So I've been in New York City for awhile now. Some of the things, people, and occurrences I see still amaze me. On occasion they are good; on occasion they are bad. I would like to say that my thoughts or just the events or objects (this includes humans and other living things) might get placed on the blog roughly three times a week, but I don't want to put any stipulations or restrictions on myself. I wouldn't want to disappoint my public if for some reason I posted only one a month. Some people might just not be able to handle my casual attitude toward these blogging things :).
With that said, these next few entries might not be very spontaneous. I have to catch people up on the Roller blading nuns, a possible jumper, and the fire trucks and firemen, maybe one fire woman, I saw a few days ago. I wish that I had photos of the nuns, but I don't, and I think I'm glad that I don't have photos of the subway 'investigation'. (And, might I add at this very moment, I feel like all of the circuits that involve my own little bubble might pop like clogged blood vessels in someone that is about to have a massive brain aneurism. My phone doesn't want to connect to voicemail, nor does it want to send out texts or call anyone, and the internet is fluctuating between slow, high connectivity, and dead.)
On to the NUNS! They also know how to have fun outside of a church on the Lord's day....
Yes, this did occur! The other day, this past Sunday, March 8, 2009, to be exact, I went bicycling on my most amazing Origin 8 Uno -- it is a single speed optional fixed gear bike with bull horns and shall be my trusty steed in the Montauk Century (if I sign up to ride in it... options of 65, 100, or 145 miles). I didn't plan on this excursion that day; I honestly thought my day would be quite mundane. My original intention was to go see the SCOPE art fair at Lincoln Center and then head back home, but I was not all that pleased with what I saw at the fair, except for a couple of pieces, and decided that since I was right near Central Park I should go and redeem my day by starting my training. Training= sprinting to keep up with road cyclists and riding long distances until my sit bones become painfully one with the seat of the bike. Since my biking shorts have now arrived, I can still ride until my haunches are tingling and approaching numb; it just means that in addition, my legs will also be rendered useless by the end of the ride -- disclaimer: this is probably not the proper training technique, so do not use it to train yourself. I am my own guinea pig, and do not claim responsibility for anybody else's 'follow the 'leader'' stupidity.) ... skip on to: it was getting cloudy, I was getting bored, but all-in-all content with my performance, I get to the West Side Highway Greenway, bike down from 110th St. toward Chelsea Piers, and then it happened......... The sun came out, I passed up a couple of bikes and joggers..... then there they were....
Their holy presences gracing my holy presence (I did too spell 'holy' correctly, I did not mean empty like a hole, but if you're religious and you want to think that I meant 'whole', you can for your own sake.)
YOUNG NUNS dressed in baby blue wearing their habits and gliding on the slightly damp asphalt with roller blades as chariots. They looked quite happy and very chatty. "WHAT?" you say. I know, at heart and soul nuns might be very peaceful and happy people, but the exterior usually screams, "RUN! SHE HAS A PADDLE." Well, not these ladies. They were out and being quite naughty on the Sabbath; giggling and smiling are supposed to be peasant folks pleasures. I wish that I had photos, not only as proof that the 'celibate' people of God's cadre bask gloriously in his outdoor creation, but also because I want to know if they were indeed nuns.
It has been brought to my attention that they might have been studying to be nuns, but were not in fact the 'real deal' quite yet. If this is true it means that blue is not always the new black, and I did not miss an issue of Vogue that might have been entitled, "Nuns in the Nude -- Blue is Black." They might have just been innocent young students enjoying their last free days in the sun before they say their vows to their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
(Note: This 'celibate' in quotes goes out to a female friend of mine that used to watch the religious channel purely to see the nuns. Her theory was that there might be a little hanky-panky going on between some of the 'ladies of the cloth'. After this comment I have never looked at a nun the same way, and I am so glad. It gives me hope for religion.)
Let's move on to The Firemen.
