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Sitting in front of me on the B45 bus today, cruising down Atlantic Avenue: two pre-teen girls who appeared to be identical twins in that can't-really-tell-if-they're-twins-or-just-look-remarkably-similar kind of way (perhaps intentionally, considering their age).
As we passed a lighting design studio displaying all kinds of different floor, table and hanging lamps in its huge storefront window, one of the tweens pointed at an enormous, gawdy as hell chandelier and shouted, "Check it out! That's dumb pretty!"
Dumb pretty? Say what? "Whatever happened to awesome, rad, tubular?" wondered the aging '80s relic (that would be me) seated behind them.
"It's dumb pretty!" The tween repeated, in case I misheard her use of this newfangled slang that makes old folks like me contort their faces in highly unflattering ways.
Her friend/sister/Doppelganger replied, "It's mad high up, too."
Damn, I feel old.
On the street near my apartment today, I was approached by a 30-something white man with a lazy eye, matted hair and frazzled beard, sporting a grey wool suit and tie (and toting a briefcase), yet looking as disheveled as if he'd slept on a bus for many, many hours that day.
Stranger: Thank you.
Me: Excuse me?
Stranger: I know you work very hard, so thank you.
Me: You're welcome.
Bizarre, yes, but one of the reasons I moved back to New York City was because strange encounters with every conceivable sort of human being are a part of daily life here. And I'd missed it.
Jason and I live in Brooklyn, not far from where I took my first breaths on Earth, a quick subway ride from Manhattan. Depending on which map you consult, our neighborhood is either Prospect Heights or Crown Heights. Call it what you like--it's a colorful, diverse neighborhood of mostly Caribbean blacks (Haitians, Jamaicans, etc.). Sushi may be hard to come by, but there is plenty of Creole, African and West Indian food. We hear French being spoken a lot (in fact, the cabbie who drove us home from JFK Airport was playing Edith Piaf the entire way).
If that's not diverse enough for you, walk a few blocks east and you're smack dab in the middle of the biggest enclave of orthodox Jews this side of Jerusalem. Seriously, you've never seen so much black wool in your life and there's a synagogue, religious school and dentist's office on every block. We are at the intersection of Jamaica and Jews, as my cousin Otto put it. The cholent capital of Brooklyn, if you ask my cousin Gill.
New York is a city of neighborhoods, as they say, and one of the things I'd missed most in my 4 years away was that genuine sense of community. People take their neighborhoods seriously here and--particularly in areas where people aren't swimming in cash--neighbors tend to lean on one another.
As with any neighborhood, you have your wackos and your assholes (like the portly teenager in my local market yesterday who lovingly told the cashier to "Go fuck your mama and your mama's mama"), but despite the fact that palefaces like me and Jason stick out like sore thumbs around here, we love the diversity and we've found our neighbors and local store owners to be friendly and accommodating; the neighborhood, charming. In fact, all around this area are beautiful brownstones that I'd bet are reasonably priced (by NYC standards, at least), meaning that student loan burden-holders like us might afford to be homeowners before we reach retirement age.
In the meantime, we have a wonderfully sunny fixer-upper apartment that we are happily fixer-upping (as Jason puts it). I have spent more hours at Target and Bed Bath & Beyond than I care to admit, but it's all part of the fun of making our house a home and settling in to our little corner of the melting pot.
How does the time go so quickly and yet crawl along so slowly, all at once? It baffles me that the days fly by the way they do. I know the only way to slow them down is to get a really boring job and watch the minutes drag, but... NAH!
So I'm crazed these days with packing. For those who haven't heard, I am preparing to move back to New York City after 4 years of "left-coasting it" (as my friend MTD puts it). As someone who prides herself on keeping her home as minimally cluttered as possible, I'm stunned by how much STUFF I have. Honestly, I don't collect knick-knacks or useless tchochkes and I make a concerted effort not to keep things I don't truly need. But still... So. Much. Stuff.
The worst of it is the books--I can't bear to part with any of them and the hardcovers are just so damn heavy. They fill 7-8 boxes all on their own.
So, I read this article in the news today, about a French village banning residents from dying because there's no more room in the local cemetery. It reminded me of this very sweet movie from about 10 years ago that I loved and no one else saw (except my mom, who saw it with me): For Roseanna. In it, Mercedes Ruehl plays a dying woman in a small Italian village whose husband (the delicious Jean Reno) runs around town, trying to keep other villagers from dying so that his wife can have the last spot in the cemetery. It's funny and touching and a very sweet love story. Seriously--rent it.
Also, while I visited my parents earlier this week, my mom and I rented La Vie en Rose. If you're ever feeling like you have it rough, you must watch this. I knew very little about Edith Piaf, except that my mom had some of her albums. But wow... what a horrible life that woman had. Misfortune just followed her everywhere.
The movie jumped around a lot and skipped some important facts, but Marion Cotillard did a spectacular job. I was completely transfixed by her. And it was fun watching it with my mom, who speaks French and translated the lyrics for me (for some reason, they provide subtitles for the dialogue, but not the songs, which I would have appreciated).
Anyway, rent it. It's devastating. And you will come away with a newfound appreciation for your own life.