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I’m back! Back in the New York groove! Yes, dear friends, after 21 long weeks living on the East End of Long Island in a town whose slogan is “Watch Out For That Deer!”, I have returned to New York City. New York, New York: So nice they named it twice. I’m in a New York state of mind. Okay, I’ll stop. But it was lonely out there and I’ve lost key social skills. The return to the city has made me just a wee bit giddy. That, or I’m drunk on street steam. But ahhhh, New York. The city where, I recently learned, I can claim to be a native because the arbiter of such things – that would be Jennifer Lopez – decreed that only people born in the Big Apple can claim to be native to the Big Apple. So fuck right off Patty Lupone from Long Island! You, too, Fran Lebowitz of Morristown, New Jersey. No Big Apple native status for you! Sadly, my own native status was immediately revoked for using the term “the Big Apple,” something no real New Yorker ever says. My bad. Bad apple, if you will. [That joke would have killed on the East End.] Speaking of killed, you know it’s time to go back to a city when you become so inured to the site of roadkill deer that your only thought is…well, nothing, you have no thoughts because you just don’t care.
Soooo, what has changed since I’ve been in NYC? Well, kinda a lot. First off, the Mamdani effect means that e-bikes now come at you at full speed every which way, like a high-powered multi-directional shower. Not just in bike lanes but in ALL lanes: sidewalks, streets, against the traffic, with the traffic, even in my building lobby. It’s a free-for-all in the name of unburdening delivery workers from the tyranny of speeding laws so that they are freer to…I dunno, I’m just spit balling here, but to better kill car-loving capitalists?? Even though I’m guessing it’s a capitalist who ordered that kung pao soup you’re so hot to deliver. But I digress.
After skipping out on the Columbus and Israel Day parades, it’s super-duper clear that Mayor Mamdani marches in fewer parades than any mayor in history because Mayor Mamdani hates more groups than any Mayor in history and ain’t afraid to duck out to say so. I think I speak for everyone when I say, cool, cool, stay home. After all, someone needs be around to keep eyes on your scary wife.
But native New Yorker me has lived through terrible mayoralties before and I can weather this one, too. This Mayor will soon be relegated to a footnote in New York history. And not a good footnote like Barney’s, Studio 54, or the time I rode a horse-drawn carriage through the snow in Central Park with Mikhail Baryshnikov… RIP horse-drawn carriages: I will miss you and those filthy blankets forever. No matter what, glorious New York will carry on, despite the ever-more-frequent videos of packs of men crawling in and out of manhole covers in the dark of night. Worrisome? Nah! Just good old New York spelunking! Nothing to see there! Right??? RIGHT???
The best part of my return has been the change in my wardrobe. In NYC, the dress code is simple: black on black on black on black on black. With black shoes and a black coat. I look back at my summer sherbert color scheme out there in Deer-ville with horrified regret. The number of visible stars in the night sky without the City’s light pollution made me mental. I lost my way. Forgive me, Anna Wintour. Humans make terrible mistakes...you know, like that Galliano thing.
But all is forgiven in New York in October on a day like today where it is a sunny 75 degrees and tomorrow a N’or Easter with thunder snow is predicted. You never know what you’re going to get in New York, just like you’ll never guess what food your cab driver could possibly be eating to evoke such an eye-watering stench, and why it only took me three minutes of being back on the city streets before I yelled at someone for standing still in the middle of a crowded sidewalk, though in my defense I did not see his walking stick right away. New York is noisy, pushy, jarring, exhilarating, combative, frenetic, frustrating, invigorating, and an absolute overload to the senses.. So glad to be home.
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