tex & the city: episode one

she may beg, she may plead....



ive been meaning to write down some initial thoughts on moving & adjusting to life in nyc for some time now.
here are a few topics/memories of the big move that come to mind:

@ the airport
leaving texas was such an obviously overdue step for me, that i honestly didnt have time to think too much about what it would mean to LEAVE TEXAS (friends, family, comfort, familiarity, weather, convenience) behind. & then i got to the airport. my one way plane to new york landed @ laguardia @ 4:50pm & i got a text from bruce (the best friend, who has lived here for two and a half years, originally from texas). he had sent it while i was at the airport in austin, but i had just received it. he was going to be late- two hours late- picking me up because of a miscommunication with his boss about his schedule. uhhu. well, i did not want my fabulous life as a new yorker to be unnecessarily delayed any longer, so i decided to take a cab. after lugging four RIDICULOUSLY heavy bags to the cab line outside, i found a place in the "ALL FIVE BOROUGHS" line. i will pause here to tell you that not only should you have your all-but-absolute-necessities mailed to you instead of lugging them around a city you hardly know, but that the people @ laguardia are less than happy to know they have one more person to live with in this already too crowded city (& will therefore not offer any advice/information to you, however obviously it make look as though you need it). so im in line & (like all things in new york- except for foot traffic in chinatown) everything happens quickly- no time for questions. a man shouts "where'ya headed?" & i respond, "brooklyn!" he hands me a piece of paper & i jump in the cab that i am all-but pushed into (four bags deep). the cabby yanks the paper out of my hand & says, "address?" i say the address & show him my print out yahoo map (yes, i know, shut up). he throws down the paper, gets out of the car & proceeds to yell @ the man in charge of the line. YELL. i couldnt make out 90% of what they were yelling about, but that ten percent had everything to do with a stupid girl who didnt know what she was doing & wanted to go to greenpoint.
so, as it turns out, cabs hate going short distances. they want to take you some place that is not so close by that it is a cheap fare, but certainly no jersey or anywhere of the like. & they want to drop you off at a place where there are three hundred people sitting there waiting for that one cab to show up. they want those three hundred people to hold a (quick) auction with the lowest bid starting at $10,000 & for the winner to get in & ask to be taken to a place where 6,000 people are awaiting their glorious arrival. no, they are (for the most part, minus the fact that they rarely know where the hell they are going outside of downtown/midtown) pretty good people. but this particular cabby. my very first cabby. he wanted to kill me. & i cant say that i blame him, seeing as how things only got worse when i wasnt quiiiiiiite sure where metropolitan met bushwick & i wasnt aware that he preferred cash. holy shit, i would have killed me, too! so let this be a lesson: FIVE BOROUGHS (staten, manhatten, brooklyn, bronx, queens (harlem/washington heights=manhattan) doesnt mean aannyywwhheerree in those boroughs; be specific (especially in brooklyn, because it can mean the difference between a ten dollar fare and a fifty dollar fare).

introduction to the trains
im drinking a la fin du monde & i am still not sure i can adequately express to you my thoughts and feelings on the new york city transit system & its owner, the mighty MTA. i had visited the city several times before, but looked at things with fresh eyes upon arriving in new york. and my first thought was (in naive texan accent), "this is not the place for my envirolution."
in good ole austin, it is so easy to recycle anything youd like. all i did was have the tenants of my apartment complex sign a petition (not even all of them) that said they would prefer to include paper in the complex recycling bins & in a week, badabing. and that was in my $385/month (including 72 cable channels) downtown austin apartment. i was/am used to greenbelts & fresh air, where allergies come from plants, not underground sewage & rat infested train tracks. &, although many of the people i interact with on the daily are very aware, savvy, intelligent people, there are so many people in this city that you can not really characterize a new yorker. you can characterize a native brooklyn resident in the middle class & call him or her "a typical new yorker," but you would be wrong. the point being, people here are conditioned on a different level. let me just say that people (for the most part) are more aware of current events, the reality of politics, etc than people in texas, but they are SO aware of it, that they are overwhelmed & just as unmotivated. the only difference is that people in new york are unmotivated in mass transit, whereas people in texas are unmotivated in cars. i think it was my second day here that i told bruce i missed texas.
so the trains are completely messed up. they were all made to move traffic from brooklyn into new york & v.v. and from northern or southern manhattan to its opposite, respectively. brooklyn was actually a completely independent city than new york as recently as 1898 but became a suburb of new york as the city grew into an international cultural center, so it is understandable that the trains were set up this way, but they are sooooo out dated! if you want to go from one area of brooklyn to another, RIDE A BIKE. because the good old G train aint cuttin it & who has time to wait on the sloooooooow buses? this wouldnt be such an issue if it were easier to catch a cab in brooklyn, or to hail one willing to go to brooklyn from manhattan. but it isnt. northside, southside & myrtle car services, however, are pretty amazing & will be @ your door within ten minutes (sometimes in two) no matter where in baroookalyn you may be. now, some lessons that i learned early on include:
1. NEVER ATTEMPT TO MEET ANOTHER HUMAN AT A POINT IN NY AT A PARTICULAR TIME & PLACE. it will not happen. & im not saying this simply because i just recently learned to read a map. it just will not happen. a train will be late, your metrocard will not scan, the map or person you use as guidance will be wrong, weather will worsen &/or you will get on the wrong or express train. which brings me to my next lesson:
2. BEWARE OF EXPRESS TRAINS! they are awesome! but only when you know they are express trains. otherwise, you will be extremely confused, & ask people, "is this the 6?" in fact, it is the 6. the EXPRESS 6. it is just that nobody told you that except for the conductor whose voice over the train speaker is about as understandable as kurt douglas. some of the trains- most now- have automated announcements or boards that light up their stops, but just be aware, fellow texes in the city: the express train can get you further away from your destination than you already are, or it can get you there so unexpectedly fast that you want to cry happy tears.
3. Because NY/MTA offers 24 hour train service, SUBWAY STATIONS ARE NASTY. and, more importantly, are CONSTANTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION. so if you are going to be traveling via the trains midnight-5am fridays-sundays, you should know that you are not going to get home in your normal route. & it is ok....every other new yorker is just as annoyed & shocked by this consistent fact as you are. it is just MTA's way of messing with your head after youve had a few (too many). if you want clean, constructed trains, go to europe. and take a cab between the hours of 2am-5am.

ok, those are the main points i can think of at the moment. the hardest thing about learning the train system for me was that riding the subway makes it very difficult to get your bearings in a new city. being underground gets you all turned around! so take the bus when you arent in a hurry, because it is really nice to check out the city from an above-ground vantage point. & learn to read a map- theyre really helpful when they have metro stops printed on them.