I work at a camping store. In general, I don't mind it. The work isn't all that demanding, my co-workers are great, and it gives me the time and discounts I need to do other things I enjoy. On one of the days that I filled in for a co-worker I had to do something the store likes to call "Marketing". We've recently moved locations to a temporary store and will be moving locations again to another store only two blocks away from where the first store was. (I know, it seems like a lot of trouble, but if you move two blocks further South in a particular area, you'll get almost double the traffic. It's a combination of tourism, what used to be burgeoning capitalism, and locals that actually want to buy something but can't because all of the tourists are blocking the aisles and ramming their bags (unknowingly of course) into merchandise.)
On that day, my marketing job was to stand outside of the old store and direct people who were interested in the empty building to the new, temporary location. I was quite excited because it was a beautiful and relatively warm day outside, and I would get to have a nice, roughly two-hour conversation with the security guard from the bank (of course while doing my job, and seriously, the guard is really funny and enjoyable to talk to, I'm not being sarcastic.) But, low and behold, when I arrive at my location I see toxic dust billowing out of the building and construction workers hauling demolition materials from the building to the waste truck parked right in front of where I usually sit. So, for the majority of the day I got to watch either typically loud and boisterous or austere and hurried New Yorkers have a break in their routine. This manifested itself in several forms: 1) Adults flapping their arms in the air like Chicken Little. 2) Adults attempting, without success, to smother their children's nostrils with their sweaty paws in hopes that this would be a signal to the youngsters to stop breathing (instead they gasped for air through their mouths which of course means that they were not able to use the nose hair filtration that nostrils provide). 3) Looks of panic at the possible Asbestos pouring from its sanctuary while scrambling to hold scarves in front of faces. 4) My least favorite to watch... the ones that did not make a spectacle of themselves. They simply looked at the dust and kept walking.
I sat for a while, a friend walked past, we chatted, then the fire trucks came. They pulled out their fierce fire people tools that looked like they were recently forged in the land of dragon slayers, took a tour of the building and left.
Ok, so wasn't so much about the fire men as the smothering dust that probably wasn't toxic enough to trigger my asthma even though I was in it for about 5 hours. Either that or Advair just once a day really is that good.
Moving on to the Jumper, which happened before the nuns and the firemen. (I'm going backwards in my account of this past week it seems.)
There have been a great deal of layoffs lately in NYC -- I think it's around 77,000 (don't quote me, that's what my roommate said, and I did not read it for myself). You would think that people would be quite somber on the subway because of this, but recently I have noticed people talking more instead of less. Maybe they have more to talk about. They could be discussing the finer points of golf, knitting, or the Underground Railroad. Might I dare say that they are talking about a bouldering session in the park or trying to bike from Tarrytown to Nyack (this by the way is not possible, trust me, I know from experience-- but it is still fun to try, and then stop at the police station and ask if it is actually possible to cross the Tappan Zee Bridge by foot.) Or, they could be talking about the person that might or might not have just jumped in front of the train that is currently only 3/4 pulled into the station and has paramedics trying to slide under. This is what greeted me when I was running late to meet a couple of friends at an art opening. If I had been only 5-10 minutes sooner I would have gotten to see someone leap carefree in front of a speeding bullet. But alas, I was saved the spectacle of a fool trying to take his own life. (I assume this based on my conversation with a fourth party -- it is just speculation based on the conversation and observation.) It could be that no one jumped and it was really just an investigation of the tracks. Why the tracks, train, or a rat would need a metal basket stretcher I have no clue. But then again, that third rail can be quite a cumbersome child sometimes. Anyway, they announced over the intercom that there was an investigation (there have been quite a number of subway investigations lately, and I'm expecting many more -- layoffs=train 'investigations', as well as, bridge, car, garage... etc. 'investigations'), they taped off that side of the tracks, and I left because they shut off the power to the trains. So I walked from the ACE to the F and went to the opening quite glad that I was not around to see what treasures they disinterred.
