I feel I should have a baby book for every time I make a change in my life as there are so many firsts and new experiences to record. I do have record of my first New York haircut. And my first piping in the park. So in my New York baby book I would have: 2/4/08 "Pat sees his first passed out man on the subway holding a guitar and surrounded by vomit."
I was headed downtown after work and hopped on the #1 train where I managed to do that cool locals thing of running across the platform at a subsequent stop to catch an express train down. I just love that cool locals thing. I would like to say I performed this perfectly, but truth be told I bumped my head on the handrial getting up from my seat, stepped on a woman's toe, ran way too "desparately" and arrived at the opposing car way too fast. Calm thyself, you are a New Yorker now! There needs to be urgency, but "cool urgency." Here is where I managed into the puke car. The passed out musician had cleared his side of the carriage like a crime scene, but unbeknownst to him since he was...passed out. We all huddled in the less stench-filled side from 42nd to 34th Street. Upon first glance one might think the man hated his own playing so much that he vomited and collapsed from the forse of his puking. Buta seasoned local would know it was alcohol.
At 34th Street most of us decided that he wasn't going to play anytime soon and got in a less stinky car for the rest our journies.
Had dinner at a Chinese restaurant on Hudson in the Village. Passed by a plaque that said Willa Cather lived here. But not really "here." She lived on the site, but in a building that was torn down. So the plaque is on a buidling that Willa Cather had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with. I see this often. I want to know that Madonna rubbed her butt up against this actual fence, not some damned replica that stands on the very place of the butt rubbing. I know New York is a living, breathing city and not a museum, but I feeled deflated when I can't sit in the actual stool that Dylan Thomas drank himself to death on at the White Horse Tavern down the block. Call me a realist.
And speaking of real, I am still having trouble accepting the city as really real to me. It had apparently rained when we were having dinner at the Chinese restaurant. I looked out and the streets were all wet like they were going to shoot a picture on the New York Streets at the Fox lot in LA. No, this is real. No plaque necessary. Real rain. Real New York Streets. There's my damn reality and I won't accept it. I keep thinking: "These streets have been repaved since Willa and Dylan were here. They never walked here on this. Not really."
