Its Thursday morning. 7:28am. I wake up before my annoying alarm clock rudely yells the arrival of a new day. I am back in New Yorkmania. The same old routine… I stumble to my ipod in the living room and put on some “dinner” songs (anything from Mina’s Senza Fiato to Monica Molina’s Jovenes Amantes). Ready to go to work at 8am. I open my child-locked windows and stick my fingers out like a prisoner to feel the temperature outside. My eyes still not used to daylight, I search for a glimpse of the sky in between the high rises and water towers that surround my apartment. Including the 2 to 10 minute wait for the elevator, I am in the lobby by 8:05am.
Knowing that I will not move a muscle at work for more than 10 hours, I choose to walk. I don’t want to let go of one of the few exercise minutes I can happily celebrate in the city of money, power and speed.
I take a big breath, get out of the building and make my way across the million aggressive New Yorkers going to work. Only a few other places in the world makes a pedestrian feel like he/she is tailgating someone on the sidewalk. New York is definitely one of those places. I either brush the walls of the buildings or walk on car lanes to avoid contact with any other human being. The full sound of my ipod is almost not enough to block the cry of the city in this early morning hour. Right on 34th street The Empire State brings down its wrath from the sky with a scientifically unexplainable tornado. The siren of the fire truck adds an unwelcome beat to my house music. Crossing one of the few “tree gatherings” in the city I choose to pamper myself with some green on Madison Square Park. Weather permitting the homeless people might still be sleeping in the park, marking their territory with card-boards and small amounts of pee left over from the previous night on the sidewalk. The buses block my way while they make a left turn onto 24th street from 5th avenue. I am stuck right in the middle of the road. The cabs roar their engines and the sleepy drivers take their feet from the break letting the cars glide onto the cross walk. The green light is coming up and knowing that I can’t make it to the other side I run back to where I started to wait for the next walk sign. Mostly annoyed, but partially amused by my constant swearing at other pedestrians and cars, I speed to work. I am already fed up.
After a few projects, meetings, e-mails, phone calls and some humorous conversations with co-workers, the stomach rings the bells of lunch time. Stuck in between too many New York choices, I ask myself “should this be a chipotle day?” I try to avoid the boring make-your-own-salad from the City Cafe downstairs. Whole Foods on Union Square is way too crowded with models with their one piece sushi meals and housewife mums with their 100% organic baskets. The delis have variety, but they never look, seem and smell clean. Soft tacos with double steak, sour cream, cheese and guacamole seem to be the safest and the quickest way.
6:00pm. A new question arises: if meeting friends after work, “Where should we go?” if going home, “What should I eat?”. Everyone thinks it is easy to choose a new place to go to in the city that has it all. It is not! The safest and the most peaceful way is to pick a few places and stick to them. And for dinner at home…Who would have thought I would see Microwave-Ready-Dinner-Packs I used to make fun of in movies as perfect choices for a lonely dinner engagement at home!
Yet another stressful walk from the office begins the second I step on the sidewalk on Broadway. Another New Yorkmania work week is coming to an end when I quietly tuck myself in the bed. If only it wasn’t Friday tomorrow maybe I could have been relieved with the thought of actually getting some peace and rest during the weekend. Yet as most of the New Yorkers, I know too well that the financially, mentally and physically tiring shopping sprees, French-subtitled-happy-hours, tall-young-blond-Russian-club-scenes are only a few hours away.
Similar to what smokers keep promising themselves, I will quit New Yorking one day. In between the cockroach corpses on sidewalks, the rats prancing around Bryant Park, the garlic perfumed Indian cabs, the streets with burnt kebab smoke, the dirty subways, the disgusting delis, the shallow metropolitan talks and the unaesthetic garment district with a touch of Macy’s, New York somehow worked its way through my veins. It got me addicted faster than I could say “take me to JFK”.
