great mystery. More than a few of my friends live in the city and try to satisfy my curiosity with first-hand accounts — about hailing cabs in the rain, people watching in Central Park, or eating matzo ball soup at the ubiquitous corner diner. Their comings and goings would sound, frankly, ordinary, were in not for the soft neon hum that saturates each undertaking.

Reality, however, has never gotten in the way of my fantasy life. Though the tide of yellow cabs and the cozy, greasy warmth of a diner have their appeal, whenever I imagine NYC, everyone is doing the Mary Tyler Moore twirl. Everyone is gaping and throwing hats into the air with sophisticated abandon, hats that just go up, up and never come down. Times Square is ablaze with honking and the clack of expensive heels, a kind of song, the the only lyrics to which are "This is your big break." The full moon balances atop the Empire State Building, beaming down like a spot light, glamorizing even the cops and the doormen and the other non-actors.

Driver, take me to the bagels and the knock-off purses and the celebrities!

But is the Empire State Building anywhere near Times Square? I have no idea. And why don't the hats ever come down? Do they hang suspended above the sidewalk? Do they disappear? This is my fantasy, but even I can't make sense of that part.

It should also be noted that there are no toddlers. Diaper wipes and apple sauce don't factor into the whole metropolitan idyll. Which is why we'll be leaving Pork Chop with my folks when Shelby and I board a train for NYC. Indeed, fantasy and reality are about to collide like a bunch of idiots twirling around on a New York City sidewalk.

The trip, which will take place during an undisclosed weekend (because burglars) has been a long time in the making, meaning that my anticipation and anxiety have reached dizzying heights. I have treated my nerves, however, with a numbing dose of retail therapy. Because what a mom with a relatively new home, a part-time job, and an unrequited love of Internet stardom needs is a $70 faux-leather mini skirt. With pockets! It has pockets! For, I don't know, stashing a few menthol cigarettes or a small shank.

My husband is an inveterate traveler; he bought our train tickets, booked the hotel, even made dinner reservations. Whereas I have been buying clothes in the hope that, when a literary agent sees me on the street, she thinks, "Would you get a load of those slacks! Now there's a woman with a story to tell." Common sense also dictates that if I bump into Tina Fey while I'm approachably eating a hot dog, I need to be wearing tall boots and a cable-knit sweater. It's just what a future best friend would wear. Wrinkle cream also figures prominently into my getaway preparations, because New Yorkers are attractive. Fact. And I wouldn't want to be taken for some kind of tourist.

Two days. That's how long we'll be in the city. And by "city" I mean "another city." We live a few miles from Washington D.C. — the seat of American power, crammed to the beltway with history, diverse, bustling. Oddly enough, I never find myself thinking, "If we run into Barry and Michelle at dinner tonight, I'd best be wearing my 'Why, yes, Mr. President, I am available to write speeches!' blazer.

But NYC isn't my city. For almost four decades, it's been a place I've visited only in books or in movies, a spectacular Frankenstein's monster cobbled together from The GodfatherFame, and The Muppets Take Manhattan. I know. I know it won't be exactly what I imagine it to be. And that's for the best. How disappointing to invest all of this anxiety, all this anticipation, only to have my expectations merely satisfied.  The New York of my imagination sounds lovely, but I've already been there.

25 comments:

