Just sitting there, stair’ing

After watching a couple have a nervous breakdown and try to take out the people around them, simply because they didn’t realize they’d have to push to get off the subway… just like everyone else does… (In fact, the woman almost slugged the guy in front of her, but he moved out of the way just in time)

Anyways. That’s not even the strangest part of the morning.

One thing I always get a kick out of NYC’ers is how quickly they can change in what they’re doing to avoid dealing with the “elephant in the room”. How easily a bunch of NY’ers would walk past a naked cowboy, or a homeless person peeing in the corner of the street. Or like this morning… A very very very large man sitting on the subway stairs leading off the platform.

He just sat there, staring, on the stairs. Not saying a word. And I watched the seas part, and people walk around him lik eit was no big deal. Nobody asked him to move. Nobody said a word. It was as if he was simply a pole in their way. In some ways, I’m not enough of a NY’er. I didn’t walk up those steps, mostly because the look in his eye reminded me of a caged animal, of someone who you knew was utterly and completely at the end of their rope, and honestly, I didn’t want to put my life that close to someone I couldn’t connect with at all. But people walked past him, and as I walked to the next set of stairs, I watched him. His eyes never moved, never wavered, never blinked. 

Sometimes I really get shivers at how much loss there is here in the city… 

Furcoat anonymous

The past couple of days have been warm and luxurious, causing many people to ditch the heavy coats and layer up in sunscreen instead. But this morning lovely Mr. Winter reared his much not needed head and spit out below freezing temperatures reminding us that it’s not quite summer yet.

Which is probably why I had the distinct unpleasure of seeing a mound of fur parade down 14th street on my way to work. Yes, a man wearing a bear fur coat (with the head of the bear as a hoodie) wandered his way towards alphabet city, adorned with the spoils of his hunting… or just his craziness.

I guess you see it all in NYC!

Faceplant like a boss

Saturday was St. Patty’s day. And in NYC that means that all the little douchebags who can’t really hold their alcohol, decided to test that theory along with their livers. That’s fine. But why do you have to test your balance also? I mean, stay inside, stop roaming the sidewalks like you’re auditioning for a zombie extra in the Walking Dead… Because darlings and dollfaces… You got the part!

 

That being said. I must give credit where credit is due, and while I really was hoping that the scourge of the sidewalks would just wipe away, I did get to see someone at least, maneuver, like a boss.

Cue the drunken girl

Cue the heels

Cue the pole as part of the scaffolding.

And cue her face, smashing into it. Her forehead melding with the cold metal…

And finally… cue my gasp… then my complete and utter disbelief as she stepped backwards, without registering a bit of pain, and continued on her way… her shuffle reminiscent of Bernie’s from Weekend at Bernies…

Sure, she fell into a metal pole. But that metal pole didn’t stand a chance against her slosh.

Party on drunk girl. Party on.

What year is it?

No. Honestly. What year is it? Because based on the girl I saw today who got into the elevator, I should be about 2 or 3 years old… Because she looked like she was a blast from the past, or maybe she had just jumped on her time machine and blinked to the 21st century.

Ripped, bleach washed jeans
BRIGHT green pumps
Michael Jackson black jacket with shoulder pads and those silver toggle closings…
HUGE bright green hoops

I wanted to ask her if she was making a fashion statement or if she was a visitor from the past, but she got off the elevator too soon. I guess I’m just doomed to believe that she is trying to relive the past… rather than a member of it.

 

Happy in uniform

Had a craving for Pizza hut, so meandered my way down to Penn Station and went to the food court and picked myself up a personal pan pizza. They really are nastily the best pizza ever. But I digress.

As I walked back through Penn Station, towards 7th avenue, I witnessed a National Guardsman, dancing and singing. I mean moving and grooving. People even clapped as they passed.

I like it when people are that happy at what they do.

Or that bored.

I also like it when members of the National Guard are bored… because it means that all is well.

Brownie faced transport

I hate people who hold the doors open on the subway. It holds up the train, and it makes them look like an idiot. This morning however was the best.

