Leaky Faucets

Today marks the tenth anniversary of the day I moved to New York City. That day, October 30, 1997, I packed up my leased dark green Toyota Corolla (which I dumped the following spring) with everything that would fit. I had no furniture other than a cheap computer desk from Kmart, so I slept on the living room floor the first two nights before buying a bed on Steinway Street, a few blocks from my new apartment in Astoria. The TV that I brought-an old black-and-white I “inherited” from my grandfather-turned out to be pretty much dead. I spent those first days job searching and the nights reading John Updike’s Rabbit Angstrom tetralogy and hanging out with an assortment of misfits at the now-defunct McGrath’s Bar across 36^th Avenue from my apartment. I was clueless and alone, yet exhilarated with all the possibilities ahead. That first weekend I watched the New York City Marathon up close on the west side of Central Park (the last half mile of the course) in a driving rain storm. I was greatly inspired by runners, but more so by the crowds who had come out in those conditions; I immediately learned that if you put on an event in New York-anything, really-people will come. Lots of people. I knew right away that this was my kind of place.

But that was 10 years ago. This is me now: husband, father of one, 3-time NYC Marathon finisher, and ready to leave this great city that I will always love and appreciate, even if from afar, a city where I really felt at home for a long, long time.

When I came out of the Apple store on 5^th Avenue across from the Plaza, I decided to take a light jog for the two blocks I needed to travel to get to the R train.  Crossing Central Park South, I glanced in the direction of the Park, and my mind wandered down the street toward Columbus Circle, to the place where for the last three years I triumphantly (and mostly painfully) completed the New York City Marathon.  Something I won’t be doing next week.  I’m a little sad that I won’t be running this year, but certainly I’m not very upset about missing the grueling training.  I haven’t done any running at all for two months and I’m anxious even to run just three miles and hopefully to do a race or two before leaving.   I’ll definitely be out there next Sunday supporting friends who are running, but I surely hope I can do another marathon again whether or not it’s in New York.

All the sudden, 55 degrees Fahrenheit feels really freaking cold.  I guess part of me is already in the tropics.  I won’t miss winter.

With only seven days left on the job, I got a little reminder of what its like to be at the mercy of the NYC transit system.  At Continental Avenue, the conductor told us to get off the F train.  It was going out of service, and there would be no more Jamaica-bound trains for the foreseable future.  Apparently, there was some debris or a fire on the tracks at Unoin Turnpike.  If we wanted to get to work, we were instructed to go upstairs and take the Q60 bus.  That would get me as far as Sutphin Blvd., meaning I’d either have to take another bus or walk over a mile.  I was already late–even though it doesn’t really matter at this point–and I was going to be even later.  When I got outside on Queens Boulevard I was greeted with throngs of fellow commuters also waiting for the Q60, which had not yet arrived.  This wasn’t going to be easy.  It would take several buses and there was no orderly line so pushing and shoving were possible.  After a few minutes, though, an MTA employee came up the stairs announcing that service was resuming.  I went back down to the platform and waited.  The MTA people on the platform had not yet gotten word of the resumption.  It took some time but finally the train came.  So this wasn’t going to be the hellish commute that I had a few months ago when rain shutdown nearly the entire system.  But it was enough of a scare to jolt my memory of other commuting nightmares in New York–something I think I’m done with for now.  Hopefully, I can make it another week without such scenarios.

For good measure, when I finally got to Jamaica, I received a good splashing thanks to a racing SUV police vehicle and the horrendous drainage on Merrick Boulevard.  This isn’t the first time my pants have gotten soaked by an impatient motorist mere feet from the office.  Hopefully, it will be the last.

Why is Cleveland losing the game tonight and almost for sure the series tomorrow? It’s not the starting pitching. Or the weak bats. It’s the lame-ass song that Fox Sports has decided epitomizes Cleveland. “Cleveland Rocks.” Shut up already, you idiots. “The Drew Carey Show” sucked and so does that theme song. I don’t know anyone in Cleveland who liked that show (although I haven’t asked too many.) They’ve been playing the song incessantly throughout this series. At least Boston has a decent song, “Dirty Water” by The Standells. There’s gotta be a better song about Cleveland that they can play. There’s one by Tom Waits and another by Randy Newman. Although I don’t know either, I’m quite sure there better than that shit song they keep playing. It’s bad enough my team is chocking yet again without this further embarrassment. The classic ‘70s Cleveland punk band, the Pagans, has a song about Cleveland (“Real World”) which refers to public square and proclaims that “the west side is the best side.” I forget the name, but if they start playing that the Red Sox are toast. By the way, Fuck Boston.

