Uh,

Hobo: Spare a cigarette?
Me: Sorry, this is my last one.
Hobo: Save me some?

F as in fruitcake

People in New York can be eccentric, obviously. And it's no much hobos setting the bar as the crazy ladies on the Upper East Side with big fur coats and orange lipstick way outside the corners of their mouths. In fact, a lot of what would be considered eccentric elsewhere (Saskatchewan, say) doesn't even qualify here, what with all the actors and the gays and the Hasidic women with the mandatorily fake-looking wigs. But there's, I don't know, a containment to it. Like a courtesy or something.

What got me thinking about this was a conversation I had with a person from LA who, having lived both here and there, is a regular eccentricity connoisseur by now, and he said that the LA brand has this insufferable obnoxiousness to it, like every eccentric thinks he or she invented personality. And we chalked the city difference up to the fact that whereas people in LA drive e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e, people here have to take their Me roadshow on the subway. And there's only so much shit your fellow F train passengers are going to tolerate.

Mm

Tonight I gave a hobo in the ATM vestibule some change and he threw it back at me, yelling "What will this get me? Fucking candy?" So I picked it up again and went and bought myself a latté and some tomato bocconcini salad.

Stolen content: the best content

My favourite new website being www.overheardinnewyork.com.

Patron: I'd like a grilled special.
Waiter: We don't grill 'em.
Patron: Yes, you do. I had one last week.
Waiter: You got lucky.
-- Katz's Deli

Middle schooler #1: Yo, is there, like, a gay country?
Middle schooler #2: Hell no, son!
Middle schooler #3: Naaah. There is. I think it's called 'The Village,' but I don't know where it is.
--Brooklyn Middle School

Conductor: This is a downtown C train making all stops. Spring Street, World Trade Center, we go there. We do all the stops. Get on this train! [Pause.] Hey, you, still on the platform -- did you not hear what I said? Why didn't you get on?
Man: I'm waiting for the A.
Conductor: I'm going wherever the A's going. Get on my train!
--C Train

Preppy guy waiting for walk signal: Hi there.
Hot girl: Um, do I know you?
Preppy guy: No, I was just being friendly...
Hot girl: Oh, yeah? Well then why don't you say hi to her, too? [Points to fat chick nearby.]
Preppy guy, to himself: God, I hate New Yorkers...
--Central Park

Mom to toddler screaming in stroller: That's it, sweetie. Let it all out. Doesn't that feel good?
--TJ Maxx, 19th & 6th

Mom to two small children struggling to get through the crowd: Just push them all as hard as you can! Use your fists and elbows, too!
--34th & 6th

Kid: Dad, what's a novel?
Dad: It's a story written down in a book.
Kid: What's a short story?
Dad, staring at kid: Are you freakin' kidding me?
--Father Demo Square

Screaming hobo: ... But you know she was artificially inseminated by aliens!
Suit: Wait... Who?
--NYU

Hobo: Go shorty, it's your birthday...
Drunk black woman, joining in: Yeah! Go, go!
Hobo: Shorty, it's your shorty...
Drunk black woman: You singing it wrong. It's, 'We gonna party like it's your birthday.'
(Passerby gives hobo two dollars.)
Drunk black woman: You need to give me half of that, I helped you out with the words.
--E train

Mom to toddler: Joseph, stop walking like a tourist!
--51st & 5th

Ghetto mom to lady with cigarette: Bitch, you just ashed on my baby!
--Outside Times Square Toys 'R' Us

Hobo singing: Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Staten. From the Battery to the top of Manhattan. [To transit worker] 'Scuse me, sir. Where we at right now? Brooklyn? Queens? Manhattan?
Transit worker #1: We're anywhere you wanna be, brother.
Hobo: What borough is this?
Transit worker #2: This is the Bronx.
Hobo: The Bronx?
Transit worker #1: The boogie down.
Hobo: The boogie woogie? [Walks away singing] Boogie woogie oogie 'til ya just can't boogie no more...
Transit worker #2 to #1: If you just hopped into that train and drove it on time we wouldn't have to watch him wander around the platform.
--1 train platform, 242nd St

Sexually ambiguous guy: Yeah, Natasha is having a party tonight, but I didn't want to go because she has bedbugs, and I was afraid that I'd get bedbugs and bring them home. Everyone who's going has to wear plastic bags.
Female companion: Why is she having a party?
Sexually ambiguous guy: It's a bedbug party.
--St. Mark's Pl

Granny: Be careful!
Man jaywalking with several bags in hand: Ma, I know how to walk the streets in New York. [Car comes to screeching halt in front of him and honks. Man yells to driver] Fuck you! [To granny] See, I'm fine.
--Main St, Flushing

Bus driver who wouldn't let anyone pay to get on, claiming she'd won the lottery: Nice day today, huh? Y'all wanna go to the beach? Bring a blanket? Three p.m. -- meet me at a secret location. MTA going your way! They won't mind if I take it for a few hours. Madison is next.
--M79 bus, 79th & 5th

Girl: This has got to be the hottest station in New York.
Guy: It's good for you. It's like a sauna -- it will open your pores.
Girl: I don't want my pores open down here!
--5 train, Fulton St station

Janitor: I'm sorry, ma'am, you can't wear boots on the equipment.
20-something woman wearing Uggs on elliptical machine: But these are orthopedic boots!
Janitor: I'm sorry, but it's against policy to wear the boots on the machines.
20-something woman wearing Uggs: Why are you doing this to me?
--Dodge YMCA, Atlantic Ave

