new york minute

weather: 60°F and breezy—chilly, even.

odor: my street—reminiscent of the underside of a kitchen-sink drain trap; midtown—none detectable.

subway conditions: because people have gone away for the holiday, i was forced into unwanted physical contact with only one person, a young man who slammed into my left hand, which was gripping a center pole, for absolutely no reason as he passed me, causing a significant amount of flesh to be pinched between the pole and one of my rings; aside from this, a pleasant, inexplicable-stop-free ride.

walking conditions: one might think that, because there are fewer people on the streets, it would be easier to get from one place to another, but not so; the more relaxed commute appears to have given everyone the feeling that there's no reason to rush, or move, and all these trendy bitches in their high heels and flip-flops are strolling at a pace so leisurely it is actually causing me pain. i can, in fact, walk in my shoes; please allow me to do so.


i have been trying to take advantage of the fact that i can walk in my shoes, or, rather, that i am not too self-conscious or silhouette-obsessed to wear shoes conducive to walking, to explore different routes between my office on 35th street and the subway stop on canal street, where i catch a train to brooklyn. this is about three miles of walking whichever way i decide to go, and it carries me through what i imagine is a decent mix of manhattan neighborhoods. here is the surprising thing about that:

it's all the same. from lower park avenue all the way to the upper edge of chinatown, the blocks are basically indistinguishable. they all house the same combination of uninteresting stores—usually an h&m next door to a banana republic, next door to either a gap or an express—and the people walking in and out of and back and forth between these stores are also fairly similar and, from the distance and speed at which i am walking among them, relatively uninteresting. wait, that's not entirely true; between 35th street and union square, i get a lot of disdaining glances from the women i pass, because, i've concluded, i am carrying a giant green backpack instead of a stylish handbag and wearing sneakers and chunky sport socks with my work skirt. (i believe it is a sort of love-hate disdain, in that they are disgusted with my indifference but also envious of my comfort and freedom, but, really, no one is holding them back but themselves.) from union square on, where there are more students and fewer women who *heart* calluses and bunions, this doesn't happen so much. also, once you reach the lower east village and start heading into soho, the gaps and expresses are replaced by something called "necessary clothing." i haven't ventured inside one of these stores, but i can only assume that the moniker is accurate and the items being sold inside are utterly essential, because i can't imagine how so many of them could stay in business otherwise. i find myself growing immensely nostalgic for boston, a city i'd never thought i'd love and had actually tried hard not to live in, because it has managed to confine blocks like this, which possess the air of a large open-air mall, to a meager handful of concentrated areas downtown. in most outer areas and bordering neighborhoods, it has resisted brand infestation. manhattan, defying all expectations, appears to have caved almost entirely. this is very disappointing. also, boston, even in its grittiest areas, rarely smells funny.

now, i didn't come here with the starry-eyed expectation that this city would knock me on my ass with its crazy, one-of-a-kind "it"ness and make me regret every second i'd ever spent anywhere else. i had been here before. i knew about the monster whole foods on bowery, and i'd been listening to various residents gripe about the stem-to-stern gentrification and crate-and-barreling of the city for many, many moons. but still, walking through it and realizing that any pockets of true uniqueness of character are holdouts unlikely to survive through 2015, given the current rents in the fricking bronx, is definitely a downer.

i do love being out in it, though, in the noise and the dirt, the clouds of exhaust hanging in the hot, swampy air. no one is a friend, everyone is either rude or insane—and i feel safer and more at ease moving anonymously through the center of that hateful crowd than i have felt anywhere else. it's like a family reunion. the city itself, really, is like a member of the family now—it's got flaws and everyone can see them, and i'll talk down about it all i want, but if you and i don't share a gene or two, i'd sure as hell better not hear you say a bad word. in three weeks, it has permeated me. and i have caved. maybe at this point in its history, the myth of new york, the city the starry-eyed people come here expecting to find, contributes more to its energy and to the mood of its inhabitants than any facet of its physical reality. sure, i can shop anywhere. sure, it is more and more, on the outside, just a city, like any other city, if even that good. and yet . . .

last week, while waiting for the downtown r at atlantic avenue, i saw two rats run out onto the tracks and chase each other around, squeaking and nattering like little kids in a high-voltage game of tag. the lead rat stopped suddenly and turned, and its pursuer, startled, lost its footing and fell off the track into the stagnant pool of murky, rubbish-infused sludge beneath it. it jumped out, shook itself, and resumed the chase, unfazed by the dunk or the dirt, and the two scampered off into the the dingy underground, chipper as the day is long. and i thought,

right on, my brothers. right on.