2006-12-11 Metropolitan Diary analysis

As I am catching up on old entries, this one has already become hidden to those without Times Select. For those who do have it, here is a link to the column. I have quoted it and expect that my responses and/or parody represent "fair use". I've also removed the author names because if any of these individuals end up "ego-surfing" I would prefer that their search not result in my puerile japes at their expense.

DEAR DIARY:

On a recent Monday evening my girlfriend, Thania, and I were walking home from a birthday party in Morningside Heights. It was well past our curfew, and we were a few blocks away from our normal territory.

I had just begun to complain about waking up the next morning to move our van when, much to my disbelief, I spotted it -- 12 blocks from where I had parked it! It was attached to a New York Police Department tow truck, and though I've had my share of parking tickets, I was positive that I had left it on the proper side of the street.

Astonishingly, the truck wasn't towing it away, but was easing it back and forth into a new parking spot! Because of an impending movie shoot on Riverside Drive, the city was moving all vehicles and pasting on them a ''48-hour-immunity sticker'' -- protecting them from the alternate-side parking rules for the next two days.

''Would you like to just take it right now?'' the officer asked. I didn't have to think twice.

''No thanks,'' I said. ''It's all yours.''

Category: New Yorkers Aren't So Bad, After All!
(that is, moving the cars and providing alternate-side parking immunity showed compassion on the part of the officer)

Dear Diary:

Dad to young son as they strode, hand in hand, on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope: ''Hey! Don't interrupt me when I'm ignoring you!''

Category: Precocious NY Kids (though I may someday move to Park Slope, I will now snidely note that that part of New York City breeds precociousness in both kids and parents)

Dear Diary:

As I walked south on Broadway on the Upper West Side, a man pushing a shopping cart approached me and said, ''I'm hungry.''

Having been taught as a child not to give cash to ''street people,'' but also not to ignore a hungry person, I replied: ''I won't give you money, but if you're hungry, I'll get you something to eat. There's a greengrocer across the street. What do you want?''

''Vegetables,'' he said.

''Vegetables?'' I repeated, somewhat taken aback.

''That's right -- vegetables; I'm a vegetarian,'' he explained, as we crossed Broadway.

Entering the store together, I asked him what he wanted, and he told me, ''Kale.'' My eyebrows climbed higher and higher on my forehead as my surprise deepened.

''Kale,'' I repeated. ''What are you going to do with kale?''
''I'm going to steam it and eat it,'' he replied, looking at me as if I were an idiot.

From then on, I kept my mouth shut and just did as I was asked, which was to pay for the two bunches of kale he picked out with tender loving care from the pile on the shelf.

As he took his leave, thanking me profusely, I muttered to myself, ''Only in New York!''

Category: New York Eccentrics
(referring to the fussy, vegetarian homeless man)

Dear Diary:

For my friend Roslyn's birthday, I got her a gift certificate to Paragon Sports. She e-mailed that she couldn't wait to show me her new birthday running bra.

The next day, as we were approaching each other along the Hudson River Walkway, she flipped up her top to reveal her new bra. I smiled in surprise, but not as much as the businessman walking near me and talking into his cellphone.

His eyebrows rose as he exclaimed into the phone: ''This woman just flashed me! And I thought New York was supposed to be a GOOD city!''

Category: New York Eccentrics (the businessman could be considered a rube but I think flashing your sports bra to your friend places you securely in the NY Eccentrics category)

Dear Diary:

As I was leaving the 86th Street subway station the other evening, I found myself a little confused by the sight of a well-dressed older gentleman with his fingers plugged firmly in his ears. My own ears were stuffed with iPod headphones, so at first I had no idea what was causing his displeasure, but since there weren't any trains in the station it obviously wasn't the high-pitched brake squeal that everyone knows and hates.

Upon looking around a little more carefully, however, I spotted the source of the man's displeasure across the tracks on the downtown platform: a cellist playing Bach. Oy!

Category: Jaded New Yorkers
(a toss-up between this and NY Eccentrics but I will call it jaded due to a) iPod headphones to block out unpleasant subway noises and b) annoyance with subway musicians, who for the most part annoy me, too)

Dear Diary:

I was waiting for the Second Avenue bus when a well-dressed woman, probably in her 70s, joined me in the shelter. When the bus arrived and opened its doors, she asked the driver if he stopped at 19th Street, just four blocks away.

Assured that it was the next stop, she began to board the bus. She had such tremendous difficulty climbing the steps that I instantly understood why she took the bus to travel such a short distance.

She got off at 19th and from my seat I watched her hobble slowly down the street in obvious pain. Then I noticed something I had missed before. She was wearing black, calf-high leather boots precariously balanced on 4-inch spike heels.

Fashion is a cruel and apparently unrelenting master.

Category: New York Eccentrics
(wearing painful spike heels at age 70 is the sign of an Eccentric in my book, though this trait is not solely confined to New York)