Nemesis City

I thought I'd offer up a companion piece to Noey's New Jersey Blog, because I feel that anyone who travels a lot will inevitably encounter their own personal geographical Nemesis. Mine is definitely New York City. I hate NY. Which, of course, doesn't keep me from going there, because a lot of things I love, like Muse concerts and a girl named Peppers, are very often in NY.

New York hates me too. Which doesn't mean I sometimes don't have an awesome time in NY, because it is a clever city that will continually try to lull me into a false sense of enjoyment and security so that it can murder me in my contented, rock-n-roll exhausted, alcohol-soaked sleep.

For example, there was the time when New York gave me taco-and-beer delivery, right to the apartment I was staying in, complete with limes for the Coronas! In under 20 minutes! And then 7 hours later New York knifed me in the back via an obsessed Drunk Married man with a penchant for accosting me in darkened doorways at 4:30 am as some friends and I desperately tried for 45 frosty, late-November-early-morning minutes to find a cab, only to see our hostess, the afore-mentioned beloved Peppers, whiz by in said cab, half-naked and blowing kisses, from the lap of the rock-star brother of afore-mentioned Drunk-Married stalker. I can't even make something like that up.

Another time there was the incredible Muse concert at MSG, at the high point of their H.A.R.R.P tour, with sounds and colors ringing in my head for days, and wine on the roof, and the best cheeseburger ever, only to be followed in a few short weeks by a lost hotel reservation, Times Square with a migraine and America's Worst Long Distance Boyfriend.
New York does me a solid: I lose my cellphone in a taxi, the next fair finds, it, calls me, and the Best Cabby in the City brings it back to me, no charge. I love NY!
New York punches me in the face: 2:30 am hotel fire mid-long-awaited-lover's-tryst. I hate NY!

On my very last day in the city (I haven't been back since) I had a laid-back, agenda-free visit with a beautiful girl, a long, music-filled stroll through China Town on a crispy, crunchy, sun-streaked fall Sunday. Peppers and I had crepes and mimosas over a leisurely brunch and I caught a lazy train home without mishap. And I thought to myself, "we've finally made peace, this city and I." And I saw why she loved it, saw it's beauty through my friend's eyes, and I was content.

Until a few months later, on a train back to Philly from Stamford, CT, when in a lashing November Nor'easter, my train is caught, without heat or power, smack in the middle of Hell's Gate Bridge for 8 and a half hours. Trapped on a ghost train with only 1/3 of a bottle of Jamison to warm me and my fellow passengers, I saw Manhattan, winking at me cheekily through the icy squall from across the water. The warm, Christmas lights twinkling at me as I hunched in the dark, spooky, cell-phone illuminated train car said, "I win!" with distinct and malicious glee, and there was nothing I could do but finish off the whiskey and concede defeat.
New York, ya got me.