What I’ve learned in the last two years: New York is not that big and scary. I mean, I guess it is, at a macro level, and it’s certainly crowded. But what people say about it being a bunch of small cities shoved together is true. It’s not just that there are four boroughs plus Staten Island*, there really are a bunch of neighborhoods. The semi-official ones (East Village, Upper West Side, China Town, etc) but the mini ones too. I live in Inwood, the neighborhood above 170th or so, which covers about 40 blocks top to bottom. But my stomping grounds are really only about six or seven of those blocks.
I bring this up because I got my hair cut over the weekend, pretty drastically. (Fifteen inches hacked off.) And when my sister and I stepped off the subway on our way home that evening, first the guy at the bodega noticed. Then this morning, one of the neighboring building’s managers, who I walk past as he cleans the sidewalk every morning, called, “Hey, nice haircut!” (To be clear, in a saying hi to a neighbor way, not in a street harassment way.) The local drugstore knows I always bring in my own bags. My sister has a “the regular” order at the other local bodega. The mailwoman recognizes us.
It’s not that different from the teeny-tiny farmtown where I grew up, is my point. I don’t have twenty years of history here, but I have people who know me, and who will probably notice when we move in a month and say goodbye. (I’m actually quite sad to leave the neighborhood, but moving is a necessity. My sister and I share a one-bedroom apartment. We’d kind of like two.)
Also, it’s got something in common with my hometown because every now and then when you’re walking around, you run into a chicken.
It was kind of surreal, actually. Rachel, Jess, and I were walking up the street towards our building, and a chicken popped out of the bushes.
“Uh,” Rachel said. “You guys see that, right?”
We did. Then we walked on. Because, well, a chicken wasn’t supposed to be in the bushes, and it’s certainly an unusual sight in New York, but… Well, it’s New York. These things happen.
* Very funny if you live in New York. Well, maybe not if you live on Staten Island.
It wasn’t a GIANT chicken. It was just a regular-sized chicken! And it wasn’t wearing a disguise to look like human guys.
But otherwise, yes, everything you just said is true. *g*
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