So, in keeping with my pledge, I want to further inform you all as to what about NYC will leave me wanting and what can stay the hell here. I’ve decided to tackle the big one first: The Subway.

The good old MTA. My beloved N,W line (the one that goes out to Astoria and ends there. Our own private chariot. Sorta.) Seeing as how it is currently the only transportation I can afford, I will mostly miss it. I won’t have a car when I get back home (make note of this, dear beloved friends of mine. Remember that kid in high school who never had a car and was always bumming a ride even if they had nowhere of importance/significance to go, yet they wanted you to be available to simply, I don’t know, just drive around and listen to music? Well, yeah, “Hi, nice to meet you.”) But, it is sort of creepy too. Imagine if you were driving your car around and every red light you came to, people got in and out of the car. These people don’t know you and they don’t care about your car. At all. So there’s that.

There is a bit of luxury to the old subway, believe it or not. It’s super fun to have the train just pull right up to where you are standing, the doors are opened for you, no exertion necessary and whisks you off to lands near and far. You can lounge, reading, sipping on coffee or other beverage of choice, while you zoom under rivers and tunnels, eventually placing you to the stop of your choosing. It’s magic, really. And it only costs 2 bucks. Not bad.

But then again, let’s remember that that’s a very idealized version of a ride to work. But, when leaving something behind, don’t you find that you often romanticize the good, forgetting the bad?

Now, let’s look at what I simply WILL NOT miss about the subway. Hmmm. Let’s see if I can come up with something here…umm, right. They are filthy. They’ve definitely added a couple of new trains which look nice, but the effect is still the same: human beings are disgusting and the taint of human gross can never be chemically, industrially, or otherwise removed once introduced into the world. And while many folks manage to sip beverages, eat food and otherwise LICK THE HANDRAILS (really, that’s what it’s like) on the old germ express, I am barely even able to open my mouth sometimes to speak for fear of the nasty that could potentialy fly in.

Now, I am not a germaphobe. I’ve seen those folks: they wear gloves and wrap their arms around the poles (because the crook of your arm is a germ free zone), pull jacket sleeves down over hands, or (the real champions) those who choose to stand, not touch anything, and sway and lurch with the train. But, while I’m cautious, I manage to hold the rails and just remember to wash up once I arrive at my destination. Not too difficult.

I understand where the fear comes from, though. I’ve seen people plop their drooley, oozing, sticky little monsters, I mean, lovely, darling, little those-who-shall-inherit-the-earth children down on the seats and watched them leak all over everything.

But that’s not the worst. Once I saw a woman, broad daylight, sitting on the train with a plastic, grocery store bag in her hand that she continually dipped her head into. It took me a minute to catch on. Yup. She was puking into it. Often. How wonderful.

Another time a train pulled up and when the doors opened, people darted off and shot into the next car up. huh. That was weird. We all piled on and had just begun to settle in our seats when I noticed people rushing past me and pushing through the doors between the trains. I looked to the back of the train where a man with an angry ‘you are bothering me’ look on his face, was squatted down in front of the door to the other train. Taking a dump. So true. Couldn’t make it up if I tried. What could I do, I bolted with the rest of my compadres in ‘fear of dumpitude.’ The train car we all piled into was full and the folks on it gave us that ‘you should have known, poor bastards’ look. Super duper.

But it’s really about the iPods, folks. I hate them and now stare at the little ear bud chords, longing to strangle some people with them. I mean, really, why am I being invited into your Celine Dion love fest that should only be happening in your ears, yet is managing to find it’s way to mine? Why must it be so loud? I’m reading a book and managing to keep it to myself. Would it be ok if I turned and started screaming the paragraphs outloud to you? Cause if that’s the trade, I’m up for it. I’ll run out and buy a copy of some gay porn that I can introduce you to. But I think we may all know how I feel about iPods already, so nuff said.

Last week of front door service!

Holy crap. There is no heat quite like a NYC heat. I know that statement is swathed in snobbery and you all now think that I think that everything in this city is bigger, better, faster, hotter. Just cause it’s NYC.

But those thoughts aren’t even the point. I can’t possibly even think of the bigger, better…anything right now. Because my brain is melting. Literally. If I was in that Hannibal movie, and Dr. Lechter lobbed off the the top of my skull, he would need a spoon to dine, no spearing necessary. OR, if Steve Martin (from The Man With Two Brains) used his screw-top method of removing the skull for brain surgery, then mine would just trickle out onto the floor. (PS-Steve Martin is on my mind b/c he totally got surprise married this weekend, and while I am just a teensy bit jealous, upset, sobbing, I am very realistic about the fact that the man is 61 and that’s some pretty old equipment to be working with. Think there’s still a valid warranty on that?)