  1. What's fascinating about this essay is that this is exactly how NEW YORKERS feel! Most of us have traveled here from some other place, in pursuit of precisely these things! I have lived here now more than half my life but I still CAME here, I was not raised here, so I am closer to you in perspective than a native. Even Woody Allen (who we can't really bring up in polite conversation anymore, alas, as he is basically the summation of 3/4 of this stuff) chases these icons of NYC and what the city means, feels, expels, symbolizes, sounds like and absorbs. We, all of us who live here, are in a love affair and abusive relationship with this place. it is not exactly the city it was when I moved here before, gulp, the turn of the century. We used tokens for the bus when I moved here, not Metrocards, there were half the people and twice the number of subways, You didn't need to produce a new kidney to sell each month in order to pay the rent. Lots of landmark buildings have been torn down (because, Bloomberg, et al) and there are wars all the time between the mercilessly mercenary and the desperately poor (see: Bonfire of the Vanities: the line "You think the future can't cross a bridge" remains one of the most accurate summations of class warfare in a city that a writer has ever conjured) BUT it is still our beautiful fair city. The moon is indeed above that glorious Empire State Building, and the Chrysler Building, its slightly less iconic but even more dazzling sister. People don't dress up as much here as they once did, but there is an entire population of older people of all socioeconomic backgrounds who won't leave the house without a fedora hat and trench coat in the fall. Bookstores are making a huge comeback. New York, it turns out, was only MOSTLY dead, not ALL dead. We now have a progressive mayor. Chain stores selling body scrubs are finally being replaced by bookshops once more. Dance studios are reopening. Lots of city things are happening again.
    Oh, and as for diaper wipes, that's another war. The non-spawning elitists will definitely give you a devastating glare for trying to push a stroller through a door (true story: Frank Langella lectured me in the doorway of a Barnes and Noble when I was a nanny) but there are legions of parents here who are happy to give you an apple slice or emergency diaper (true story: I see Samantha Jones in our neighborhood every week and I finally accosted her and told her how much her writing about parenthood meant to me, even more than her comedy on the Daily Show. Then I saw Jason Jones outside Zabar's and trick-or-treating with his kids the other night and thought: wow, are they the perfect new York family, or what?)
    Oh, one thing I should warn you about: New Yorkers, LOVE to talk about all things to do with their city. oh wait, I've already warned you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oops, I mean Samantha Bee! She is married to Jason Jones!

      Delete
    2. You know you inspired much of this post. I thought of you and Lydia, gals about town that you are. I am so excited to see your town. And, yes, I realize you aren't "from there," but I live by DC; no one (it seems) is "from there" either. Still, they are exciting cities full of more good people than bad. As for Frank Langella, he can just suck it.

      Delete
  2. I, on the other hand, was raised in a NYC suburb. Until we moved to Texas for a three-year stint beginning in 5th grade, I thought "going to work" meant walking to the train station in a suit with a briefcase, and boarding a train to an office in a large nearby city. I couldn't believe it when I met people in Texas who had never ridden a train. How on earth did they earn money?

    As a 20-something, I was filled with the electricity about NYC, and sometimes I thought about living there, but then I moved to the country, and when I would return, I found the feeling of my knuckles growing white on the steering wheel of my car as people cut me off without even waving rather unpleasant and stressful. I do like to visit occasionally. There is nothing like a Broadway show anywhere else in the world - even the lovely theatres like the Warner or the Kennedy Center in DC with their tours that come through just can't compare to Broadway. That alone makes it worth the visit. But then I am always glad to come home to my slower-paced life, easy-breezy-time-to-be-a-hippie b/c things are not so expensive and people aren't in quite so much of a big fat hurry in my neck of the woods.

    I hope you have a fabulous undisclosed weekend. Are you seeing a show?? Please tell me you are going to see a show...otherwise, what's the point? ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am sorry to disappoint, but we are probably not going to a show. I would LOVE to see a show, but given that we only have two days, I want to be outside, I want to see the buildings, see the people. I think we will likely go to MoMA, which will allow for ample people watching. Mostly, I'm looking forward to feeling that electricity you talked about. I love that feeling. And, yeah, in my day-to-day life, I prefer a slower pace, but a long weekend of go-go-go sounds amazing right about now.

      Delete
  3. We have been there many times and at different times of the year. There is so much to see and do and your tall boots, faux leather skirt and cable knit sweater are going to fit right in. Juniors, right next to the Lion King Theater in Times Square, has the quintessential NYC Cheesecake. FYI Have a wonderful time.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know I will pack all of those fancy clothes and still end up wearing my favorite jeans and walking shoes. Still, it's fun to dream. It's even more fun to eat cheesecake! Thanks for the tip!

      Delete
  4. Keep your purse tightly close to you. Words of advice from the Snark Meister. Other than that, have a fantastic trip!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My purse weighs 50 lbs on a good day. Have fun trying to run off with that beast, suckas!

