Stuff I Like

1. The view of the city from the window of the N train in Astoria. (Although with all the construction in this neighborhood, it's not near what it used to be. And that makes me a little sad.)

2. Live music. There was, of course, The Felice Brothers incident which made me ask some hard questions about whether, in fact, live music is intrinsically good, but generally speaking, I think it is.

3. Take-away coffee in the morning. It must come in a disposable cup (which, I realize isn't the greatest thing for the environment, but I figure my extreme reliance on mass transportation has offset my coffee cup consumption), and it must be imbibed somewhere other than where it was procured, which preferably is Dunkin Donuts, though I am not one of these vehemently anti-Starbucks people. Which is good, because God knows there's enough of them.

4. Math. And logic problems. I used to do the logic section of practice GREs for fun. Seriously.

5. Napster-to-Go. All guilty pleasures, all the time, all for $14.95 per month.

6. Archive.org and bands who let their fans upload shows to the site.

7. The New York Suite:

a. New York City. I talk about leaving all the time, and even if I ever do, this city will always be the greatest place in the world. It's possible to feel really alone and really overwhelmed and really scared in this town, but as, it seems, with all things in life, you don't get to the best parts if you aren't willing to coexist with the worst parts. There are opportunities here that don't exist anywhere else, and they make this city cool as hell.

b. And specifically, Astoria. I tell everyone that I moved here because I couldn't afford Manhattan, and now that I can, you couldn't pay me to leave. It's safe and quiet and family-oriented. We're gentrifying, but it still feels like a community here, and people take care of the neighborhood. There are great bars and amazing food. And it's cool -- and very healthy -- to live in one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the most diverse county in the entire world. It's good on a daily basis to hear people speaking other languages, and dressing according to their culture, and watching soccer or drinking frappes or practicing capoeira or doing whatever it is that's normal for them. It's good to be reminded daily that the world is a hell of a lot bigger than the little sphere in which we operate. It's good to see regularly that the average person on the planet is exactly like you: They want to fall in love and earn a sustainable living and be healthy and do things that make them happy. It's too easy to focus on what makes us different if we're never exposed to what makes us the same.

c. New Yorkers. People who aren't from here think we're callous and unfeeling. And that may be true in regards to our approach to a lot of things. But it's patently false in regards to our approach to one another. If anything, New Yorkers are more aware of our ourselves in relation to others than all but a few other populations on the planet. We live -- literally -- on top of one another; we get that just about everything we do affects the people around us. And it's our ultra-awareness of the impacts of our actions on others that results in what can be interpreted as unseemly brusqueness toward those who do not return the favor. We are a civility militia. If we push past you when you stop suddenly and for no apparent reason in the middle of the sidewalk ... if we drop an elbow into you when you fail to let us off the subway before you get on ... if we stare you down impatiently when you step up to the register without knowing what you want to order ... if a cab driver tells you in no uncertain terms that you're an idiot when you blunder obliviously into the middle of the street -- yes, we know you have the walk signal, but there's a ambulance with its sirens blaring trying to get through ... it's not that we're rude. It's that we're trying to have a society here, and when you live this close to this many people, the boundaries of acting appropriately are more rigidly defined and aggressively enforced. And I like that. I like that we're aware of one another, and I like that we don't fuck around.

d. Really pretty much everything about the NYC subway system. 5.2 million riders per day. 1.6 billion riders per year. 468 stations -- only 35 fewer than the combined total number of subway stops of all the other systems in the U.S. 24 x 7 service. Thirty days of unlimited trips for just 89 bucks. I've been on trains with everybody from Michael Bloomberg to the homeless. I've counted as many as nine different languages on the newspapers people are reading in my car. It's the most convenient way to get around, and it's the most interesting way to get around. Totally love it.

8. Looking forward to things. "The idea of waiting for something makes it more exciting." (Andy Warhol)

9. Running in Central Park. It's best when I'm in shape, and it's summertime, and an 8-mile run after work feels comfortable; but even when I haven't run in forever, and everything kind of hurts a little, and it's dark and cold and wintery and awful outside, I still really like running in Central Park.

10. Sundays. Football Sundays. NASCAR Sundays. Sunday seisiuns at the Irish spots. Long runs on Sundays. Sunday morning brunch. Sunday evening dinner. Sundays.

To be continued ...