A New Yorker Comes to LA and then Goes Back to NY

Megan Writes:

I landed at JFK and snuck up the aisle just below business class. Then I waited. I got out of the plane and into the arrival area which was grey and dank. I followed the people (and signs) to the airtran/ground transportation escalator which was not working. I waited as everyone struggled with their overly large carry-ons. I passed through baggage and followed the signs to AirTran straight to the doors which were completely blocked by police tape. I walked down to the next set of doors and out onto the street. I asked someone if I was going the right way. I had to walk over pick-updrop-off roads because the new pathway was still being renovated. I got to the elevator but it was taking a really long time and then I realized there was an escalator outside up to the LIRR platforms. I went up the escalators and over to the platforms and there was no information booth or signs. I was confused. Every train was going to Babalyon or East New York. No thanks. Finally at the end of the platform there was the 12:04am to Penn. Ran down the stairs but the train was just pulling away. No one knew (not even the other train conductor) when the next train was. He told me to go to the information booth which I got to by walking through that conductor's train. Got to the booth with a drunken irish guy who had to get to Woodside (duh) and I asked. She said 12:27. I said which track, she said 2. I said this side? She said "it leaves on track 2". I said thanks and walked away thinking 'how come black ladies are such bitches." Got on the train finally and listened to some girl swear a lot on her phone "I mean, what the fuck, like I was such a fucking idiot! I like had so much fucking time I fucking forgot so I ate my Burger King and thought I'm such a fucking idiot, what an ass, etc." I also listened to AirTran workers compare notes on city college costs and how so and so is a home nurse who works 4 hours a day and makes $120k and if she works on weekends she gets $1000k a day and how one of the ladies talking said she put her Tisha through med school until Tisha decided she wanted to do computers so now she's doing that but then told her mom she wants to go back to med school to become a nurse's assistant and how she (the mom) wants to go back to school (I guess JFK isn't paying her enough to stand around AirTran in case someone needs help - and she was nice when a man asked if the train to Jamaica stopped there - and those full benefits just don't satisfy because she's filling out a lot of forms to go to school for free because the $300 a semester could be paid for so why not?) And then I got into Penn Station and could find the A, C, E all right but not the 1 and then I turned around. Duh. So I went to the 1 but, now, get this, I could not use the stairs because some guy had just poured bleach on them and had blocked it off with police tape so me and a dozen or so other people HAD TO WAIT FOR THE ELEVATOR to take us up ONE LEVEL. We waited, breathing in all that bleach, until the elevator NEXT TO THE STAIRS arrived and we piled in and were lifted to the platform. And I waited there for the train. And the train came (not too bad a wait) and the conductor was calling all the stops by their single digit names, so 59 was five nine, and 66th was six six and I was pissed because, well, I don't know, but it had something to do with what I was experiencing which is this: I think NewYorkers are just a little too concerned with being what they see on TV. All the girls are 'fly', all the boys are 'homey' and everyone is using that accent like they're italians in a godfather movie. Tone it down, people! Give peace a chance. It's like everyone's walking around waiting to be discovered.....So, I get off at one zero three and I can't exit the new exit closer to my house because they lock it after 11:30 or so and so I have to walk the 1/2 block south and I climb the stairs and go through the revolving exit thingy and turn left to go up the stairs and I swear to the almighty there is a flood puddle with crap in it at the base of the stairs and I think that somehow a torrential rain has happened from the time that I was standing en plein air at Jamiaca to now. Well, what-ever and I step into the flood with my right foot and leap to the step with my left foot and I think 'great, it's friggin' - well, no, fucking, raining - and I climb the stairs and it's not raining at all. It's just god damn (and sorry cause I know the Pope just died and all) 'clean the subway/LIRR stations with lots of water' night. That's all. So, I climb the stairs. I pass by the blonde girl who's singing with 4 black guys outside a black late at night, white earlier on, owned by euro trash bar and as I pass she's saying 'I lost my voice earlier today' and I go into an Islamic deli and I buy a Heineken and I walk home. I walk up the stairs and I have to say my apt. is nice. It really really is. But the bathroom is still leaking because there's a big old brown water pile pooled in the tub and the tape around the piece of wallboard that's the recent attempt at fixing it is wet and 'sepia' (what an appropriate word) and Clover, that Yoga cat extraordinaire, is in some backwoods North Carolina yard right now, and Holly's still in Florida, and there's not even any mail because for some reason Amanda hasn't taken the mailbox key and emptied the box and now I'm worried that the mailman has rejected some important mail because we've been abusive and that's New York.
It's not pretty anymore. Maybe in some area of Brooklyn where the neighbors have all paid off the UPS and mail PEOPLE but you know what? I've lived here all my life. I've lived upstate and downstate. I've worked in finance, publishing, waitressing AND I've been artistic. I think I've given myself a pretty darn good look at what's going on. All facets. All professions. All peoples. From squatters to investment bankers.
New York is transient.
You live here, you work here but you get the hell out of dodge when you can.
I have been thinking of Highland Park and how one 'lives there' but one 'gets the hell out, well, I'm not sure getting the hell out is necessary. Cresting hills and seeing hills is something. I would go as far to say that the gangs in LA have no vistas. There are no vistas in NYCity, EXCEPT for the Staaten Island ferry which reminds you daily of the enormity of New York. Jersey, unfortunately, just doesn't count. And that's that.
What exactly is so wrong with property on the Gold Line?
This is complicated and I'm not Paul or John or any other Beatle's daughter and I have invested a HUGE amount of time in this city and one day I'll be able to place it appropriately. I hope, really, I do, that I can because I feel it and I deserve it but for right now I'm really liking LA.
New York will never die. Never. It really won't. But what? I like plants and I like people who like plants. New York City does not like plants, and that, my darling Donald, is an absolute fact.


(Megan was outbid for the house in Highland Park)


Harlem


Highland Park

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