I was late to brunch on Saturday. I’d left my apartment with plenty of time to get to my friend’s neighborhood, pick up some apple cider, and show up on her doorstep, but I wasn’t paying attention when I got on the train and only realized I’d messed up when it started going across the Manhattan Bridge. Oops!
At a party recently someone asked me if I lived in Brooklyn . When I said yes, he said, “Williamsburg?” and I scoffed, then felt bad. He lived in Williamsburg. Oops.
I haven’t spent much time in Williamsburg. Some of my reasons have to do with the fact that I’m not a hipster, but more of myreasons have to do with the fact that it feels very far away from everywhere I’ve lived in Brooklyn, and getting there involves the G train. Since I lived on the G train exclusively for two years when I first moved to NYC, I have a higher tolerance for it than most people – yes, it doesn’t come often, but it reliably doesn’t come often – but I still avoid it when I can.
I’ve been asked to do more slice-of-life posts, and I have to admit, I’m not sure how I can pull off. Most of the time my life is pretty repetitive: get up, exercise (sometimes…), go to work, come home. Throw choir rehearsal in once a week, some dinner or other evening outings with friends, and that’s my life. I won’t be writing about work here because I want to keep my professional life separate from my writing life, as best I can. So I think the best way to do this is to occasionally give you a window into what going about my regular life can be like.
I wrote recently about some of the joys and frustrations of commuting, but I didn’t mention one of my favorite things about the NYC subway system: the art. I was reminded of it when riding the B train from Brooklyn to Manhattan this week. As the train leaves the Dekalb stop, before it crosses the Manhattan Bridge, there is an art piece to the right of the train—an animation given motion by the movement of the train.
At (and in that case, between!) stations throughout the city, there are fun and thoughtful works of art. Spotting them as the train pulls in or as you wait on the platform can make a long commute far more interesting. The first time I noticed the grimy mosaics of steam trains on the Grand Central 4/5/6 platform was magical, even if I did wish they were a bit cleaner.
One of the hardest parts of living in New York is how long it takes to get anywhere. I’m not saying I’d like to be driving to work—I’d much rather keep my fifteen or so minutes of walking and twenty minutes on the train reading than be stuck in traffic (or have to finish learning to drive)—but sometimes a commute can become downright frustrating. My first two years in New York, I lived off the G train. The easiest route to work, with cross-the-platform transfers, involved three trains.
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