The lady got stuck, half way in, and half way out, and had a brownie in her mouth… Instead of trying to push the doors open, she used her hands to take the brownie out of her mouth, and complain… “Why don’t you do something and help me?” The best was that the guy standing next to me, instead of helping her into the car, pushed her… The last thing I saw as the doors slid closed was her putting the grubby brownie back in her mouth and flipping the bird.

Train’ing elephants

In my profession, I often travel, quickly, in a whirlwind fashion, and totally and completely randomly.

That being said. This past Monday we traveled from my office in NYC to the client’s office just outside of DC. We took a 2.5 hour train ride (each way) for a 1.5 hour meeting. I find that to be exceptionally ridiculous. But whatever. The fun thing about sitting on an Acela is that you get to fly by some really random places and see things that you don’t normally see up in the air, or on the roads.

Such as the elephant that I saw wandering around in a parking lot somewhere between Philadelphia and Baltimore. Mind you, it was just a glance, so I can’t be entirely sure what it was doing, or why it was there… But there was an elephant. In a parking lot. By itself… just outside of Philly.

Occupy this

As I walked towards the subway this morning, I walked past the normal vagrants and homeless people who frequent the area around the subway entrance… Today though, I saw an interesting sign…

“Need money. Trying to get enough money for a tent so I can join the occupy movement.”

I’m going to leave this post as is. I’m not sure how I feel about this… A very strange mixture of multiple levels of emotions.

Elevator antics

I always thought I had an intense irrational fear of elevators. Every time I get in one, my heart races. This comes from way too many times getting stuck in an elevator, combined with my fear of heights and the falling sensation.

That being said. I met my match today. Let me play this out for you.

I walk onto the elevator, hit my floor. There’s already a lady on the elevator. She looks disgruntled, because just as I was walking onto the elevator the doors were beginning to close, so I caused them to pop back open. The doors close quickly after though, and we start to go up. Then there’s a little thud somewhere in the shaft, and of course my mind goes wild, thinking this is it, I’m going to die, the elevator is going to fall from its place in the shaft, and even though we’re only probably 3 flights up at this point, I’m going to die. However, I don’t move a muscle, don’t make a sound, because I know that’s an extremely irrational thought. The other lady however, beat me to it.

She looked at me, eyes wild and said, “oh my god. Did you hear that?”
“Yes,” I responded. Did my face give me away, did I look scared, is that why she was reacting so wildly. No, I think to myself, that can’t be it.
“The elevator just exploded.”
Ok. I may have had irrational thoughts, but never in a thousand years would those words have ever come out of my mouth.

“If it had exploded, wouldn’t we be dead?” I ask cautiously, trying hard not to look at her like she’s a complete idiot, but probably failing miserably.
“Oh, that’s so hollywood. They want you to think that don’t they?”

Thank goodness the elevator doors opened right then and there, and I could walk off… Lady, you’re insane.

Bathroom Nervousness

You know the feeling. You really have to go, you walk into a public restroom somewhere, knowing that you’re going to either stink up the entire bathroom or make sounds that probably shouldn’t be allowed in public… That being said, this blog post is not to make anyone feel bad about pooping in public. It’s about trying to cover up a completely natural thing.

I went to the bathroom, one stall was occupied, and being the polite person I am, I went to the one 2 stalls away, giving space between us. Then I hear it… A deep cough, a sneeze, a sniffle, ten million other bodily noises in order to cover up the sound of what she considered to be worse than all of those combined.

Just let it out darling. You don’t need to have an aneurysm pretending to cough or blow your nose. We all know what you’re doing in there…

All that technology and no luck

NYC is full of tourists. You can’t avoid them. Now that I work a block from Herald Square, a block down from the Empire State Building, a block from Penn station, and above the Manhattan Mall, I definitely get to see a very large percentage of them. However, the ones I saw today made me giggle. Two tourists, both with an iPad out, and the maps application up and running, walked past me, pointing towards Penn Station. And these words popped out of the guy’s mouth.

“We’re on the right street (33), it’s just a block down here.”
“Are you sure? I feel like we’d see it.”
“Nah, it’s hard to see the Empire State Building because of all the other buildings, plus you can see Madison Square Garden there, it’s just beyond that.”

