So I was watching a crappy tv show the other day before going to work and a character in said tv show made an interesting analogy. Somehow, the topic of the movie "The Wizard of Oz" came up in reference to growing up and moving away from home. For those of you that have yet to realize I've been writing about this very topic for the last few weeks, now is the time to perk up and take notice that I've moved.
Anyway, back to the show. I can't remember the exact phrasing used in the show, so I'll do my best to paraphrase. The point made was that the most famous line in movie history is "There's no place like home" from "The Wizard of Oz". And while in certain cases, this can be true, the movie actually proves the opposite. The feeling of sleeping in your own bed and eating food from your own refridgerator, and crapping on your own toilet are things that we may in fact take for granted. But if there is no place like home, then why in "Wizard" is home a drab, boring, black-and-white place where some crabby old broad wants to kill your dog.
Away from home is in technicolor. Huge buildings, lush greenery, flying monkeys and singing midgets. I actually haven't seen flying monkeys yet, and the midget I saw was actually tap-dancing in the subway terminal at Penn Station, but you can grasp my point. The one thing I haven't quite placed is that in Oz, Dorothy makes the best friends she'll ever have....whereas I'm sitting here typing on this damn machine and drinking alone. My friends are the thing I miss the most, besides my dog. So I suppose that analogy goes only so far.
On to more exciting fodder:
Late nights, riding the subway is possibly one of the most humorous experiences to be had in this city of huge design. Whether your amusement is derived from drunks, whores, bums, or drunk whorish bums.....the subway at 2am has what you're looking for.
I must look like a deer caught in headlights when riding the train, because I can't help but stare at these amazing creatures to see if they might do tricks. I think I even got propositioned by a "working woman" the other night on my way home from work. She was at least a good looking prostitute with all of her teeth, or at least I think it was a "her". If not, that guy paid a lot of money for a pretty good set of melons and to have his adam's apple reduced. No....it had to be a girl. I couldn't help but giggle when she proposed her idea of romance, which included a hotel room, room service and getting "Freeeeeaa-ky" (which was in fact broken up into several extra syllables than freaky generally has).
Another late evening included sitting in between a completely gorgeous Columbia University student named Katie and a horny, drunken Spanish guy named Emilio. I, having had only two beers due to both the expense of alcohol and my lack of financial abundance, was caught in the middle of a poorly executed hook-up attempt and the poor unwilling victim of said attempt. Apparently, I have "I'll be your fake boyfriend" written across my forehead because as soon as Emilio finished slurring his less-than romantic plea to Katie, she blurts out "He's my boyfriend." It was all I could do not to squeak "WHAT?!?!" and play along. Emilio, dejected and still alone, exited the train at the next stop and Katie used the tension-filled moment to thank me. Before I could even muster the courage to attempt to speak more than "you're welcome", the train came to yet another screeching halt and she was gone. Damn. As if I could magically have a ton of luck, just because it was 3am. Oh well.
If (and hopefully when) some of you people decide that it'd be cool to visit, we'll stay up late and ride the train somewhere and stare at all the people. It'll be fun. If you're lucky, I'll suffer through all the tourist bullshit with you too. It's funny that I've been here less than 3 weeks and already I'm totally fed-up with tourists.
Last story, I promise.....
I was walking up Broadway near Times Square (42 St.) and there had apparently been a car accident involving a taxi cab. The front-end of the cab was super-ultra-mega smashed up and that took me all of two seconds to realize. Unfortuneatly, the 350 tourists crammed on each corner of the intersection couldn't arrive at the same realization. It was too exciting for their tourist brains. So they just stood there with mouths agape and eyes bulging from their sockets like a pregnant woman's stomach somewhere in the third trimester. Even though the street sign clearly had a picture of a stick-person walking, signaling the hoards of people to actually shuffle their feet in an effort to move from the spot they seemed to be glued in, they stood in the same spots, each moron with his own perfect view of the crushed taxi that also hadn't moved in thirty-five minutes. Imagine my dismay actually having to struggle my way through the crowd, apparently being the only one with something slightly better to do.
The city is interesting to say the least.
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