Nicanor Parra: "America: where Liberty is a statue"

Every once in a while I learn some little thing about the intuitive and illogical workings of my brain. Like how I think no one can recognize me if I'm wearing (or, these days, not wearing) my glasses. Or how I inherently trust dog owners and the prematurely balding. Or how, no matter how far from home I am, I feel more like I belong in a place if I'm wearing earrings or carrying an office supply item of some kind.

The first thing I learned about being an out-of-towner in New York is that all this knowledge of self gave me no sense of comfort at 8 a.m. on the subway platform, where I was doing a great job of looking frowsy yet overdressed. I might as well have plaited my hair and donned a gingham pinafore. No matter, I thought. I'm carrying a BINDER. I clearly have a PURPOSE here on the Island Nation of Manhattan. This as I surreptitiously removed my earrings.

CUNY's graduate center is right across the street (avenue?) from the Empire State Building. From the 8th floor cafeteria you can see just where King Kong clung. I spent the afternoon in the Museum of Modern Art with my new friend Jackson Pollock. I laughed out loud at the surrealists, which last I checked was a side effect they fully intended, and came as close as one comes to being shushed in NYC (evidently the Emperor still wears melting watches as far as MoMA patrons go).

I hearted NY from Friday til Monday. Dinner in Chinatown. Canolis and espresso in Little Italy. The Staten Island Ferry past the Big Green Lady and Ellis Island. Book-shopping the Strand. A miserable performance art, um, thing in a warehouse in Brooklyn. A giant hole, an absence made a presence, with a monument to the "heroes" who showed up to work on 9-11-2001. Eight year old Dominican girls with extensions. Subway breakdancers impervious to the shimmying of the trains. ATM instructions in sixteen languages. The smell of burning pretzels. Feeling honored someone would stop and ask ME for directions, then realizing it was because I was the only person who looked approachable. 30 seconds of ooh-shiny in Times Square before the shine wore off. A quiet sunny morning in Central Park and being ushered out of Rockefeller Center, then followed down the block to make sure we were really leaving. Mashed plantains with oxtail gravy in a bar where everybody sang drunken rumbas along with the stereo. Four days without seeing a single fat person. A citizenry both cosmopolitan and undeniably provincial (rumors of life beyond Manhattan do sneak in from time to time but are largely circumstancial).

And almost no shopping, I swear it. Instead I rekindled an old friendship in New Amsterdam. The kind that you pick up right where you left off no matter how much time, pain, joy and transformation has elapsed. Another thing I've learned is that no matter what people say, you don't pick your friends. You never know who's going to love you unconditionally and it's not always the people you'd expect or choose, but you learn to roll with it.

I wanted to visit my hero Eloise in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel and have my picture taken underneath her portrait picking my nose but alas, the Plaza was under construction. Rawther disappointing. So next time is crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, el Museo del Barrio and the Plaza Hotel.

Oooh, I absolutely love, love, love New York.