I have always lived in cities—in reverse chronological order and, interestingly, order of size: Brooklyn (NY), Boston (MA), and Worcester (MA). Every time I move to a bigger city, some people inevitably ask me about surviving in these places, as if millions of people are merely surviving in them. By “surviving,” they don’t mean how expensive it is to live in a city or any other kind of jokey definition of surviving. These people mean surviving in the literal sense. The following are two real examples of this happening to me…
Tag: New York City
Excuse Me
Let me paint the picture: I’m on the subway here in New York and it’s crowded but not packed. There’s some space to move around, if one was so inclined, but no seats available. (If there was a seat, I’d probably be in it. I’m not a seat hog or anything but I wouldn’t let such a precious commodity go to waste.) I was just standing there, holding onto the horizontal metal bar, about halfway between car doors…
Snow Re-moving
A few weeks ago, New York City had its second biggest snow storm on record. Now, I’ve been in New York for some other snow storms that I didn’t think were handled all that well but I assumed even the best of us make mistakes. I wasn’t going to label New York as incapable of dealing with snow using such a small sample size. Now, though, I’m ready to use that label…
A Shirt Past Its Prime
I’m not much of a poet but…”A man wears a humorous FCUK shirt, The world let’s out a sigh.” That’s what I thought the other day when a man walked by me in a plain white t-shirt with black letters that read, “I don’t give a FCUK.”
Better Safe Than Sorry?
In all the years I lived in Boston and commuted to Government Center, an area next to city hall, an FBI building, and multiple tourist attractions, I was randomly stopped once by police so they could check my backpack for bomb-making residue. I’m not saying they should have checked me (or anyone else) more often but even as a casual observer, these random searches didn’t seem like a great deterrent for would-be bombers.
My First New York Anniversary
I’ve lived in New York City for a year now (my anniversary was a couple of days ago)! Kind of ridiculous, really. This has not felt like a whole year but too bad, it has been. Now, what have I learned? For starters, I’m glad I moved specifically to Brooklyn and not Manhattan. I’m not… Continue reading My First New York Anniversary
I don’t need a bag
I’ll admit that I’m a card-carrying liberal (not like that’s outrageous these days). The environment is a big deal to me. I hate littering like few others.