Adaptation - An NYC Story

I have not written a while.  This is partly because this city, Manhattan, is a freaking beast that swallows you whole.  Every once in a while this beast spits you out and you get a chance to tell about your adventures within the belly of the beast.

I have been swallowed by the beast.  This city keeps you busy and keeps your eyes "off the trees, and focuses your eyes on the forest".   I lose whatever is in front of me only to see what is 100 yards down the line.   

Living in this jungle you have to adapt.  Adapt to the smell (which my father says resembles a wet  camel).  You adapt to the noise (I will start a business selling ambient CD's with sirens and gun shots on them to NYers instead of Whales and baboons).  You adapt to the people (the crazy drunk, the crazy cat lady, the homeless man who yells at the fire hydrant).  You adapt to the weather (I didn't even use gloves today.  That is HUGE for me compared to last winter).

Basically you adapt or you lose it.  This city forces you to adapt.  Adapt or bust.  

So Swedish Hot Stuff (a.k.a. The Wife) and I were walking to the train station this morning.  Mondays she has class in the A.M. and leaves the house with me.  This is a good excuse for me to take the train two stops without feeling like a jack ass who just spent two dollars on one mile of distance that on a normal evening I cover walking two chiuahuahs in fish print pijamas.

Let me sidebar for a moment.  As a New Yorker for nearly a year now, I learned as many of the rules and guidelines as I can.  Before I moved here a good friend of mine said to me "Don't stop in the middle of the sidewalk if you have to answer a phone or text.  Move to the left or right.  Its the NY rule".  Another friend told me "Don't walk in Central Park after sun down".  Or one friend said "Don't sleep with any girls from alphabet city." But that sounded like a personal issue that really has no concern to me.  Not just cause I am married, but mostly because if I was single, I wouldn't go picking up hoodrats in alphabet city.  Even the homeless guy who screams at fire hydrants knows that.

So I learned the rules.  Still learning.  One of the rules is regarding subway stairs.  Going up the stairs in the subway station?  Stick to the right side of the stairs (going up).  Going down? Stick to the right (going down).  Basically everyone gets a side.  Of course this rules has sub rules.  For example if you are in the escalators, you stay to the right so that people who are rushing can run up the escalators.   There are other rules too (like if you have tourists behind you, drive them crazy by stopping every fourth step.   So many tourist, so little time.)

The 7 train exit at Grand Central (or 42nd and 3rd to be exact) is an interesting one.  In the mornings they have two escalators coming up from the train.  The stairs in the center are made for people going down to the train.   Its a good system.  Keeps a flow.  Everyone gets to their destination on time and with both legs.

But once you get to the bottom of that stairway, there is another small stairway.   No escalators this time.  Just stairs.  Problem here is you get a hundred people coming off both the Grand Central train and the Jamaica Train and they all try to fit into this stairway going upstairs.  Its like watching those shoppers on black fridays at a local Wal-Mart in OHIO.   Everyone rushing to fit into whatever fart space is available.  Problem is, if you are trying to come DOWN the stairs, you can't.  They take up all four lanes.  Thats like trying to drive down the FDR going south in four lanes of cars going North.  You literally have to bob and weave.  

So today I said fuck it and acted like a jerk and walked down the stairs knocking sholders and pushing elbows.   I basically came down the stairways like an avalanche.  Nothing will stop me and nothing will make me move from heading straight down.  I pushed one man out of the way.  I hit shoulders with another and I shoved someone with an elbow.  All these guys were in the lane reserved for those going down to the train on the stairway (by New York unspoken law).  They chose to take up that space to beat the hundred of others who did follow the unspoken law, so I went down like a rain in a blizzard.  Hard.  I didn't give a shit if someone would trip, fall, or lose their arms.  It was like that battle scene in Lord of the Rings.  I just rushed into this mass without hesitation.   

I eventually came out on the other side breathing.  And a lot faster than my "more polite" counterpart (a.k.a. wifey).  As my wife descended on the train level, she gave me a look and said "You can't do that Shai.  You were like shoving people and pushing them out the way".

Is it wrong that I found nothing wrong with that statement?  After all, they invaded the "downstairs movement".   Is there something wrong with taking charge when someone else invades your space?

What else was I supposed to do?  Ask politely?  This is NY.  You adapt.  And adapt means becoming one with your surrounding.  I am learning to survive.  If this was the jungle, I would be the one still alive.

But then again, I never done that.  I never became a jerk so that I don't "miss" the train.  Is my adapting, a bad thing?  

Personally, between you and I: Fuck it.  Seriously.  If someone got a shitty mood this morning because I brushed shoulders with them pretty hard this morning on the 7 train station stairways, fuck em.  Really.  I hope they remember it.   Seriously.  When I did something bad as a kid, I got a spanking or punished.  Guess what?  I remembered that shit and didn't do it again.  If I did, well, I deserved the second round of spanking that came to me.  If I was an idiot enough to make the same thing twice.  Same goes with the four idiots who got acquainted with my shoulders and elbows.  If they choose to do this again next Monday, well, lets hope our paths don't cross again.  

I may sound like a jerk to some of the readers (including my wife who reads this occasionally).  