So last weekend we packed up two large boxes of books and shipped them to the Philippines via Johnny Ocean, a service that serves the Filipino community in the states by sending cargo to the Philippines via boat and then delivering the items once they arrive in the country.  It’s quite convenient that we live near the Filipino section of western Queens, making it easy for us to get items picked up on short notice.  We ended up shipping most of our books and designating others for donation to the Salvation Army thrift store in Woodside. These were mostly cookbooks and books about pregnancy/parenting.

I decided to keep a few books in case I get around to reading again.  (I don’t think I’ve finished an entire book since Ana was born-I haven’t had the attention span-but I have done a lot of magazine and Internet reading.)  Here’s what I left out of the Johnny Ocean boxes:

1. “A Long Way Down” by Nick Hornby-I started this one twice but never got past page 50, not because it was hard to get into but because I got preoccupied;
2. “After Henry,” a collection of essays by Joan Didion-another in the unfinished business department, though I did get halfway through this one and since each essay is self-contained it will be easy to pick it up at any time;
3. “My Kind of Place,” another collection, this one of travel stories by Susan Orlean.  I’ve read some of her work in The New Yorker and loved the movie “Adaptation,” which was loosely based on her book “The Orchid Thief.”  One of the stories, which originally compelled me to buy this, is about a grocery store in my neighborhood, Jackson Heights.  I read that one already, and unfortunately the store no longer exists;
4. “Take the Cannoli” by Sara Vowell-yet another collection of essays, this one of the more humorous variety.  I have been a fan of Ms. Vowell for years from her many appearances on “This American Life.”  I guess all these collections of short pieces are a reflection of my lack of confidence in my present ability to sustain interest in any one subject for a lengthy period of time; the last book is the most ambitious:
5. “The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals” by Michael Pollan. I heard him on NPR (Fresh Air I think) last summer and bought the book a few months later.  It’s been languishing on my shelf ever since.  Now that that shelf is pretty much empty, this hefty volume can’t hide much longer.  That said, it will probably be the last of these that I read, and it probably won’t happen until I have a lot of time on my hands–in other words, not until we arrive in the Philippines.

So what if there are outbreaks of Dengue and the President condemns the extra-judicial assassinations and disappearances of left-wing activists and journalists, while all the while she probably at least tacitly orders them.  These things happen in third world countries.  At least, unlike my current country of residence, I don’t have to worry about the Philippines invading a smaller and weaker country like Lesotho or Bhutan.  Military offenses are likely to be limited to internal campaigns. 

And besides, there’s BisRock.  Just found out about that the other night via Sun.Star; it’s rock music sung in the Visayan language.  Will have to check it out.

 

Little in life gives me more pleasure than seeing one of my Cleveland teams take down a New York team. Don’t get me wrong. Despite the fact that I’m leaving, I love the city of New York. But when it comes to sports, it’s different. Particularly with the Yankees. Oh the joys of listening to local sports talk shows or scanning the Post or News after a game like last night’s. (I remember riding the subway back in 1997 when I was in New York looking for an apartment. The Tribe had just knocked off the Yanks and I was enjoying a morning read of one of the tabloids. I moved to NYC a few weeks later-a week after the Indians blew the World Series-and the Yankees have been on top or close most of the time I’ve been here, so similar moments have been hard to come by.) Caught a bit of Chris Russo’s show on WFAN while I was at Physical Therapy this morning. He’s a bit obnoxious, but I like what he had to say about the game. I guess he’s not a Yankees fan but he is a New Yorker, and a realistic one at that. I definitely like him better than his partner Francesa, who is a bit of a homer. I certainly don’t want to get cocky here because the Yankees can still pull this out. For one day at least I can revel in the misery of the Yankee fans. I’ll even go so far to say that I get more joy out of seeing the Yankees lose than seeing the Indians win.

And the bugs? Well, that’s just part of living in Cleveland. You have to be able to deal with harsh winters and disgusting summers. This is certainly not the first time a baseball game in Cleveland has been swarmed by flying insects, but perhaps it was the most pivotal moment for such an infestation. Joba Chamberlain couldn’t handle it. Jeter cried about it. (What else is knew?) Carmona didn’t flinch. And Rivera? Of course, it didn’t faze him. Dude is a freaking robot.