First of all, if they turned around for one moment, and looked behind them, they would see the Empire State building.
Secondly, it is somewhat behind Madison Square Garden, but that’s if you’re walking east from 9th avenue.
Thirdly, you have all this high tech gadgetry at your fingertips, and you’re still lost.

Seems like even the tourists who think they’re too cool for actual maps are doomed to be lost in NYC. I wonder how long they’ll last before they realize they’re at the Lincoln tunnel and being mugged for their iPads.

Creating conversations

It’s been a while since I’ve written in this thing. So after a few observations today, I figured I’d start it back up again.

Talking to yourself

It’s not just for crazy people… Or is it? Elevators can be scary, tricky places where you stand awkwardly next to someone you may or may not know, and don’t say a word as your eyes stare blankly at the doors in front of you hoping that it doesn’t get stuck. Of course, if you’re being awkward behind someone, the person in front has no idea what you’re doing… That is unless the elevator is made of a soft mirror… Yes, that’s right creepy dude who was standing behind me… I saw you staring up and down my body and talking under your breath. Maybe if you’re going to be creepy, you shouldn’t do it where I can see you in a mirror.

It’s not a miracle, it’s disney.

Overheard as I walked back to work today.
Kid: “I want to go to Disney Land.”
Mom: “Ok, it’s just over there on 34th street.”
*headdesk*

 

It’s not halloween

I love halloween. I love dressing up in costumes… I like going to drag shows… So, please let me preface this post by saying I have nothing against people who dress up, in some extravagant things.

However.

When I see 3 guys walking down 42nd street decked out in pimp gear, I get a bit worried about the state of their mental health.

We’re talking gold, purple, and green… big top hats, canes, fur around the neck, and shoes that could double as elevator lifts. I wish I had had my camera with me and could have snapped a picture.

Awkward statements

I work in a kind of infamous building. It’s called the Daily News Building. The only reason why anyone may know what it is is because of a little movie called “Superman”. That’s right… I work at the Daily Planet. Anyways. Because of that, we have a lot of security downstairs, and some of them are friendly, some are rude, and some are just plain odd… There’s  new guy though… and as I was swiping in to go through the turnstyle, heading back upstairs with my essential “it’s been a long day” afternoon coffee, one of the security “bouncer” guys, said to me. “Enjoy!”

It completely threw me off guard. I stopped looked at him, and cocked my head to the side.
“I’m going back upstairs to work… do you mean enjoy that, or the coffee in my hand?” I asked him.
“Oh, I thought you were a tourist,” he replied, and half-smiled awkwardly.
“Oh? We have tourists?” I asked back as I finished finally walking through the turnstile.
“Well, yeah… over there,” he said, and pointed out a couple of tourists who were in fact milling around the giant globe that’s in the lobby. “But I guess they don’t go upstairs…” He was looking very contemplative at that point, so I just grinned and let out a confused laugh.
“Not unless there’s some ride somewhere in this building I don’t know about… maybe like a superman ride?” I responded… now trapped in this ridiculous conversation.
“Why would there be a superman ride?”
“Because that’s why people come in here… It’s like a landmark from the movie superman,” I responded, now desperately trying to figure out an escape route. I had things to do upstairs, my coffee was sitting limp in my hand, and I could feel the wonderful warm weight, and all I wanted to do was inject the caffeine into my system as quickly as possible.
“Really?” He responded. Oh no, I was trapped… My head spun… I tripped over my thoughts, and finally I figured go with my best bet, put the coffee up to my mouth, took a sip, and nodded… He seemed to think that was enough, and he grinned back at me, and then said…”Enjoy!”

I did not ask him what I was supposed to enjoy…

Note to self.

Never respond back, even if you’re taken back…

Healthy dose of WTF?

So, this is NYC, and there are thousands of crazy people walking the streets… actually strike that, probably more like millions of crazy people on the streets. I get that, I can handle that… but this morning, I saw a lady who was dressed head to toe in bottle caps. As people walked past her, she took off one of the bottle caps and chucked it at the people.

As far as I could tell, there wasn’t anything underneath the bottle caps… sooo… umm… there will come a time when she’s going to start wearing thin in the bottle cap department. I wonder if she replenishes, or if her goal is to just go balls to the wall and let it all hang out.