Metropolitan Diary analysis: 2006-01-30

• Divorced woman's reaction to learning that a pillow with armrests for reading in bed is called a "husband". Category: Single New York Woman's Perspective
• After MTA train is halted in Mamroneck, couple offers writer and person from Tennessee a ride to the city, cautioning person from Tennessee "Now don't go back and say New Yorkers are not nice." Categories: Rubes in the Big City, New Yorkers Aren't So Bad After All
  
• Misspelling in window of Harlem store: "Repairs done on promises". Category: Amusing Misspellings
• 6-year-old girl whose mother recently gave birth refers to pain from a stomach virus as "contractions". Category: Precocious NY Kids
• Video store clerk thinks request for Woody Allen's "Anything Else" is a request for a recommendation. Category: Amusing Misspellings
• Really this is an unamusing misinterpretation, but I have enough categories already

Totals for this Metropolitan Diary:
Single New York Woman's Perspective: 1
Rubes in the Big City: 1
New Yorkers Aren't So Bad, After All: 1
Amusing Misspellings: 2
Precocious NY Kids: 1

Totals for year to date:
Jaded New Yorkers: 7
Precocious NY Kids: 6
New York Eccentrics: 3
Rubes in the Big City: 3
Oh, Those Fast-Paced New Yorkers!: 3
Amusing Misspellings: 3
Precocious NY Pets: 2
Single New York Woman's Perspective: 2
New Yorkers Aren't So Bad, After All: 1
WTF: 1

Metropolitan Diary analysis: 2006-01-23

• Extra on "My Super Ex-Girlfriend" gets tired of explaining title to passers-by (e.g. rubes?) and renames movie to "Gone With The Wind 3". Category: Jaded New Yorkers
• 5-year-old told during private school interview that "he was very, very smart" and responds: "Everyone in my family is smart. It's in the pants." Category: Precocious NY Kids
• Recollection of watching Shelley Winters loudly whistle for a cab. Category: Oh, Those Fast-Paced New Yorkers!
• Brooklynite refers to Bronx-Brooklyn marriage as "mixed". Category: Jaded New Yorkers
• This is more a "provincial New Yorker" than a jaded one; if the trend continues I may add a new category
• Performance review yields this comment: "If you spell Bob backwards, you get Bob. And that's what's great about Bob: you always know he's going to be Bob." Category: WTF
• No idea how to categorize it except as "WTF is this doing in Metro Diary?"
• Person runs after a bus for blocks, finally catching it, and is told by a passenger: "We were all rooting for you." Category: Jaded New Yorkers

Totals for this Metropolitan Diary:
Jaded New Yorkers: 3
Precocious NY Kids: 1
Oh, Those Fast-Paced New Yorkers!: 1
WTF: 1

Totals for year to date:
Jaded New Yorkers: 7
Precocious NY Kids: 5
New York Eccentrics: 3
Rubes in the Big City: 2
Precocious NY Pets: 2
Oh, Those Fast-Paced New Yorkers!: 3
Single New York Woman's Perspective: 1
Amusing Misspellings: 1
WTF: 1

Metropolitan Diary analysis: 2006-01-16

• Woman is pushing a dog in a baby carriage. Category: Precocious NY Pets
• Woman states ''Valentine's Day already? That's it. We're leaving.'' upon seeing that holiday's trappings at a post-Christmas sale. Category: Single New York Woman's Perspective
• Mitigating factor: this story takes place in a mall in Garden City and so is not strictly from a New York City perspective
• Woman "kicks out the kinks" after a Central Park run while waiting for traffic light near Columbus Circle and is told "you're hired!" Category: New York Eccentrics
• Limo at airport has name "Rich" in window ("fast-paced NY'er") and child states "Why do they have to announce it?" ("precocious NY kid") Categories: Precocious NY Kids / Oh, Those Fast-Paced New Yorkers!
• Wallpaper and paint store's W and P are faded leading to an "amusing" misspelling. Category: Amusing Misspellings
• Polish housekeeper also does accounting work. Category: Oh, Those Fast-Paced New Yorkers!
• Old lady uses fat man on crutches to shield her from the wind at a crosswalk. Category: New York Eccentrics
  
  

Totals for this Metropolitan Diary:
Precocious NY Pets: 1
Single New York Woman's Perspective: 1
New York Eccentrics: 2
Precocious NY Kids: 1
Amusing Misspellings: 1
Oh, Those Fast-Paced New Yorkers!: 2

Totals for year to date:
Jaded New Yorkers: 4
Precocious NY Kids: 4
New York Eccentrics: 3
Rubes in the Big City: 2
Precocious NY Pets: 2
Oh, Those Fast-Paced New Yorkers!: 2
Single New York Woman's Perspective: 1
Amusing Misspellings: 1

Metropolitan Diary analysis: 2006-01-09

• Writer and fellow subway rider find an abandoned plastic bag; discuss whether or not to report it; finally the rider decides it is someone's lunch and crushes it. Category: Jaded New Yorkers
• 4-year-old tells Grandma's housekeeper(!) he wants to be a "person" when he grows up. Category: Precocious NY Kids
• Woman tells her "canine grandson" to "drop it!"; a man overhears and drops a glove he was picking up off the street. Categories: Precocious NY Pets / New York Eccentrics
• 10-year-old Red Sox fan is distraught over Johnny Damon's move to the Yankees, but still tells Dad she would live with least favorite classmate's family for double the allowance. Category: Precocious NY Kids

Totals for this Metropolitan Diary:
Jaded New Yorkers: 1
Precocious NY Kids: 2
Precocious NY Pets: 1
New York Eccentrics: 1


Totals for year to date:
Jaded New Yorkers: 4
Precocious NY Kids: 3
Rubes in the Big City: 2
Precocious NY Pets: 1
New York Eccentrics: 1

Metropolitan Diary analysis: 2006-01-02

1. In this recycled urban legend (later corrected), person in bathroom stall is engaged in conversation with someone who it turns out is on their cell phone. Category: Jaded New Yorkers
2. Person cannot walk to podiatrist due to transit strike. Category: Jaded New Yorkers
3. Woman overheard telilng policeman that her garage is closed and she cannot park her Bentley. Category: Jaded New Yorkers
4. 4-year-old would "like to get her old life back" after birth of baby brother. Category: Precocious NY Kids
5. Tourist asks reason for heavy police presence and witty officer tells her ''There's a sale at Macy's." Category: Rubes in the Big City
6. Traveler loses eyeglasses and picks them up from a bin in baggage claim; is told "I've never seen anyone travel so light". Category: Rubes in the Big City

Totals for this Metropolitan Diary:
Jaded New Yorkers: 3
Precocious NY Kids: 1
Rubes in the Big City: 2

Welcome to the Fake Metropolitan Diary

Every Monday, I read the Metropolitan Diary and get annoyed that it only ever highlights what I think are three common trends:

• Precocious/spoiled kids
• A cute story about pets or pet-crazy New Yorkers
• Rubes' reactions to New York (either first-person or from the perspective of a jaded New Yorker)

Thanks to my New York Times Select account, I was able to indulge myself to perform a deeper analysis of the themes of the Metropolitan Diary for the year to date. I have ignored poems and have summarized the individual stories, rather than included them in their entirety, so as not to get into copyright trouble.

I have tried to back-date these entries to correspond to the Monday the particular Metro Diary was posted (and so that this is the first entry), but if that's not possible, they they will all just follow this one, and contain a summary at the end. I also plan to, as the weeks go on, write my own Fake Metropolitan Diary entries which emphasize the more annoying things that I see in my travels throughout the city, particularly my neighborhood in the West 90's.