Incorrect Blitz Input

One of the nicest things about living in New York City is having the chance to look at it with fresh eyes after a trip away.

It could be the exhaust fumes, but for me there’s really nothing like the few minutes after you emerge from the Lincoln tunnel, dead-tired from a day of travel and a couple hours’ sleep and what Jack Kerouac describes in On the Road as the “gray cloud” of the city washes over you.  There’s usually nothing pretty about this moment: honking taxis, gunky cement, some unfinished glass-box condos that never seem to get any higher.  Today, there was pouring rain after a week of sunny Hawaiian beaches.

But, dammit, it’s a great feeling.  There’s a kind of intense honesty about New York City streets.  Forget poise.  People walk fast because they’re busy.  Advertisements cling to just about every exposed surface and yell at you to buy something because, well, that’s what they’re for.  Taxis jostle for position and gun for yellow lights because they can squeeze out a few extra bucks from another fare.  It that wonderful, fluid, and uniquely New York=flavored chaos channeled into the city grid around the clock.  And all this wonderful mess went on as usual, in fifth gear, without you.  You’re home, and nobody notices but you.

Beautiful.