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I LOVE nyc.It`s true. I am `that girl`. Whenever I go home to Ohio, I am the one candidly telling everyone I meet in the bar (several beers later) why they should move to New York. Because really, where else can an average Wednesday evening turn out like this:
It was innocent enough to begin with. I heard some swing music the other night and decided I wanted to go dancing. A former client turned friend that I adore and I had been talking about getting together, so I threw it out there - how about we head over to Swing 46? She agreed, and soon I had managed to invite a few more people, so the evening was looking promising.
Well, my day at the office ran over (as usual) and so I arrived at the spot nearly an hour later than I intended to find one of the friends I had invited already waiting, and she was the ONLY person in the bar! We began chatting, and soon another would-be client joined us. The conversation somehow took a turn and my colleague and I began talking politics - now to know me is to know that independent though I am, I can never walk away from a good debate! So this is how the evening began.
Fast forward a little while, and (debate over) you will see a group of people - one from Ohio (me), one from good ol`Virigni (my co-worker), two from Greece (former client plus friend) and one from Barbados (also former client) all together bonding over swing music and a nice glass of wine. A little dancing was had and then several people had to head out.
This happened to be just as the fun was picking up at the bar, and my fab former client turned friend and I stuck around to take in the scene. There was fun dancing, several Russians who had had far too much to drink, photographs, more dancing, etc. etc.
Fun though it was, eventually we decided to head out before the Russians got out of control! I asked the bartender for the check before `the Russians were coming` and he nearly made it, but not soon enough. Sarah and I watched from the semi-sunken doorway as the Russians went left, no right, no left again, gave them a short lead time, and then bolted across the street to avoid any awkward goodbyes.
Once we got out to Eighth Avenue (home of all things crazy at 11:30 at night, even on a Wednesday) we proceeded to narrowly avoid a swindling gypsy cab that wanted $20 to take Sarah to the UES before she jumped into a normal yellow, and I headed to the always adventurous 42nd Street Subway.
The trip home to Williamsburg was fairly uneventful, except for the guy who got on the L train and sat next to me from 8th Ave to Union Square. For no apparent reason, he said something about crazy New York as he sat down next to me. I responded that it was crazy, but it was fabulous too! We proceeded to cover where we were from, raised, and lived in the following moments, including important details like the town I am from not having a single stop light (just a traffic circle where the two main roads cross) and the crazy crazy rents & apartment costs in Manhattan. We even laughed about the so-called `mansion` tax, which imposes a 1% tax on any property that is sold for over $1 mil. I like to call it the two bedroom tax, because far from mansions, it penalizes pretty much anyone who needs to buy a two bedroom or bigger in Manhattan. This all occurred in the three minute time span between 8th Ave and Union Square!
This is what I love about New York! Anywhere else in the country I would have been driving home, isolated in my car, and would have never had the amazing experience from the door of Swing 46 to my front door. It`s not likely that I would have had friends from Greece, Virginia, & Barbados all together at the table, and I certainly wouldn`t have interacted with the gypsy cab or the crazy people waiting for the subway, and would have never had the great conversation with the random man getting on at 8th Ave and off at Union Square, who shared a valuable interaction with me.
This is why we are willing to pay crazy rents for shoebox apartments! It may not seem like much to the outsider who lives in a 5000 sq. foot home, but there is a quality to NYC that just can`t be found anywhere else. It`s not just the Pinot grigio talking, I promise - I wouldn`t change it for the world! |
