December 10, 2006
sweepin' the clouds away
12/10/06
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hauling the 10-foot Christmas tree through Brooklyn last week with Tim Ransom
After many months of arguing, cajoling, sulking and Yalta-like compromise, Tessa and I finally agreed, circa 2003, to alternate Christmases. This means that every other Christmas, each of us get to pick where we'd like to go. 95% of the time my choice is the farm upstate, because the place was built in 1818 expressly for the purpose of at least three hundred consecutive Christmases - plus, it usually snows, and there's room for my humongous family, etcetera.
This happened to be Tessa's year, but her hand was forced, somewhat, but the imminent arrival of Jordi and Sean's baby. So we're actually doing the holiday here in our Brooklyn apartment, which my wife has wanted to do for some time. I'm cool with it because we'll only be a few miles away from the baby boy, but getting all the Christmas Krap™ down from the farm was a backbreaking ordeal.
New York City - and Brooklyn - was not designed to be easy, folks. Sure, ordering food is simple, but you have to pay for it, and then give the guy a tip. Other than that, traversing each block, especially in winter and ESPECIALLY if you're carrying something, feels like one of the Labours of Hercules.
There are very few places I'd actually live, because I'm an insufferable, unbelievable snob, but I occasionally long for the convenience of living in Iowa, or Virginia, where we would simply want something, drive to get it, park in our garage, and carry it into the living room. Obviously, our lives as children were environmentally unconscious, but GODDAMN I wish I could just park in front our apartment, instead of lugging three tons of shit four blocks with a wind chill of 15 degrees.
New York is a tough sell. There are far too many people here, the traffic is suicide-inducing, the weather is almost always uncooperative, the local news is filled with some of the most grotesque crimes ever committed, and it's expensive as shit. And yet, one night in the East Village, or a day in Prospect Park, or the best dinner conversation you ever had, and you know you could never, ever leave.
I mean, we leave a lot, but you know what I mean.
sigh. I'm now officially homesick.
ok ok ok... but don't forget the OZ ;)
I miss the East even if I park in my garage in socal. Love NYC, DC, Boston.... I can't wait to leave here. Actually, if any east coasters are lurking I'm looking for work in Philly/DC.....
I *heart* NYC, but I live in Iowa City, and visit a couple times a year. Best of both worlds.
And come to think of it, Iowa City is to Iowa, as New York City is to New York. In pretty much every way possible.
What we sing here though, is "If you can make it here, you'll make it in Minneapolis" which is nowhere near as catchy.
Start spreading the news!
This small town boy wouldn't last long up there- NY would eat my lunch.
I love to visit big cities like NY and Chicago but I could never leave the comforts of suburbia permanently. There are obvious tradeoffs to each so pick your poison (or passion).
You get to see every awesome band live. I get to hear them on XM.
It probably takes you over 1.5 hours to drive 30 miles. Takes me 20 minutes.
You live in the world's melting pot. I see the same people everyday.
What you paid for your apartment would buy you a 5,000 sf house in the nicest neighborhood down here (on at least 3/4 acre).The grass is always greener. We should do our own reality show and swap lives for a week. That would be hilarious.
Kent,
I found Iowa City and Cedar Rapids to be alarmingly similar to Greensboro and Winston-Salem (where I live). Same size, distance between, dead downtowns at night, etc etc.
"because I'm an insufferable, unbelievable snob"
Dude, don't be so hard on yourself.*
I don't come here for the awkward self-awareness. I come here for the name-dropping and false bonhomie. Shape up.
L
----*That's my job.
Another bonus of living in New York that balances out the schlepping: if you need something in a hurry (say if you forgot an ingredient for dinner), it's usually just a few blocks away. When we lived in suburban New Jersey, I abandoned more than one dinner plan because I didn't feel like getting in the car and driving to the store.
(I guess the real problem here is that I'm not a good grocery-list maker.)
I totally agree.
Having spent the bulk of my existence living in Chicago proper, the suburbs and five years in Iowa City, I think I've arrived at a happy medium living just twelve miles from Chicago now.
Suburban Chicago offered the best schools and environment to grow up in but the city was but a short car or train ride away, an option a lot of us took extreme advantage of. My last two years of high school saw me literally going into the city two or three nights a week for rock shows or movies that wouldn't come to the burbs.
After college (Iowa City, great town) I spent a decade bouncing around Chicago proper living in apartments that kept getting burglarized. I loved living in the city but once we got married, my wife and I decided the suburbs would be best for our dog, the kids we'd eventually have (Chicago public schools suck) and just quality of life. Nowadays, we still make it downtown once or twice a week (outside of work, we both work in the city) and sometimes long to move back.
As for NYC or Los Angeles, I love 'em both (for totally different reasons) and visit often but I'd have to be making a few 100K just to consider ever living in either city. Even then, with all the crap my wife and I accumulated, NYC would be impossible.
I do like being able to get ANY food you could possibly want at 3AM in Manhattan, even Chicago lacks that for the most part.
I'm still wondering how in the hell you do it! You were in LA for several (?) months and you're in NYC quite a bit, plus you have the farm house... do you Craig's list the LA pad? Where do you find baby sitters? Where do you park your car? Managing just the basic logistics of your life, Ian, would blow my mind.
p.s. and dammit, now I have the Sesame Street song stuck in my head.
I'm pretty sure, actually positive, that you cannot complain about harsh New York City Winters until AFTER the holidays. Until then, it really is the greatest place on Earth.