the most crowded lonely place in the world

i read something fascinating in the Metro. It was just this small section where a local person is asked a few questions about his or her livelihood. The interviewee this particular day happened to be a little person who is an actor. He said something so extremely apropos and compelling that I thought about it all day. The gist of it was that New York City is a land of extremes - when you've had a good day, it's a REALLY good day. When you've had a bad day, it was a REALLY bad day. It rang so true.

And it got me thinking - you can never be alone in New York City. You can never "get away." Think about it: when I have a shitty day at work, I can't just hop into my car, turn up my stereo loud, put the windows down and drive away from it all. No - I have to get on the subway where I will have to lobby for a seat, smell odd smells, be smushed against a stranger, listen to a baby cry or a homeless person sing, get off at my sketchy stop in Queens and walk the 4 blocks to my apartment that is sort of my haven.

Of course, I don't HAVE to deal with any of these things. I could very well pack up and head down home to Florida (funny what one still considers home...), find a nice quiet job somewhere, and resign myself to that life. But I digress...

It just struck me today (and a lot of other days), how lonely New York can be. The notion usually arrives when smushed into the back or armpit of a stranger in a crowded train car on the way to or from Manhattan or Brooklyn. But then there are those times, like last Friday night, when I was surrounded by 6 new friends, drinking and singing karaoke till 3am, when your heart can't feel more full of love for the City.

To paraphrase Dickens, New York is the best of times and it is the worst of times...