New Yorkers always seem boastful of "their" crazy people. In absence of smiling neighbors or kids playing stickball in the street, people on their way to work instead adopt the muttering schizophrenic by the corner store, the panhandler who works the 1 train at the same time each night, or the godawful John Mayer impersonator on the subway platform downtown. Last summer I would see the same bedraggled panhandler doing the same schtick, asking everyone on the train for money and eventually falling to his knees for effect. It was moving the first few times, obviously, but you have to figure the sincerity lets up around the fifth repetition.
I now work just south of Union Square, which features a maze of a subway stop with exits all over the damn place. Take the right turn and you wind up in front of the Virgin megastore; one bad judgment, however, and you're in the park surrounded by a farmer's market, sent through a wormhole to the Catskills.
This morning I got off the N train and stepped up into the maze, for the first time in weeks completely disoriented. At 8:55 a.m., disoriented is not a thing you want to be in a subway station-- you will get run over by kind of crazy people who wield Starbucks cups and pashminas instead of tattered flannel shirts. I turned around a few times and located myself, finally realizing the reason for my confusion: my saw player was missing. The guy who is in the Union Square station every day, after the pan flute player I think, warbling on a saw. He was gone, and without him, I was lost.
Maybe next time I should tip the guy, being my North Star and all, but that would probably ruin my cred with the other commuters. While you always fear that your local schizophrenic will fuck you up if you cross him, it's the middle managers with the spike heels I fear most.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Sunday, October 01, 2006
an indecent proposal
I got propositioned this weekend. Propositioned by a boy with whom I've had a flirtation for some time, who stands no more than a foot away from me any time we speak, and I never back away. And this was all on a night when I was back visiting Wesleyan and didn't really have a reliable place to stay, as my futon was located in the room of my friend who was fresh off a breakup and quite drunk.
And what did I, the propositioned one, do? I turned him down. Why? Because I am a teenage girl.
See, said propositioner, A, had just broken up with my good friend, B. Now B happened to be in New York last weekend, apparently hobnobbing with important people, or otherwise I would have spent the night watching her flirt with a series of guys while insisting that A is the only one she wants. B isn't a whiner; she's fresh off a breakup, and a particularly confusing one, as A dumped her with little provocation. The best explanation anyone can think of is that B is attractive, funny, and smart, and A is a college-age boy who can't help but fuck these things up.
Yet somehow A is also a college-age boy to whom I am quite attracted, for reasons I have absolutely never been able to pin down. B has known this for a while, and at some point while they were dating, it was suggested that A and I would be able to make out, no strings attached. To understand how this works you need to understand the sexual dynamics of Wesleyan, which is not worth your time, so bear with me. Said makeout never happened, both because of chance and a deep sense of guilt. But the suggestion never went away.
When A offered me a place to stay this weekend, with all implied strings attached, I did a lightning-fast calculation that I have been trained in since high school: the girlfriend loyalty test. How long had they been broken up? (3 weeks) How much had B mentioned him every time we had spoken? (every 10 minutes or so) How long had A and I been blatantly flirting? (about a year) How long had it been since I had made out with someone? (a month) How upset would B be? How easily could I keep this a secret?
So I said no. It is the code of girls beginning in high school that a friend's ex is off-limits, regardless of how long it has been since the breakup. I had one casual friend approach me six months after ending my first relationship to ask if it was OK if she date my ex; they've now been dating for two years. I wasn't allowed to say no, but it was the courtesy that counted. In the code of women, this conversation must happen; at a college as small as Wesleyan, friendships have been ruined when the code was broken.
Later that night, A and I had somehow avoided post-proposition awkwardness and were holding up a third friend, the one who had promised me use of his futon. It was his 21st birthday. It was the end of the night. Between the slumped shoulders of our friend, over his mutterings that he just wanted to lay down on the sidewalk, I kept catching A's eye, and I knew that his offer still stood. And I thought about it. I could escort my friend safely home and come back for a fling that had been a good-bad idea for months. Or I could go home, see friend #3 safely to sleep and wake up there in the morning, with nothing on my conscience but letting that friend get so drunk in the first place.
So I said no, again. And I realized that the code of teenage girls isn't immature, unlike most of the things teenage girls come up with. It's the ultimate act of being an adult-- putting someone else before you, no matter how sexually frustrated you've been for how long. I'm not sure that A and I are finished, and I'm not sure that I'll ever tell B about this night. But the code is upheld. Justice is restored. The teenage girls win again.
And what did I, the propositioned one, do? I turned him down. Why? Because I am a teenage girl.
See, said propositioner, A, had just broken up with my good friend, B. Now B happened to be in New York last weekend, apparently hobnobbing with important people, or otherwise I would have spent the night watching her flirt with a series of guys while insisting that A is the only one she wants. B isn't a whiner; she's fresh off a breakup, and a particularly confusing one, as A dumped her with little provocation. The best explanation anyone can think of is that B is attractive, funny, and smart, and A is a college-age boy who can't help but fuck these things up.
Yet somehow A is also a college-age boy to whom I am quite attracted, for reasons I have absolutely never been able to pin down. B has known this for a while, and at some point while they were dating, it was suggested that A and I would be able to make out, no strings attached. To understand how this works you need to understand the sexual dynamics of Wesleyan, which is not worth your time, so bear with me. Said makeout never happened, both because of chance and a deep sense of guilt. But the suggestion never went away.
When A offered me a place to stay this weekend, with all implied strings attached, I did a lightning-fast calculation that I have been trained in since high school: the girlfriend loyalty test. How long had they been broken up? (3 weeks) How much had B mentioned him every time we had spoken? (every 10 minutes or so) How long had A and I been blatantly flirting? (about a year) How long had it been since I had made out with someone? (a month) How upset would B be? How easily could I keep this a secret?
So I said no. It is the code of girls beginning in high school that a friend's ex is off-limits, regardless of how long it has been since the breakup. I had one casual friend approach me six months after ending my first relationship to ask if it was OK if she date my ex; they've now been dating for two years. I wasn't allowed to say no, but it was the courtesy that counted. In the code of women, this conversation must happen; at a college as small as Wesleyan, friendships have been ruined when the code was broken.
Later that night, A and I had somehow avoided post-proposition awkwardness and were holding up a third friend, the one who had promised me use of his futon. It was his 21st birthday. It was the end of the night. Between the slumped shoulders of our friend, over his mutterings that he just wanted to lay down on the sidewalk, I kept catching A's eye, and I knew that his offer still stood. And I thought about it. I could escort my friend safely home and come back for a fling that had been a good-bad idea for months. Or I could go home, see friend #3 safely to sleep and wake up there in the morning, with nothing on my conscience but letting that friend get so drunk in the first place.
So I said no, again. And I realized that the code of teenage girls isn't immature, unlike most of the things teenage girls come up with. It's the ultimate act of being an adult-- putting someone else before you, no matter how sexually frustrated you've been for how long. I'm not sure that A and I are finished, and I'm not sure that I'll ever tell B about this night. But the code is upheld. Justice is restored. The teenage girls win again.
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