And I'm Pretty Sure This is Why Her Friends Don't Ask to Borrow Her Deodorant

In the process of moving some of our crap belongings from one storage unit (a.k.a. our garage) to another (a.k.a. storage building behind our house) M to the Izza comes in, after being outside for quite a while and says, "Hey, I threw away all of your old love notes."

I was pretty sure I didn't have any of those hanging around anymore, and didn't really have that many to begin with anyway.


"I'm just kiddin'", he says. "But there are a few cards and pictures of when you lived in New York out there."

Hmmm, I didn't realize I still had those. Gimme gimme!


Background: After grad school I moved to NYC and lived there for about a year and half. My first year of teaching was in an inner-city school in Brooklyn. Why did I move so far away? Well, in a super abbreviated format: The guy I dated throughout most of my college years got a job in advertising in Manhattan after graduation and we didn't want to be apart. As a matter of fact, we were even talking marriage. And talking is ALL we did as far as marriage is concerned. He wanted a lifetime girlfriend, while I on the other hand, wanted a husband and family and NY was not where I wanted to be. I felt like Country Mouse in the big city. So I moved home and decided the long distance thing was for the birds. (And again I emphasize the super in super abbreviated)

Oh how things change. For the better. From cashmere to camo, if you will.

So that, mixed with the cool weather that finally decided to grace our presence, gets me thinking about the City and the things I enjoyed while living there vs. the things I definitely do not miss.

The things I enjoyed (and I say enjoyed because I don't really miss them, but I do have fond memories of) are the pretty obvious, expected responses:

• the shopping


• broadway shows
  
• network parties (the beau did the advertising and commercial placements for the networks' shows, so his company always got invited to the parties = super cool but felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb!)


• the food


• department stores' window displays at Christmas time


• the shopping....oh wait, I said that one already


• potluck block parties (they would close off our street and set up long banquet tables with white tablecloths and candles and everyone who lived on our block would bring something to the potluck dinner)

Now I could probably go on and on with the things I don't miss about NYC, but I'm just gonna name a few of the ones that come to mind.

• selling my car and taking the subway EVERYWHERE because parking was a beast (the F train and I were BFF's)


• the snow, snow, snow
  
• the smell of urine along the subway corridors


• having security guards on every floor of the school in which I taught


• and this one is a little gross but unfortunately true: seeing a lady on the subway on my way to work apparently still out from a night of sketchy extracurricular activities take a stick of deodorant out of her bag and proceed to rub it under her pits, and then all the way down her arms. Wait. I'm not finished. She then pulls the front of her pants out a bit and rubs the deoderant on her crotch and finally on her face.
  

In. that. order.

Same stick of deodorant.

Not. even. kidding.

And that my friends, is enough to make anyone come crying home to mama.