Tuesday, October 27, 2009

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

One of the advantages of where I live is its proximity to three different subway lines. It's easy to get to work and it's easy to get anywhere in the city quickly, so I rarely take taxis.

Recently I dropped my nephew off at Penn Station before I was supposed to meet a friend on the upper east side. I was on the west side in midtown and had to go all the way across town and then way north. Determined to use public transportation, I took a crosstown bus and then found myself on the right side of town but about 50 blocks from where I needed to be. I bit the bullet and haled a cab.

The ride was uneventful until we got up into the 80s. As we slowed down I watched a woman wade into the street and into traffic to try to hale down a cab. The cab driver spoke to me:

Driver: "You see that? People in this country have no respect for cabdrivers. I am from Brazil. I have driven a cab in many countries all over the world. Here, people have no respect."
Paully: "Yeah. Well. Hmmm."
Driver: "Do you know sometimes on rainy nights when we take cab out of service people will throw themselves on the hood of our cabs?"
Paully: "Huh. I guess that doesn't surprise me."
Driver: "That would never happen in Brazil. You know why? In Brazil we all carried guns. If someone throw himself on the hood of your car, you shoot him and people learn not to do these things."
Paully: "Well, you can let me off here on the right ...."
Driver: "You think people would make you drive to the Bronx or Brooklyn and then not pay if they knew I had a gun?"
Paully: "No.... uh, it's just not right."
Driver: "They don't let you carry guns here. How do you teach respect?!"
Paully: "Well, if you can just give four dollars back ..."

The driver seemed to want to keep talking to me. But I gave him a big tip and jumped out of the cab. I haven't been in one since.

The other night I emerged from having drinks with a friend at about 1 o'clock in the morning and refused to take a cab. I just needed to walk about 8 blocks north and then jump on the 7 train across town. I guess it was about 5 minutes into my subway ride when I realized that I had gotten on the train in the wrong direction and was headed to Queens. Maybe I'm taking this aversion to cabs thing a little far.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

I Think I Was Too Old for This 10 Years Ago

For my first year in New York, I went to the gym at the university fairly regularly, like 4-5 days a week. Everything was fine and dandy until I started to feel overwhelmed by students. I work around them all day long and then at night I was surrounded by them in the gym. My breaking point came when I was sitting on a bench working out with dumbbells when a student cornered me about an issue he was having. At that point, I decided my days at the university gym were numbered.

When I moved into my apartment in midtown, I discovered a gym right across the street -- I mean RIGHT across the street -- from my home and much to my surprise the monthly fee was the same as I was paying at school. Surrounded by regular people and so close to home, this seemed like a much better fit. The guy signing me up did the hard sell on some personal training sessions, and since I'd been thinking that was something I'd be interested in anyway, I signed up for 4 or 5 sessions.

I had to wait a few weeks to get started until the students were all settled in at school and I could actually go to the gym. I played phone tag with a guy trainer for a few weeks, and then finally decided (with a little trepidation) that I had to get started so I walked up to the desk and just told them I could start. "I can take him!" said a perky young woman in her 20s. Oh dear, I thought to myself.

The first (7am) session last week had me doing pushups and squat-thrusts like I hadn't done in years. She tried to get me to do some dumbbell lunge exercise that involved about 4 different movements and whatever little coordination I normally have left me completely. Before I left, Ms. Perky said, "when do you want to meet next?" I suggested one week from then -- Friday. She told me we'd be meeting Tuesday and Thursday. So much for easing into this. I left the gym sore and climbed slowly back up to the fourth floor and my apartment.

This morning was my second session. Again she had me doing jumping jacks, lunges with a medicine ball, and then there was the let's-show-the-gym-how-uncoordinated-Paul-is exercise. It involved me standing on an inflatable ball that sat flat on the floor while holding a barbell bar in my hand and trying to pull it into my chest. The only thing that would have made it harder was if she had asked me to spin a plate on stick while I did this. After some crazy chest press things (imagine getting in a pushup position while gripping a dumbbell on the floor and then rolling the dumbbell away from you laterally while you do a pushup) we started to do some ab work. I began to get so worn out that my brain and my body were just no longer on speaking terms. I explained to the trainer that as much as I'd like to do 5 more crunches my torso had an entirely different opinion on the matter. And I began to feel a little nauseated. Then I began to feel flat out sick and light-headed. She assured me this was normal. After she was finished helping me get stretched out, she look at me one last time and said "are you OK"? I said I was even though that was definitely an open question.

