Now in the summer, I end up all over town, at job interviews, meetings, errands, etc., which means that I have collected that many more corners, intersections, and restaurants that will come back to me, dream-like, when I encounter them for the first time again years from now. That has a potential to happen in any city of course, but here it seems all the stranger because Manhattan is an island, and the island is a grid, and everywhere is someplace to be - not some remote suburb but a buzzing, blooming confusion of stores and venues and cabs and people. It's a small city, in fact, especially as compared to Calgary or Edmonton, but bigger on account of some fractal expansion inward, so that, as I have pointed out, any repetition becomes a fetishized little bit of novelty.
So. In the morning, I get on the 4/5 train, which takes me to 1 of 2 jobs. The trains come so frequently that the route becomes sort of like a moving sidewalk. And yet, if I am on time, I will often get the very same conductor (not to be confused with the driver, the conductor sits in the sixth car, and he's the guy who opens and closes the doors, announces the stops (often only to himself), and will answer your questions if you wait for him under the hatched black and white lines that mark his car's position on the platform, you're welcome for that info bomb). He has a low, low voice like Barry White, and he gets on the PA at every stop. Now, this is not necessary on the 4/5 line, since it runs newer trains with automated announcements. But he helpfully tells people to step aside so that others can exit, or to move into the centre of the car to make room. And, showing that the real reason he makes the announcements is so that he can feel important or useful, or just to talk to other humans, he pipes up even when there aren't many people on the train, just to say "You watch your step and have a nice day too."
Anyway, I used to find this somewhat embarrassing, as in, too much enthusiasm is embarrassing, but now it makes my day (for ten minutes).
Insofar as: I have a paper due tomorrow, what I have been neglecting for months, and instead am drinking wine at people again, this time on a hotel roof (accessed by key card, in exchange for photo ID, as per phone call arranged ahead of time) in SoHo, with the beautiful people - again, my age (I have wasted my life). The hotel is marked only with by an address - "60" - short for "If you are from Saskatchewan, you don't even know that 60 Thomson is a hotel SO KEEP WALKING". Four - no less than four - doormen lead me in, I am drunk on rosé.