      Delete
  5. You must post when you come back and contrast the perception and the reality (i.e., spoiler alert: there are PLENTY of unattractive people in New York). The beating heart of Manhattan is Times Square, but no, it's a good 10 blocks (short blocks!) to the Empire State Building. And Giuliani ran off a lot of the street vendors (but some still try--just don't expect them to be in the same spot all the time). Just let the indescribable "city-ness" of the Big Apple wash over you...and enjoy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're right. I need to have a follow-up post. As for the ugly folks, I'll believe them when I see them. And when I see them, I'll blog about them.

      Delete
  6. Awesome - can't wait to see the pic of the faux-leather mini skirt.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UPDATE: Tried on the faux leather mini skirt with my fancy "best friend" sweater. It was awful. It was returned. I'll take snaps of whatever I wear to replace it.

      Delete
  7. Oh how exciting I think it would be cool to visit NYC I don't know if I would ever get there but it is on my list of places that I think would be cool to visit

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I live so close, I feel like it's a crime that I haven't visited before. There are so many places I'd like to visit. I could cry thinking that I might not make it to all of them.

      Delete
  8. I have a brother who moved there recently. He and his wife just welcomed a baby into the world of NYC. He told me (in secret of course because his wife is a native and he is from *gasp* Oklahoma) "my first fear was...how do you have a child in NEW YORK CITY!!"

    Everytime I visit I see something else that makes me fall more in love with the city.

    Battery park at sunset is one of my very favorite memories from my time in my beloved NYC.

    Have a great time!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've wondered just the same thing. How do parents make do in that city? But, now that I know actual parents who live in NYC, I know they make do like all parents who live in the city: public parks, museums, a high tolerance for tight living quarters. As for my own visit, I'm looking forward to falling a little bit in love too.

      Delete
  9. I have only been there a handful of times, but I love it so much. It's also the site of one of the biggest fights I ever had with my husband. We were lost. It got ugly.

    We laugh about it now. Or at least I do.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh god. Did you know my husband calls me "Jessica MAPisarda" because of my abysmal sense of direction? Let's hope that doesn't become an issue.

      Delete
  10. Despite the fact that I now live only 45 from "The City," I really enjoyed your post.

    And I agree that we should always dress for our fantasy lives. I have a closet full of clothes I've never worn (impossibly slim leather pants, a cream colored silk suit, the ultimate "knock me down and fuck me" shoes - with pink maribou!, an electric blue evening bag that could only have been designed by Dr. Seuss) which, despite never having been worn, continue to provide me with great pleasure.

    Enjoy your trip! After all this time, I hope The Big Apple lives up to your expectations.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Let's be best friends. What size do you wear (shoe, shirt, pants, bra, etc.)? Best friends, remember, borrow each other's clothes. Which reminds me, do you have any impossibly slim leather pants and a pair of saucy pink heels? (I love that you have a fantasy wardrobe. I could talk for hours about my love affair with a pair of Frye knee-high sexy pioneer woman boots. Oh god do they hurt my feet and lack any practical use, but I'll never give them up. Never! Unless you want to borrow them, friend.)

      Delete
  11. Chris and I are going in a few weeks...just for the day. Local guy charters two buses and sells seats for $50 each. We'll leave at 5:30 in the morning and get back around midnight. It'll be awesome as it always is. We thought about doing a show, but have decided to trek to Brooklyn for what I'm told is THE BEST pizza. We just plan to walk and gawk and come home thankful that we life in BFE Central PA where we have more cows as neighbors than people. But for a day or a weekend, NYC is the bee's knees!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, we would love to see a show, but given our short stay, we are opting to see the sights instead. Trekking through Brooklyn for the world's best pizza sounds awesome! (I think we'll be scoping out pizza AND hot dogs.) Enjoy the time away from your bovine neighbors.

      Delete
  12. When I went to NYC for the first time last year, I was surprised by how much of what I imagined was completely accurate. For example, I've seen Grand Central Terminal in SO many movies, I was thoroughly unimpressed by it in person. I'd practically been there a million times! It is a LOT dirtier than I pictured, though. The trashcans in Battery Park were overflowing at 10am. TEN A freakin' M!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We just got back from NYC late last night. I'm going to give a recap in my next post, but I just wanted to say that you were spot on. The lions outside of the New York Public Library? It was like reliving Ghostbusters. And, yes, the trash. Oh god, the trash. And pee smell. Don't get me wrong, we had an amazing time. But, yeah, there was a lot of hand sanitizing.

      Delete