I <3 NY?

It's a sunny, colder-than-expected April Saturday. In New York, these factors alone would have determined how my day would be spent--it would be the kind of day for walking, and seeing what the city had in store. On good days, this would lead to an experience with the city in the spirit of Woody Allen's Manhattan, where everyone you meet is interesting, everyone you see is worth commenting on, and the city itself, that marvelous backdrop, deserves a love song at the end for having provided such bounty.

I'm convinced that this is all weather dependent; I've never had a bad day in the city when it's 60 degrees and sunny. Add twenty degrees, and you're likely to get the New York of the 25th Hour--that is, where every variation of crazy and ignorant seems to overtake that city, that breeding ground for bitterness and insanity. On those days, you get yelled at by beggars, propositioned by vulgar puerto rican teenagers, and find yourself wondering, "where are their parents?" On those days, the subway stops being an opportunity to people-watch, and becomes a potential death-trap, because on those days the strain under which most people spend most of their time becomes painfully visible, and you find yourself realizing that it might take something quite insignificant to make them snap and shove you on the subway tracks. Or, without braving the subway, you find yourself looking up as you walk past buildings, only to see about 15 window air conditioning units--having installed one yourself, you know how easily one of them could just fall from their place and squish you.

I miss my 60 degree dates with the city, though. There's no going out to seek your fortune in Princeton, no running into long lost friends, no days up in the air. Today, I'm going to the library. Usually I miss New York, and all that living there entailed. Some days, though, the creeping, insular comforts of suburbia find their way into my assessment of my lifestyle, and on those days, I like living in a place where I can see foxes, deer, bunnies, and groundhogs without going out of my way, where I can leave my bike unlocked in front of my house, and where I can take the dog running without worrying about running into an off-leash pitbull. My impression of Philly has been that it's a smaller, cleaner, New York City--we'll see whether that holds up on days like today.