a change of environs - new york city

Just realized I need not have split my inaugural post in two.  I've unfortunately replicated the style of my aunt on facebook, who: a) should not be on facebook as she is in her fifties, and b) posts individual pictures as discrete albums on facebook, such that she has a gazillion albums, each with titles like "Christmas dinner with family" and "Christmas dinner: family gazes hungrily at turkey."  Forgive me.

I've just returned from a lovely spring weekend in NYC celebrating a birthday with friends.  It's the first road trip I've taken in a while;  I'm still recovering from the forcible expiration of my indulgent love affair with, and some might say prolonged abuse of, American Airlines' employee non-revenue flight benefit. 

With its cheap cabs and unabating action, New York is in some regards the greatest city in the world.  Nevertheless, i have compiled the following short summary of things to hate.

ubiquitous stickiness.  I can't pinpoint the cause to be atmospheric humidity trapped by tall buildings, or the unavoidable pollution caused from overpopulation, or hair product fumes wafting to and fro between the five boroughs and jersey. 

But it seemed like everywhere we went, things were... sticky.  Grimy.  Coated with film.  It was as though a horde of unruly, messy children had been let loose in the metro area and run wild with their icky pb&j/gluestick/playdough/booger-coated little fingers and touched everything in sight. 

Glass doors were translucent, or worse, opaque with oils and other unthinkable secretions, so that all too often a group of us would come to a door and stop, at a dead impasse, none wishing to touch the door first, until finally a brave soul kicked it ajar.  Subway seats adhered to the backs of pantlegs. 

In clubs, the floors grabbed hold of shoe soles so that navigating between the multi-leveled dance surfaces resembled a difficult round of q*bert -- and persistent and aggressive mopping by barbacks did nothing to relieve the stickiness, merely leaving stiletto heels coated in mop juice.  Even the grass in central park is stickier than non-nyc grass.  yuck.

fancification.  Why is it that everything in NYC (and this is happening everywhere, but New York as usual holds a vanguard position in the movement) is 'fusion' or fancified?  I can't just get Chinese food, it comes with Latin influences.  Ravioli has pears in it.  A ten-dollar cup of hot chocolate contains lavender, which, last time i checked was the scent of my toilet bowl cleaner.

We stayed at the London Hotel in midtown; the lovely suite had generally a minimalist style, but the bizarre bathroom decor was a mix of:

• Japanese (wood sliding door per an opening to the champagne room in a geisha house);
• Greek (auxiliary detached shower head loosely affixed to pipes);
• Prison (lonely toilet in corner of tiled bathroom without dividing apparatus from shower and sink); and
• Amazon rain forest (giant powerful disk suspended overhead to deliver a high-psi stream of water that, because there were no shower walls to contain the flow, soaked all towels in a 9 foot radius). 

And we learned of a dog called a "miniature husky," which weighs around ten pounds instead of the expected 60 and can be kept as a city apartment dog rather than pulling iditarod sleds and carting around disabled Eskimo children as i imagine mother nature might have intended a husky to do. 

Is all this advancement really for the better?  If I wanted to shower in an uncompartmentalized chamber, I'd sooner stay in a beach hostel in Phuket, or visit a state penitentiary, than pay $400-a-night again.

overwhelming options.  I'm duly impressed with the sheer expanse of things that NYC has to offer.  Nowhere else in the world stays open as late, nor offers as diverse an array of products and services.  But I could certainly do without the value judgments that seem to attach to selection. 

We decided to go to a karaoke joint on Friday night, and there were over half a dozen to choose from, each with its relative merits over the others.  Which one you preferred, it transpired, reflected upon you -- from your taste in music, to your tolerance of a particular selection of songs, to your knowledge of what other patrons might show up. 

So is it my fault from among the 273 small fruit kiosks in Chinatown I patronized one that's not the freshest?  Or that of all the clubs to go after 2:30 am we pick one where a flashmob of eurotrash discotheque escapees has, unbeknownst to me, decided to convene? 

A part of me is grateful for the availability of anything and everything in New York.  After all, it wasn't too long ago that I lived in a suburban area of North Carolina and it was clear which of the bars in town was the "coolest," the "best," the "happening place" on any given night -- since it was the sole establishment with a liquor license nestled among 2 Winn-Dixies and 14 furniture stores.  But fuck, wouldn't it be easier to live in a world where each selection wasn't fraught with danger of appearing uncool? 

Ruminating about our hotel shower Holocaust architecture makes me think about Anne Frank, and how straightforward her life must have been:

Dear kitty,
Well, not found, avoided gassing.  Guess it was a good day!  =)
Yours, Anne

not

omg Kitty,
So it turns out my friend Rachel is hiding in an attic in Tribeca!  That's where all the cool kids are.  I wish my parents weren't such douches so that we'd have to stay here instead.  I wonder what camp is the hottest right now and if there's going to be a long queue for the VIP shower.  Should I get my name on the guest list?

No more NYC for a while for me.  Can't take the heat.