The Point of Commonality

On Friday, my father took me on a dinner cruise around Manhattan. When we got to the Statue of Liberty, the band played America the Beautiful and the whole cruise emptied onto the deck to take pictures. I scoffed at the multitudes snapping digital shots of the big green lady (“Do you think this is what it was like coming in to Ellis Island?” someone joked).

As I tried to overcome my hokeyness aversion and appreciate the statue’s symbolic power, another ship passed by. Everyone on our boat started waving at the strangers on the other one. My brother, who was standing next to me, commented on how weird this was. “It’s like, the farther away you are from the point of commonality, the less you need to have in common,” he said.

The Way We Sit

In a women’s studies class in college, I read a decade-old article by Jocelyn Hollander comparing men’s and women’s style of sitting. In the article, which isn’t available online, Hollander notes that men usually sit with their legs spread wide open while women sit with their legs crossed. Why? Because women are supposed to be diminutive and take up less space, and men are encouraged to take up space — not just physically, but in the professional, social, and domestic realms, too.

During a meeting in my office today, I did some investigating. Props to Hollander: many more women than men were crossing their legs, and more men had their legs spread apart. But a couple of guys had their legs crossed, and a couple of girls had one ankle on the opposite knee in a stereotypical guys’ pose. On other investigations, too, I’ve noticed men crossing their legs: in subways, on buses, lounging in restaurant chairs. Is this a new trend? A New York trend? Or do I just notice the leg-crossers because I’m looking for them?

And what does it all mean?

Do some investigating of your own. Report back in comments.

Jaywalking

No, not this, this.

New Yorkers with children never jaywalk. Even when the street is carless, they stand at the crosswalk, straining their ears for any sign of wheels. When the walking man appears, they grab their children’s hands and say, “Okay! Ready?” in a voice full of saccharine sunshine. Are they really worried that if they jaywalked, they’d lead their kids to fatality? Or are they instilling good street-crossing habits?

I find this atrocious. Jaywalking is a passion of mine. The thrill of running across the street, of breaking the law! How could a person deny children this pleasure?

And where does the jaywalking ban for children put me? If I dart across like a felon, it probably ruins the parents’ gig. But I can’t live my life in kiddie-rules jail!

Newspaper Moochers

I have an old-fashioned subscription to The New York Times, and I read it at the gym. Sometimes, as I’m tossing my just-read paper, a sweaty stranger asks for it. This morning, a chunky guy huffing away on the Stairmaster yelled out.

Stairmaster man: [unintelligible garble]!

Me: What?

Stairmaster man: [unintelligible garble]!

Me: What?

Stairmaster man (annoyed): I was asking if you could save your paper.

Me: Oh. (I place the newspaper on a bike seat and scurry away.)

New York One-Liners

Last night I talked to an NYC woman who got married in Las Vegas a couple of months ago. She described the pink courthouse and the woman whose bright red dress matched her highlights. “Las Vegas is where tacky goes to get new ideas,” she said.

Superb. I started thinking of one-liners for New York. A few:

• New York is where culture goes to get more pretentious.
• New York is where dogs go to get clothes.
• New York is where crazy people go. Period.

Post your own in comments.

Scary Subway Times

I descended onto the subway platform just as a train was leaving this morning, so I knew I had enough time to sit on a bench. One had two people separated by three seats, so I sat in the middle. (NEVER sit next to someone if you don’t have to. Everyone in New York has personal space issues.) I put my lunch bag on the seat to my right, in between me and another woman. As soon as I set it down, the lady erupted like a crazy jack-in-the box: “Get that off me! Get that off me, you moron! Get that off me!”

Note that the bag was not on her, but next to her — a foot away, really. I thought pointing this out was unwise, so I lifted the bag from the seat and put it on the floor. As I sat there, my thoughts went through this progression:

Reading Big Books on the Subway

I’ve been reading Atlas Shrugged for the past few months. (I am a slow reader.) My copy of this book is about a foot tall and five pounds. At first, when I read it on the subway, I was embarrassed — what was I trying to do, prove something? “Hey, passengers! I bet you thought I was illiterate. But I’m not!” I tried to be inconspicuous by laying the book on my lap and hunching over it like a dying person.

But as the months passed, I grew proud of the feat I was accomplishing. Yeah, I was reading Ayn Rand! Check me out, subway! I started whipping it out while standing, right in other passengers’ faces. This was even better, because I was reading while balancing.

Backpacks.

