what can i say? i'm in new york! which means i'm really happy. i'm always really happy here, but the kick ass, slightly cold weather, and all the tulips growing in the parklets sure don't hurt the magic spell new york always spins on me.
last night i walked to chinatown in the rain for some noodles. they were just okay comparitively. (more on my bi-coastal chinatown obsession later) but afterwards, i lost my way on the shiny sidewalks, and wandered around for a while, getting completely soaked. real new yorkers walk as close to the buildings as possible to stay under the awnings. it took me a while to figure out but...
i was walking around thinking, my god! how lucky i am! not just for my fabulous life, but: if i was reese witherspoon right now, i wouldn't be able to smoke cigarettes and walk around getting soaked in chinatown and eat noodles at some freaky noodle joint! i'd have to Behave. there's be Expectations.
well "woohoo!", i say.
if i were her...who would make the 28 million dollar paycheck? who would watch all the kidlings? who would protect me and support my image of myself as an oscar winning actress who people really really like?
not to talk any smack about the plucky ms. with', bless her heart, but c'mon! as Me, i get to do whatever the eff i want whenever i want to, and right then i really wanted to walk around singing to myself in the chinese rain.
lucky lucky girl.
the universe instantly rewarded my gratitude, in the form of a gorgeous, gleaming, high-tech chinese sweet shop. shivering like a wet cat, i asked for a cannoli and a hot chocolate.
"no more hot chocolate. only ovaltine."
(no kiddin'. ovaltine.)
okay, ovaltine it is. she put the steaming little cup in a paper bag for me to carry out, as they only do in new york. what's not to like?
dorie, i love that you're you, too, and that you walk in the rain getting soaked without trying to find cover.
the title of this post reminds me of this anecdote that i love--about five or six years ago (maybe longer ago, this was before we did everything online), my stepdad (who's in his 80s) went to the airport to buy plane tickets to New York. the woman at the counter asked him when he wanted the tickets for, and he gave her a date in June. and then she smiled and kind of sang to herself, "i like New York in June, how about you?" and then, without missing a beat, my stepdad sang back to her, "i like a gershwin tune, how about you?" and then she smiled and sang the next line, and then he sang the line after that, and these two strangers ended up singing the entire song to each other, at the ticket counter at John Wayne Airport--they sang the entire song, back and forth like that, and then together at the end--and then, when they were done with the song, they smiled at each other and he purchased his tickets, and that was that.
anyway, your post made me think about that anecdote and i wanted to share, because i love that anecdote, i love the image of these two strangers sharing this song over a ticket counter, and it also seemed to tie into what you were talking about, about getting a kick out of life, about being carefree and letting your hair get wet and getting lost in chinatown and living in the moment.
that's all. i like new york (in may) too.
Posted by: Erik | May 05, 2006 at 12:33 AM