Long story short (too late!), it’s hot. And this coming from someone who managed to survive 10 un-freaking-believeably hot summers in the deep south. But that was swamp heat and this is hardcore, concrete jungle heat. There is just no air. It does not move. There is the ever present, visible cloud of heat hovering over the city to remind you there is no escape. You’re trapped. Oppressed.

It’s going to be in the 90’s again today and at noon, I’m already dreading the train ride home this afternoon. Just imagine it. The street is hot, the subway stations are even worse and then what happens? We all pile, body to body, into a metal tube and get as close as we can to one another. And if the rolling heat emanating from the person and the just slightly slick, sticky flesh you’re pressed up against isn’t enough to make you hurl, just wait. It gets yummier.

Once in the oppressive tube of death, you have a couple of options: 1) take a seat and be confronted with everyone around you’s nether region (which you know is swampy and sick at this point) 2) opt out of that placement and grab the horizontal bar above your head. There you go, that’s the one. Yes. Now you are in the pit exposed region, where prior to lifting, most folks were managing the hold whatever D.O. (now that’s ‘deodorant’ for the layman) failure they may have had in and are now releasing it into the world. 3) stand and grip the vertical pole, keeping yourself as close as possible to it to cut down on body touches, all the while knowing that hands of the desperate will come shooting through to grab that pole as the train takes off/slows down and then you’ve left the pit region and traveled right into pit world. Face first.

I just long for some savvy marketing kid to snag up this opportunity to hardcore sell some D.O. on the trains. Seriously. Truly, even better than the marketing kid, would be any of the other folks making their way through the trains, selling a variety of items: songs, pitiful looks, candy bars, sad stories and bootlegged DVD’s. Now these folks would know how to make a killing selling swipes and spritzes of D.O. Think about it. I would gleefully give someone a quarter, hell, a dollar, to give the guy next to me a couple of sprays from the old D.O. can. Especially if he’s taking the train as far as I am. They could offer a variety of scent options, some specially for the ladies, stick, solid, clear, gel, spray, roll-on (they still make that?) the options are limitless! I hope, I pray that today will be the day it all begins.

Now, if I could just get jerk with the iPod to turn down his death metal at 8 in the g-d morning!

I totally understand the cup, a couple of pennies rolling around in it, the forlorn look of desperation defining their features. It’s not that the people asking you for some spare change are homeless or necessarily ‘beggars’. Their wallets are stuffed with plastic: AMEX, debit cards, Platinum diddies, it’s just the cash they lack. And cash goes a long way in this town, my friend.

I came to the city armed with my debit card in my wallet (though if my mother would have had her way, that piece of plastic would have spent the entire trek hidden in some nether region of my bod, cause you just KNOW everyone in NY was sittin around, waitin for me and all the glorious riches in my small, neighborhood bank to step off that plane so the theft and pilfering could begin), ready to furiously swipe for any goods I may require (goods = ‘needs’. You know, like the NY purse I needed or the NY shoes). And while I found that those sorts of needs may be acquired via the swipe, many other things, to my surprise, are not.

I imagined NYC to be this wonderous nexus of brilliant swipey thingy’s, where consumers just waved their cards in the air and goods rained down from the heavens, while vendors of all things from food to art, float down the street swathed in the blue’s, yellow’s and orange’s of the Visa/Mastercard logos.

Well, not quite. Little did I realize that sometimes a ‘vendor’ constitues nothing more than a guy sitting on the sidewalk with his ‘goods’ (ie: items that until dude liberated them yesterday, were landfill bound) spread on a blanket. Often times there’s a table involved with some erector set type walls supporting the purses, jewelry, neckties, watches, artwork, magnets, old albums (yes, you youngun’s, actual vinyl) incense, ‘tobacco’ pipes. Yeah, these guys do not work in imaginary fundage. At all. Ask one. It’s a great time to see how they respond.

It doesn’t end with the street vendors either. I live in Astoria, which is a lovely little borough with quite the eclectic mix of nationalities and chock full of bodegas. And while I can buy single cans of beer , kitty litter, homemade tamales and fresh vegetables all in the same place, I can not use my little debit friend.

I was told that there are cabs that take plastic, but you have to call and request it, which I know is always foremost on my mind when it’s 4am and I want to spend my last remaining dollars on some fried chicken and a BIG bottle of water.

So, keep in mind, when venturing into this neck of the woods, cash is still king around here and in a single block walk you can trade it in and come out the other side with a framed photograph, some fruit, a belt, a kitten, an ice cream and a song. The song coming from the guy who has yet to upgrade to a table.