Since elementary school, I’ve been a fan of the backpack. (In fifth grade, I even sported the uni-shoulder look, until my second-grade brother adopted it and usurped my coolness.) I saw swarms of children festooned with these dorky sacks on a run this morning. My heart swelled. Then I saw the offender: the backpack on wheels.

In my youth, the rolly backpack was a big no-no. Its use prompted wincing, even groaning. But the child doing the rolling today didn’t look outcastish. He looked like an incast, in fact — good posture, purposeful gait, spiffy clothes. His presentation said, “Yeah, I’m a seven-year-old with a rolly backpack. What of it?”

So is the backpack-on-wheels in vogue these days? Or does it just take an overconfident child to make it legit?

Refusing to Be Social

Two women, strangers, were walking their dogs on the Upper East Side. As they passed each other, their dogs sniffed each other and said hello. The women did not make eye contact. They stood there for a full minute, refusing to acknowledge that there was another person present. It’s all about the dogs.

But it’s not just an obsession with dogs. It’s an obsession with being antisocial. New Yorkers refuse to speak to strangers. I’ve smiled at people on the street, I’ve said hello, I’ve waved, and the ratio of “Good morning!” responses to startled faces is one to 43. I don’t think it’s fear — I think it’s a cultural norm. If you’re from the Midwest, you think saying howdy-doody is super-friendly and cool. But true New Yorkers? They know it’s a loser thing to do.

Seriously, though. If your dog is slobbering on another dog’s face, can’t you at least smile at the other leash-holder?

Hogging the Stall

Back to bathroom etiquette.

In a restaurant restroom with two stalls, I was waiting in line. I was not waiting patiently. I made throat-clearing noises to notify the pee-ers that I was there. Minutes passed.

Then I saw it: a shadow of two hands texting on a Blackberry on the floor of one of the stalls. This woman wasn’t even going to the bathroom — she was texting! Texting!

Dog Crap

This morning I saw a woman picking up a piece of squishy, hot dog crap with a grocery store bag. I see this at least once a day. But today, for the first time, I had a revelation:

That is revolting.

Why are New Yorkers not horrified to touch just-excreted feces with only a thin piece of plastic between the shit and their manicured fingers? One-centimeter bug: shriek! Hair in a restaurant’s entree: shriek! Fetid brown smears on your hand: eh. Dogs are family.

Buying Chunks of Air

There aren’t just too many people for New York’s sidewalks. There are too many people in New York, period. It’s unnatural.

Most of Manhattan is living in space. As a coworker put it, people here don’t buy land — they buy chunks of air. Think of it this way: there’s a piece of land. If everyone lives on the ground, they have the same amount of space whether they’re in their houses, on the bus or walking around. But once you start stacking apartments like pogs, people lose all the space they own once they descend to the ground. It’s mayhem! Were people meant to be up in each other’s grills like this? No.

But now that we’ve invented skyscrapers, it’s kind of fun to be pressed up against a fat man’s belly in the subway. Am I right?

Touristism

We all know tourists walk slowly. We know tourists stop on the sidewalk and take pictures. We know they say ooh; we know they say ahh.

But why do New Yorkers hate tourists?

Superficially, I get it: you have to make it to work on time and these people with dumb twangy accents are standing in your path. They don’t understand! They must stand to the side! Move, foreigners, move!

But listen. These people are admiring your city, the place you’ve chosen to live. They are paying massive amounts of money to stay in its hotels and eat its food. Sure, they haven’t “earned it” by learning subway routes or paying rent, but shouldn’t a city serve its visitors as well as its residents? Shouldn’t somebody appreciate Times Square?

Contentious, I presume. So comment.

Bumper People

There are too many people for New York’s sidewalks.

The first few months, when strangers bumped my shoulder, I chirped “Sorry!” and silently cursed them. Now, I hardly notice, and never apologize. It just happens too often.

I was explaining this to a couple of friends yesterday when a man rounded the corner, almost crashed into us, and yelled, “a-WHOOPS!”

Newcomer.

Mapping the Subway

My first apartment in New York City was in Brooklyn. A week after I moved in, I pulled out my subway map as I descended into the MTA depths. A man brushed past me in a leather jacket and tats, wheeled around, and barked, “You better put that away or you’re gonna get robbed.”

This was startling, but I had an in: Tats could tell me where to go! Which he did, naming a two-transfer route that was in fact the most direct way to get there. (I checked my map on the subway.)

To be a New Yorker, you must have memorized the subway map. You can’t just know how to read it. You must never look at it. Never.

