Touristy

My sister returned home to Texas yesterday. While she was visiting me here, she cut twelve inches off her hair. (Liberating, yes?) For me, I felt like a different person when I whacked my hair off last summer. In addition to haircuts and pedicures, we did visit some new places.

The Brooklyn Botanical Garden was very green- with all the rains we have had throughout the month of June. It was about 75 acres of manicured and well developed gardens. I wasn't overly impressed, but it was enjoyable and nice to get out of the concrete jungle. Less crowded than the public parks and you leave with a sense of having furthered your knowledge on plants and nature. (At least that is what I tell myself- it was an educational trip.)

We also visited The Cloisters- WAY up on the west side- 190th street. It is a museum of medieval art and architecture. I really wanted to hear how the actual location was an old church or monestary or even a previous residence of some old Manhattan money. But, it's none of those things, this place was built in the 1930's as a museum for Medieval art. (Funded by some old Manhattan money- John D. Rockefeller.) And it additionally bothered me because all the stained glass and door frames and tapestries from the 1300's and 1400's that were once at home in Normandy or Rome or Salzburg are now in Manhattan.

We also visited the MET, which again, overwhelmed and drained me. We saw Blue Man Group, stood in the mayhem of the Gay Pride Parade, and ate soft shelled crab at The Grand Central Oyster Bar.

There was also lots of frozen yogurt consumed.

Yesterday she left and after enjoying days of sunshine, it started raining again. This morning as I rode the M86 crosstown bus to the 4/5 train I thought about why I love this city. Sometimes I get pissy and mad, wondering why certain people or groups of people bother me- depending entirely on my mood or attitude in that moment, of course. Sometimes the chatty little girl on the bus is cute, sometimes I want her mom to tell her to "can it kid." Maybe her brother swings his legs and kicks the back of my seat. Does his mom even care that I paid $81 dollars for this Metrocard and I would like to arrive to my desination without a headache? Afterall, maybe I am already sweating beneath the padding in my underwire, maybe I left my book at home, and just maybe I have to retouch my lipstick and change shoes before an interview-- for another temporary job.

Yesterday a rough, rowdy group scared me enough for my heart to start pounding harder. I sped walked in my flip-flops and baby blue sundress until I was a distance that made me feel safer. After all, they were in my neighborhood. I was the one coming home with limes and cilantro and avocados. "They just don't belong here" I thought. Which I immediately responded to myself with, "They belong here more than you do sweetheart." They're real New Yorkers. Yes, I realize even New Yorkers come in all varieties: wealthy, poor, educated, street-smart (the opposite of educated in NYC is street-smarts) but they were from here. I'm not.

I like New York because you can have this sort of incognito life. I hate New York because you can have this sort of incognito life. You can get away with doing something questionable or out of character, but you can also get away with doing nothing at all and no one may ever notice. I could lay in bed all day eating chocolate yogurt and watching Designing Women reruns for weeks before anyone missed me. (Assuming Chris was out of town.)

It's the tourist way. Buy the t-shirt, visit the historical sites, stand with the thousands in the ah-inspiring places, take some pictures, write about it on a blog- but that's not living. That's vacation.