Don't get me wrong, I still love walking the streets. The women are sexier here. The men are dressed better. The subway is still a potpourri of characters that couldn't exist anywhere else.
At the same time though much of the magic seems gone. It's not just that everything has gotten so expensive (and it has, my beloved Sparkling Ice Pink Grapefruit costs twice as much here as it does in L.A.), it also the loss of that feeling that anything can happen here at any time.
I'm not saying I wouldn't come back here. But I can't see trading my big one bedroom in L.A. for a tiny one here that would cost more. I'm too old to climb five flights of stairs.
I'm sitting here in a hotel room listening to "The Only Living Boy in New York" and thinking it sounded better on my car radio driving down Pico Blvd.
Another factor, of course, is the realization that there isn't anything here for me anymore. My father's gone. My brother lives in Queens. I don't have many friends here anymore. I go to my old AA meetings and recognize about 20% of the people.
Of course, there's not much for me in Los Angeles either.
At least it's good to know I know a geographic is not the answer.
1 comment:
Queens!
Most people would say something like, "New York would be ok were it not for my brother living in Vermont, Kansas, Oregon, Guam, etc." Not often we hear of a relative living far away when he is in fact in the same city.
It is like when Tony Manero sets out from Brooklyn to make it big in Manhattan and he and everyone else acts as if he is heading to Paris or some other far off destination requiring a jet rather than a swipe of the Metro card.
I am eying a great spread in Santa Monica, but Rambler is far away on the Miracle Mile, so forget it.
Ike to Winston: "Sure, we would like to dislodge the Germans from France, but the English Channel is wide and cold. Plus Jerry has guns. Nope, nope, nope. Can't do it!"
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