The question: how many boroughs does a New Yorker have to memorize? Even a friend of mine who’s lived in Manhattan for five years doesn’t know Brooklyn for beans. Just Manhattan? The borough you live in?

Vote in comments.

Bathroom Etiquette

In a Starbucks bathroom:

Someone yanks on door.

Me: Someone’s in here.

More yanking on door.

Me (louder): Somebody is IN here!

This continues for several rounds. When I realize I’m screaming, I bang on the door, since the yanker either cannot hear me or is alerting me of fire. “Sorry, it says vacant,” she says. Curious, since the door is locked.

“You Need to Make Money to Say You Don’t Want Money”

I volunteer at a place called God’s Love We Deliver — an ironically non-religious organization that makes meals for people with AIDS (this is a plug). Tonight, I wrapped bagels in cellophane and eavesdropped on my bagel-wrapping neighbors. One told her coworker about her idealism when she graduated from college — she worked for the Elie Wiesel Foundation pursuing “acceptance, understanding and equality.” Then she realized how many loans she had to pay back. Now she works for an IT company.

“You need to make money to say you don’t want money,” her coworker responded.

The Dating Game

No, not this one. In my version, you spy on couples and guess how long they’ve been dating. This is particularly entertaining if you play with friends and compare your estimates. Once three of us each came up with four months. Joyous convergence!

Examples:

1. This weekend, at an adjacent dinner table: a guy with a stylish baseball cap and t-shirt sitting caddy-corner from a girl in a swanky black top and gold jewelry, both early 20s. Each ordered two or three drinks. By dessert, she was flipping her hair and putting her hand on his arm with every comment. The verdict? Third date. (And their meeting story, invented: they went to the same college and joined brother-sister frats and sororities.)

Middle-Aged (Spider)man

A man, 45-ish, boarded my bus last night sporting khakis, a blue raincoat, and a Spiderman umbrella. This umbrella was serious, with Spiderman-themed fabric and a tiny, plastic, Spiderman handle.

There are two options:

(a) The man has children, including a Spido-fan. These children pile their umbrellas in a heap next to the door. As he was running out into the rainstorm, in a rush to make his appointment, the man grabbed the first umbrella he could find. Spidobrella.

(b) The man loves Spiderman.

Not for Beginners: Juggling Knives and Torches

Last night, I met a guy who moonlights as an actor, magician and juggler. I implored him to show me a trick, and he did some ridiculous thing with rubber bands. I made high-pitched squealing noises. Then I asked him all I’ve ever wondered about juggling.

This guy is legit: he juggles knives and torches and can balance a chair on his chin. What I’ve never understood is how one learns to juggle knives and torches. When you first ride a bike and start tipping to the side, you stick your foot out — or your parent or guardian (P.C.) props you back up. But if you catch the flaming side of a fire stick by mistake, you burn your skin off.

Mass Production Woes

In fourth grade on Long Island, one of my classmates saw another was wearing the same purple shirt. “Ugh! Britney is wearing my shirt,” she whined. One of the glasses-wearers raised her eyebrows and peered over her rims. “It’s called mass production,” she said.

In the adult world, women still are mortified to find that other consumers have bought the same, factory-made garb. Stereotypically, as seen in movies, the conversation starts with an accusation (“That woman is wearing my dress”), and ends with a reaffirmation (“Well, it looks much better on you”). But it’s not just a movie thing. The other day, as I stood waiting for the bus (why do all of my posts feature the MTA?), I saw another passenger-to-be wearing the same short-sleeved black shirt and silver skirt. I hid behind the bus shelter so she wouldn’t see me. For fifteen minutes.

A Word about Bats

New Yorkers own dogs. Apparently, Austinites own bats. A friend of mine, who recently moved from NYC to Texas, reports that Austin houses “the world’s largest bat colony.”

The bats live under a bridge. At night, they flee their home in swarms. Residents watch the bats, make sculptures of the bats, and wear bat-themed garments.

Monologue of an Austinite watching bats: “Whee!” Monologue of a New Yorker watching bats: “Why the hell are there bats under this bridge? Harry, call somebody! Call somebody about the bats!”

Then again, if an Austinite saw a rat-sized dog wearing booties, she’d probably react the same way.

What’s in the Name of a Book?

The scene: crowded subway car. I’m standing with my back against the door. To my left: a girl, reading. To my right: the reader’s friends.

Friend (loudly, over passengers’ heads): What’re you reading?

Reader: Rectangle of Sins.

I look down at the book.

Friend: Mmm, sounds good.

Really?