And what is it that a nausea victim wants to face on the 50 yard walk back to his house after a strenuous workout? A giant black tanker truck with "R&R Rendering" on the side of it was idling next to the burger restaurant on the plaza. The company apparently collects grease, bones and fat from restaurants in their lovely little truck. The fragrance coming from the truck cleaning out the grease traps was almost enough to put me over the top. As of now there has been no vomiting on my part, but I can't make any promises.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

So I Was on a Date Tonight ...

Being in my early 40s and out on the dating scene is not really something I every imagined for myself in my life plan. But because sometimes we don't get to dictate exactly how life will go ... you just have to go with the flow. I have been going on lots of dates with very nice women although none of them lately have made me optimistic that my years of being single are going to end anytime soon.

Tonight was date number three with a very nice woman who for the purposes of this post, I will call Princess Leah. The Princess and I definitely have some things in common like our love for cooking (and eating), and we both appreciate architecture and have spent some time admiring building around the city. I had high hopes that this might develop into something, but rarely have I seen a woman's stock plummet with me so fast.

Paully: "She was the lead actress on Everybody Loves Raymond."
Princess: "I'm sorry I don't watch TV."
Strike 1 ....

Princess: "How often do you wash your dog?"
Paully: "Not very often. Several times a year though."
Princess: "We washed our beagle every week. I'm kind of a clean freak. When I wasn't around, my maid did it."
Strike 2 ...

Paully: "Well, I was probably drunk at the time."
Princess: "I've never gotten drunk. Well, there was a time at a wine tasting once when I think I almost did."
Strike 3 ....

They tell me there are 200,000 more single women of dating age than single men in this city. I think those numbers are not working in the princess's favor. "My ex told me I'm just not the kind of girl someone falls in love with," she told me earlier tonight. I think I get it now.

Friday, October 2, 2009

One more thing on the High Line

I was reading one of my favorite NYC blogs this morning (gothamist.com) and I saw they had a photo from the other side of the amphitheater at the High Line.

See http://gothamist.com/2009/10/01/extra_extra_1383.php

Thursday, October 1, 2009

An Old Abandoned Elevated Railway

The Beginning of the High Line at Gansevoort Street

I made several references in my post on the Meat Packing District to the new High Line Park. In recent years many of the deteriorating piers along the Hudson River have been turned into public parks. Thinking along those same lines, some westsiders worked tirelessly to get the high line, an old elevated railway that used to serve the factories and meat processing plants in the neighborhood, turned into a functional public space.

The park, opened just a matter of months now, is more or less a garden with a network of boardwalks running through it. It has a wonderful design which takes advantage of the different views of the neighborhood and the twists and turns of the railway.

Notice the lounge chairs in the photo above?

I believe that is a building designed by the celebrated architect Frank Gehry


The amphitheater (pictured above) faces a glass wall that looks out on Tenth Avenue. There's not really room for a stage, so I'm not exactly sure what this space will be used for, but it's kind of cool. Currently the park only runs up to 20th street, but there are plans to extend it all the way up to 34th Street, I believe. If you're like me and you're fascinated by interesting uses of public space, and the reimagination of urban infrastructure, it's definitely worth a visit.

Apparently He Plays the Flute Too

Last night, I was invited by my Dad to a fancy benefit at a private New York club on Central Park South to support an Irish cultural center being built by (89 year old) actress Maureen O'Hara in her home town in Ireland. There was a silent auction, lots of Irish-looking people milling about and plenty of Amstel Lights for me. It was quite an intimate gathering -- there were probably fewer than 100 people in the room. When everyone gathered for the evening's entertainment, the master of ceremonies announced there would be a flute performance by one of Maureen O'Hara's dearest friends. When he got up to play us a tune, and then I finally recognized his name -- the flutist was Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance! One of my favorite lines from the TV show Friends involved Mr. Flatley. Apparently he freaks Chandler out because "[Flatley's] legs flail about as if independent from his body!" While there was an impressive performance of Irish step dancing last night by a handsome looking dance troupe after the flute performance, Michael did not dance. He just stood in the back of the room and watched. It's just as well, I might have been freaked out, Chandler Bing style.
Photo from BarkingCarnival.com