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broke my heart to leave the city, i mean it broke what wasn't broken in there already
by mg at 08:15 AM on August 14, 2006
There were many reasons for leaving New York City, and I don't regret it for one moment.
Well, no, that isn't quite accurate. I don't think it was the wrong decision, but there are some minutes, some brief but urgent moments, where I wish I was back in the city. Most of the time I realize how good and necessary this move was. But every once in awhile there is a pang of doubt that hits like a stitch in the side while running.
And that is exactly what it feels like, I'll be in the middle of doing something else and then "Wham!" this sharp ache for "home" when I realize I miss New York.
I miss New York when I realize that for all I've seen of most Chicagoans, I can't be entirely sure that anyone in this city has legs. In New York I walked. I love to walk. For the year and a half before I moved I was commuting out of the city and doing it in a car. But I would still take every opportunity to walk around the city. It didn't matter where I was walking to or from, just that I was moving. Here, I've not had any opportunity to walk any distance further than from the furthest parking spot away from the front door of Costco (which is pretty far, but still). And for all that time in the car, the most I've seen of Chicagoans is from the shoulders up.
For all I know half the population is really a population of halves.
I miss New York when I realize I have no friends here. I didn't really have many friends there either, but I had a few. If I threw a "Big Game" party (not to be confused with the Superbowl) in New York, at least a couple people would have shown up. If I threw a "Big Game" party (not to be confused with the Superbowl) party this year, I'd have to split a keg and 30 wings with the wife and a two year old. Quite a super f'ing party.
I miss New York whenever a movie or TV show that is shot in New York comes on and I can say "I know exactly where that is" within 5 seconds. I miss New York more whenever a movie or TV show that is shot in Chicago comes on and I don't notice. For example, it took me an hour an a half to notice that the musical Chicago is about Chicago. Who knew?
I miss New York when I realize the used bookstore that it took me 5 years to figure out their first crazy, but now familiar, organizational system, and the same 5 years to feel comfortable enough to sit in it all day without feeling guilty, is now 1000 miles away with at least 11,000 Barnes and Nobles and Starbucks between us.
I miss New York when I think about heading out to the local watering hole and realizing that even though I reside in the same zip code as all of my neighbors, I still won't be a local to anyone else in the place. I'm too old to get "beat in" to a new bar, the spleen just doesn't grow back like it used to.
I miss New York when my Time Out magazine arrives and I can't call it "TONY." I mean, what the hell kind of name is TOC? It doesn't exactly roll of the tongue.
I miss New York whenever I listen to a weather report and all of the temperatures are paired with neighborhoods and cities that are as foreign to me as talk of Kirkuk and Fallujah. In Mundelein today is there a 40% chance of a car bombing or snow?
I'm sure that as I learn to appreciate pizza with a thick crust, hot dogs draped in lettuce and tomato instead of dirty water, political corruption that would make the French blush, John Hughes and John Cusack as native Hollywood sons instead of Marty Scorsese and Robert De Niro, Frank Sinatra singing "My Kind of Town" instead of "New York, New York," I'll start to feel more comfortable in my new home.
But it hasn't happened yet.
comments (11)
That's okay MG,
I love NYC, and when I throw parties, it's with my fiance and our imaginary daughter(Hayheehoo the doll) and son(Curious George doll), and we have 'PIZZA NIGHT!'
of course, I get to walk along the Hudson during sunset, and you got I dunno, that lake... which is nice too.
by LOCKHEED at August 14, 2006 4:00 PM
This should be in a brochure for New York holidays. I have a overwhelming desire to visit now.
My vision of New York is of gunshots every few minutes, then a female scream cutting the air, all followed by the siren call of a police cruiser, "whoop whoop." Turn your hotel room light off at night and you'll instantly get a helicopter shining a spotlight through the window, and as you peer though the blinds you'll hear a gunshot followed by a scream and the siren of a police cruiser, "whoop whoop." Order pizza and get shoved out of the queue by some hard voiced New Yorker declaring 'what a fucking a day' and telling everyone to 'shut your fucking pie holes' as they point out they were in line first. Then a gunshot and scream, and the siren of a police cruiser cutting the air, "whoop whoop."
Ah, American movies 'work' because of this stuff. If there was a British movie with even a whisper of a gunshot in the background the entire set would be invaded by special branch and there'd be cameras everywhere from newsrooms all over the UK. The audience wouldn't be able to suspend any disbelief and the cinema would empty. But a British audience hearing a gunshot, a scream, and the siren of a police cruiser cutting the air, "Whoop whoop" - in an American movie. We eat our popcorn in awe and are glued to the screen.
I'm guessing the reality is NYC is no different from London. So large that you can't fully appreciate the scale, if you take the time to comprehend the sheer number of people around you your head would expode. So instead you make a mental effort to make it small by establishing routes and favourite locations, it's like your own tiny village spread thinly through the heart of a city, like a dotted line on a map. And everybody's different villages snake around and criss cross one anothers.
City life rocks, and there's no place like home. NCO in Humberside, population: Measly :)
by Ex Crimson Guard NCO at August 14, 2006 5:46 PM
PIZZA NIGHT!!!!!!
by LOCKHEED at August 14, 2006 8:14 PM
Hmph. Nobody showed up for pizza night.
by lockheed at August 16, 2006 5:33 PM
are you menstruating? what the hell is wrong with you? did you stick your pee pee between your legs while you wrote this post?
by Eviltom at August 17, 2006 12:19 AM
I think his daughter wrote this post.
by LOCKHEED at August 17, 2006 2:39 PM
Getting you to Chicago was my biggest accomplishment as Mayor!
by Michael Bloomberg at August 19, 2006 4:48 PM
I miss NYC, specifically Jackson Heights. I miss all the signs for broiled pollo. I miss Columbians hauling laundry bags of cash into the Banco de Bogota like in Scarface. I miss having to point at entrees on menus because no one hable English. I miss the blank stares of the homeless and the way they'll sing off-key in the subway until somebody pays them off.
by anna at August 20, 2006 10:47 AM
There's not a day that goes by that I don't wish I was home. My career arc superimposed over Amy's means it will be several years before I can finally go home. But when I say 'home' I mean New York. Everything else is temporary.
by Adam at August 28, 2006 2:57 AM
Adam, are you mentsruating too?
by mg at August 29, 2006 8:10 AM
Somehow MG's spelling sounds even dirtier. Dirtier still.
by anna at August 29, 2006 6:21 PM