Hobo: Hey, you got any money?
Nice lady: I don't have any change, but I can give you some on my way out, or get you something to eat.
Hobo: I'll take the money. But don't worry, I ain't gonna use it to buy booze or drugs.
Nice lady: As far I am concerned, you can use the money for whatever you want.
Hobo: Whoa, lady! That's way too liberal for me.
--Outside health food store, Brooklyn

Hyper bus driver playing with overhead marquee while driving: I can set it to police bus, training bus... It's like a microwave -- what do you want? Corn? I like to change it to 'Harlem.' Then people get really confused. [Changes sign to 'B6 Limited' and comes up to bus stop. No one gets on bus.] What do you need, the B6? No? [Keeps driving.]
--B4 bus, Sheepshead Bay

Excuse me

Hey, I've finally put my finger on that what I've been trying to describe to all of you about how people relate to each other in New York. Here it is: in most places, if you were to ask a person a question or talk to them for whatever reason, you would need to preface that with an "excuse me" - you would need to break into their little personal privacy sphere, and apologize for doing so, before getting to the point. Here, if someone wants to say something (e.g. "Are they allowed to jackhammer like that at one in the fucking morning?" or "Is this train running local?"), they just come right out with it. Because we all already know that each other is there.

Exception: hobos still deferentially use the "excuse me" before asking you for money. Like the guy who solicited some change from me in the subway station the other day, and when I turned him down, looked directly at my Dragonfruit vitaminWater.

Katherine is here!

And we are too busy yakking and drinking vinho verde for me to stop and describe it all to you so here is a hobo story:

Today I saw a guy in Union Square station lighting a cigarette, kind of in that surreptitious "I know this is verboten" but "Fuck it, I'm a hobo - the rules don't apply to me" kind of way. But the funny part was, he had this exact folding grocery cart, and in it all he had, way down there at the bottom, was a slice of pizza.

Une histoire d'hobo

Catching the A train the other day, I saw a hobo methodically emptying a pay phone of all of its quarters. He was taking them out of the coin return slot, and the phone looked relatively undamaged. I wanted to ask him how he does it, but I didn't figure he'd be interested in revealing the tricks of the hobo trade.

UPDATE: I have since seen several other hobos doing the same thing to several other payphones. Huh.

Celebrity sighting!

The other day, I was walking through Washington Square Park on my way to borrowing some books from the well-endowed school down the street (NYBoo), when I passed a very scruffy homeless man sleeping on a park bench... in a full Santa get-up. Red hat, white hair, white beard, red suit, black belt, black boots, goggles... Ok, he didn't have goggles. Naturally, I didn't have my camera on me, though I probably wouldn't have taken/posted a picture of him anyway, since who am I to distribute an unauthorized reproduction of his image just because he is homeless and dressed like Santa. So I googled "homeless Santa" just now in the hopes of showing you an approximation, and got nothing. But if you picture Dan Ackroyd at his nadir in Trading Places, you get the idea.

You heard me

So I am a very few hours away from a big trip home (10 whole days)! Literally: it is 1 am because I stayed up all night with my roommate watching S&tC (how apropos) and drinking vinho verde and talking about this city. This city. It's unreal. To quote a fragment of a conversation about me the other night between Grace and our friend:

Grace: She's not bitter!
Friend: No, I said the city bit her.

I've travelled, you know, and it's nothing like here. Roommate and I talked about the fact that when we go home and try to tell people like this, it can only come off as outstandingly pretentious. Ah, well.

Looking forward to seeing the Calgary and Edmonton humans, of course. But I am addicted to this place and it will not be hard to return.

Because, for example, a woman can walk down the street and have a 100 decibel conversation on her cell phone saying "Let's get something straight here, this conversation is between you and me. You hear me? I don't want anybody else hearin about this. No one." And there is nothing inconsistent about it.

That, and the hobos. Best hobos here in the whole wide world.

Fish poo, then dumplings, then fish poo

Hasn't been much to report over the past few days since Andrew and I were holed up in a hotel and a Starbucks in Grammercy and nothing was happening in my life outside of the pages of the First Critique.



But I simply must post this HI-larious story from Grace:

"Twice in two days I've been stopped on my bike while trying to get to/from school by some random looking people with no apparent authority. They are the film crew for some movie/commercial being shot at 10th and Lafayette. They step right in front of you and start saying, "ma'am, stop, ma'am, this will just take two minutes, you cannot ride through until we're finished the shot ma'am." The first time I ignored the guy, he grabbed my handle bars and insisted that I stop, and the cops came over to ask the same thing (hmm, NYPD working for Hollywood??). Okay, so I waited impatiently, cause I thought it was lame and I was late for class. So, tonight after class, I was riding home and the exact same thing happened, only this time, there were more of us being held up. More complaints, delivery guys trying to get through, women on their cell phones with important places to be; we were all being contained by these two production assistants who were literally pleading with us to stop. So we all did (about 9 of us). Then this homeless guy wanders up, wearing a dirty old "I heart NY" t-shirt and tries to walk right past the assistants, who try to stop him by explaining that it would only be a minute. The homeless guy--and this is the punch line, finally-- said, "I don't have time for this," and marched right past the two, into the street where they were filming, and all we heard was the director guy yell, "CUT!" as he threw up his hands and everyone moved into the street. It
was great. The homeless guy led us all to freedom.

Then I rode through China town which smelled like rotten fish poo and then really good steamed dumplings. And then poo again."