Memos from Manhattan

I arrived in a taxi from the airport to my front door this morning. Well, almost. The taxi driver seemed a bit confused on how to find West 4th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues, and after an extended ride down the East River, I decided to let him off easy and asked to get out at the corner of W4th and 6th Avenue. Shouldn't all cabdrivers know where they are going? Shouldn't there be a test they have to pass to prove they know the quickest route from burough to burough and street to street?

Once inside my building I began my daily workout of heaving an oversized suitcase up six flights of stairs. I do this six-floor-walk-up everyday. Usually I only have a tote bag with my gym clothes and my purse, and that is all. Today I had a tote, and my purse and this oversized suitcase. Getting home from a trip in Manhattan was never easy...especially on the top-floor of a walk-up building in the West Village.

Upon reaching the 4th floor of the building, I noticed my Greek neighbors had their door open again. "Letting air out" they call it. What exactly are they airing out? The door stays open all day, and sometimes at night too. Ultimate trust? or ultimately wack-o?

Its these strange idiosyncracies that spurred the idea to begin this blog about the things I notice in my Manhattan life. The truth is, things happen in New York City that would never happen anywhere else. Why? Because social codes are thrown out the window as all of us who live on this island have decided that alone we are a population of one in our own individual species. Because of this, we are allowed to act strangely -- or at least when seen through the eyes of others.

So my stories here will be about the zany and humorous things I find along the streets of Manhattan and slowly make their way to my memoirs, but not first without a stop to the notes, make that memos, I make to myself to remind myself that I am not the crazy one. When I re-read the memos that I find laying around of what I witnessed and didn't want to forget as moments slipped past, I believe again that no man is truly an island, and I begin to wonder if there is a sane person left on this one.