metanoiamuseum:

I spent the long weekend in New York. Bought a Daniel Johnston record in Brooklyn. Made a snow globe out of Equal and real deal sugar in an Irish pub called The Perfect Pint. Shared two unusually strong Long Islands while conducting a petty “ethnographic survey” on white, male twenty-somethings and loyalty to their partners based upon commitment to their hometown teams. Strong patterns found in undisclosed data, since you’re so curious, showed non-applicable to Jets fans. Findings also indicated a strong preference for homers—god bless them, they make it easier than you’d believe. 

Sat on a skinny toilet seat in a swank hotel in Times Square. Shrugged. At the toilet. Alternated sleeping on a yoga mat and a thin twin mattress in Manhattan. Gave the change in my coat to a man who played the flute with a missing piece en route to 242 Street-Van Cortland Park. Shared a few When Harry Met Sally moments. Got separated from my party on the E train from JFK. Made it my mission to never let that happen again, even if it meant forming a human chain.

I recommend, if you find yourself in such a situation, pulling and pushing the limbs of someone who has no problem being pulled and pushed. I recommend going with someone who remains docile during three-day vacations, someone just as happily lost and new as you are, someone willing to wear your sartorial preferences. Grab the arm of someone, and believe me on this, who will seize any opportunity to shock you with a kiss, all thanks to a static-ridden coat and your pathetic fears.

I imagine someone must have thought, as he or she gazed upon a Greek marble scrotum or entered a room raging with Rococo design at the Met, what it would be like if we were the exhibit and they were the voyeurs. If people were behind the plexiglass and velvet ropes and animals went around with pocketbooks and cameras. Surely this someone must be an anthropologist, voluntarily or otherwise. Surely this someone must have thought about this during the last ten to thirty years, because today we are much more invested in exploring our emotions than actively seeking to make our footprint on another planet or replace ground transit. Which is fine. The earth is a field, and the people are test subjects.

And the earth, I’m learning, can find its model in New York.