o the other evening I was making my way to something cultural, oh I don’t know, a book signing or something. I am a lady of society and therefore was wearing a long coat. Also it is winter outside, and it always will be. I am proud of this long coat, because it is cutting-edge. By “cutting edge” what I mean is that it has an “interesting shape” which is just a fancy way of saying “it doesn’t look that good on me”.

Just because you like an article of clothing does not mean it likes you back. That evening I wrestled with the green beast – no, not jealousy, I mean this coat – squeezing it into new shapes with a belt, sprucing it up, like a spruce tree at Christmas,with different accoutrements. Something was wrong, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. I sighed, giving up on Fashion for the evening, grabbed my bag and … oh. That’s when I saw the problem. In the mirror. The long, green coat, which had always seemed a little bit World War II, Rosie the Riveter out for cocktails or something, had suddenly revealed its true colors. Dusty green, and, well, I looked like a Civil War reenactor. Complete with leather satchel, which had suddenly transformed, in my mind, to my trusty musket case.

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The better your trip, the worse your real life will seem upon your return. Because I live in New York, I automatically find it to be the superior dwelling place of Planet Earth. I like to come back from a trip kissing the tarmac at JFK, gulping in the stale subway air, talking to myself in a crowd and rejoicing in my sustained anonymity.

There will come a time, New Yorkers, when you will be tested.

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For a combination of reasons, I put on high heels and a (faux) fur coat and headed north. To the South Bronx. Not many of us here are lucky enough to be invited to the South Bronx, but I was, to a housewarming party. To say that it is far away is an understatement, especially when you live in an equally remote and unsavory-sounding neighborhood. But as someone who currently dwells in a seemingly remote and unsavory sounding neighborhood… and likes it, I was excited for the trip.

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I know the second, unwritten tag-line of this column is: “you just can’t make this stuff up.” It’s true. You can tweak it or gloss it or set it in another city, you can re-name everyone and claim events for your own that happened to others, but you really cannot pull this stuff out of thin air. I mean, there’s just no need to. Take a walk with me, my friends, keep one eye to the ground and the other wide open and blood-shot-edly unblinking and you, too, will revel in the ever-unfolding quilt of madness that is the human race.

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In honor of the holiday, let’s take a note from the birthday boy, right? I mean, at this point in the Christian calendar he’s a screaming infant but he grew up and advised us, well, the royal we referring to the ancient Jerusalemites, to practice The Golden Rule. I will posit that when thy neighbor has a seventy five pound Rottweiler on a metal chain this can be a difficult edict to follow. I am a friendly person. I love a good chat. A shared glance, a courteous nod. The problem is: after years of city living, my trust tank has grown rusty and dry. As far as I am concerned, everyone is up to no good. Especially that neighbor with the dog.

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It’s a small world, after all, (repeat, repeat, tiny multi-ethnic children in rainbow tunics spin around a two dimensional world map.) Small world, big city – New York. Anonymity is the first sentence in the fine print, it’s the escape clause, the shadow side of the deal. Bright lights, big city, The Rockettes, hot dogs, well, that’s tourist stuff. Day tripper. If we’re talking about signing a lease here, we’re talking about a fantasy of rebirth. A return to our probiotic origins, teeming protozoa, subdividing and swarming, teeming through the streets, each watery blob hardly different from the next. Racing toward some evolutionary goal, a competitive claw to the top, aberrations in the pool allowing for maximum growth. Hedge fund manager by day, drag king star by every third Saturday night.

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It is Black Friday; so for today, I give thanks that I was safely snug in my bed at 4AM, not clutching a styrofoam cup of Dunkin Donuts and waiting in line at Sears. I give thanks that my inherently greedy nature does not ask of me to elbow middle aged women at the shopping mall and stampede through automatic glass doors to fill my craving for discounted power tools, flat screened televisions, sweaters with oversized holiday decals on them, glued by the agile fingers of foreign children. I am extremely grateful that, as someone who lives in New York City, I am expected NOT to know what “Kohls” is. “Oh, you mean the eyeliner of Cleopatra?” I will say, if questioned on the subject.

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There are a lot of different ways to be sick. Sick in the head is a big one, having the flu is another particularly unpleasant one. Since this is a blog and therefore not so much an enduring body of work as it is an in-the-moment news update, I feel it is acceptable for me to share with you, the reader, that I write this from the wrinkly softness of my bed, sniffling, bleary-eyed, coughing, shivering. Re-discovering the joys of the moving image and ginger ale. Beginning to doubt the existence of a loving God. Etc., etc., etc.

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