But to those who adapted in NYC know what its like.  Sometimes, adapting takes doing things you are not proud of.  Its a culture here in NYC and to survive this culture, you have to become one of it.  I am not saying this culture is a "jerk culture".  Its not.  New Yorkers are some of the friendliest people I met.  Swear!  

But it takes a bit of being a jerk to come out on the other side of the cultural stairways.  

So I will keep on living here.  Even if it requires further shoving and pushing.   After all, you either going down the stairs being a jerk, or going up the stairs getting hit by a jerk.  And every jerk that goes down the stairs (including myself), eventually all have to come back up the stairs and get jerked.  I'll get mine back soon too.  

If you can't handle the adaptation process.....don't take the stairs.

Vote Or Pie!

As a recently, made citizen of this country, tomorrow will be my first time voting.  And what a time to vote indeed.

I don't spend too much time discussing politics because in this day and age, you either on side "A" or side "B".  All those who claim to be "Undecided" are idiots.  Sorry.  But true.  I know neither of the candidates is perfect.  That's like asking you who your favorite kid is.  You know they both behave badly and both love you.  But you just can't say one is absolutely perfect.  In a way, we are all Baldwins.

So, since neither of the candidates is perfect, you have to choose one.  If you go into a restaurant and you are hungry and they tell you "Cake or Pie" you don't sit for eleven months deciding.  You choose one.  Even if you hate cake and not really into pie.  You either order one or get the heck out of the store (in this case, the U.S.).   You see, those who are undecided end up being the ones that bitch the most later.  "See, I told you he was not perfect!" they would say no matter what candidate wins and fucks something up.  The undecided voters are the whiney little friend who used to say "I told you so" when you got rejected by the hot girl in class.  "I told you she would say No.  You should have not even asked".  Fuck that theory.  You don't do things because you think they will end badly which is exactly why these whiney "undeciders" are not voting.  Why? Cause when shit hits the fan they want the pride to say "I told you so".

You know what? Life ain't perfect.  You can get married, have three kids and a 30 year marriage and your husband can wake up one morning and not love you anymore.  That does not mean you should not fall in love, get married and have children.  

You can go to work for the same company for eighteen years and be loyal and turn down better offers at other companies because you pride yourself in what you do and who you work for and one day, your company will lay you off so they can save a few bucks.  That's life.  That does not mean you don't put effort into your work.

So, with that, I am calling out my dad.  My dad has been one of the whiney "Undecided".  I know it is wrong to sit here and talk smack about my dad.  He is entitled to his own choices.  But this is better then him.  This is exactly WHY I am calling him out.  Because he is NOT a little "I told you so" kind of guy.  He is my hero.  So why is he settling for being 24 hours away from voting day and still not know who to vote for?

I can understand not making a choice on which American Idol you want.  Although the David Cook and David Archuleta seemed to be just as much as a tied selection as the presidential candidates are.

So I am calling out my dad.  This is 2000-effin'-eight.  The decision we make tomorrow will effect 1) my dads retirement which he will likely do in the next four years.  2) my wifes loan for education since she will graduate from school in the next four years and need to start paying back her loan 3) his grandkids education since in the next four years those kids will still be in school and 4) the possibility that maybe, just maybe, I may start a family as well.  

Why is all that important? because whoever we put in office, can either make life much better for those dealing with those 4 things, or really difficult. 

I can understand why my father is having a hard time.  Yout two choices are an old bitter man with an idiot running mate or a young, inexperienced man with a running mate who I only seen speak about three times in the past 6 months.  

But, here is the deal:  Dad, you get to be a part of history.  Not just the fact that you can choose the first African American president, or the first female Vice-President.  That is, at the end of the day irrelevant.  Nobody should choose a candidate based on that choice alone.  The history you are taking part of is ours.  4 years from now you can look back and say, "The choice I made, put my son, grandkids, my daughter-in-law and my retirement where it is today".   Isn't it better to take pride four years from now knowing that you were taking part of shaping all those outcomes? as compared to not doing anything now and kicking yourself later saynig "I could have done something about it"?  Sure, things can also go wrong.  But you didn't have children, or move them to the U.S., or work in the same job for all these years because something "may" go wrong.  Its a risk.  Life is a risk.  But you take risks to see what you are capable of.

I always have questions for my father.  I used to call him with questions about my car trouble.  I used to call him with questions about my sink problems.  I used to call him with questions about my having to many problems problem.

Now I just have one question:  Will you please go vote?  

Not sure who to vote for? flip a coin.  Draw a name from a hat.  Pin a tale on a donkey (no hint intended).  Do whatever it takes, but just do it.  Because you are my hero and I need my hero to be a part of something that can change my life and yours.  Vote blue or red or purple.  I don't care.  But just VOTE!

And to any other undecided voters, seriously:  Make up your mind already.  This isn't American Idol.  This is the presidency.  Yes, its serious, which is more the reason to hurry up and make up your mind.  You need to Rock The Vote, not Rush The Vote.  Don't rush your choice cause of the deadline.  But don't wait until you are in the booth to make up your mind either.  

Color, experience, religion...I am not saying people don't have reasons to not making a choice yet.  Even if I don't agree with them.  But to skip out on this is just psychotic.

Vote!

Vote!

Vote!