On Being a New Yorker

I worked in a fancy midtown office for two weeks. I did not get paid for my work, and I commuted in from New Jersey every day: I am now a New Yorker.

Being a New Yorker, as I am now, is drastically different from being a Pennsylvanian, as I was before. The first major change that I noticed in myself was my behavior on public transportation.

In order to get to my internship every day for two weeks, in the fancy midtown office, in New York, I chose to ride the New Jersey Transit bus, from my uncle’s house in Hasbrouck Heights, NJ. Most New Yorkers know what that is. On the first day riding this bus, still predominantly Pennsylvanian, I kept to myself. The bus was quiet, save for the garrulous lady sitting next to me who was gabbing loudly on her phone. I found myself thanking God that this lady’s voice was masking the sounds of me softly stress burping. On the last day of my internship, I was the garrulous lady. Every person on the otherwise silent bus found out just as much about my recent dietary habits as my mother did. But since I was now a New Yorker through and through, and very street-smart at that point, I’m going to guess they are better off for it.

These very dietary habits, referenced in the previous paragraph, are another aspect of myself that changed drastically when I became a New Yorker. Since it didn’t take long for me to come around to the reality that I would be spending millions and millions of dollars on lunch every day, I decided I might as well stay up with the latest food trends.

At the time, this meant acai bowls. For any suburbanite readers, an acai bowl is a tropical fruit-based smoothie served in a bowl, usually blended with chia seeds and some kind of nut butter, and topped with granola, fruit and maybe some flax seeds for good measure. My grandfather, not a New Yorker at all, would probably call it rabbit poop or something. I indulged in this fad on one of my first days in the city. Of course I did the modest thing and asked for an opaque bag to carry my acai bowl back to the office, and ate it alone in a corner, facing the wall. However, I soon became accustomed to the solidly full yet comfortably buoyant feeling these bowls of overpriced berry puree stimulated within me, and after two weeks in New York, an eternity, I could not eat anything else for lunch. I became unabashed, carrying my daily bowl down 6^th Avenue on the palm of my hand, like a sassy waiter.

The fancy midtown office at which I worked changed me most profoundly. At this office, there were vibrantly colored swings hanging from the ceiling, which were not to be used for sitting nor swinging . Since everyone working at the fancy midtown office was a New Yorker, they were all between the ages of 20 and 30, and they were all very skinny and posh. The employees told me all of their secrets, and now I am very skinny and posh. I also now know how to say “Sweet Green, anyone?” without implying that I might be paying for anyone else, but indeed implying that I will be ordering the most expensive and dainty salad, and eating it very slowly while frowning.

The most uncomfortable aspect of being a New Yorker, for me, however, is the dehydration. As anyone who knows me well will tell you, I used to pee at a frequency at around the national average, multiplied by the amount of times most people breathe in one day. Not so anymore. At the fancy midtown office, where everyone was skinny and posh, the bathroom was located at the opposite side of the office from where I sat. Not only was this quite a long walk, but it made every trip feel like a fashion show, in which all the employees who were getting paid for their work would observe me as I walked by, undoubtedly tallying the number of trips I’d taken so far that day. I assume this is an issue for many New Yorkers, who are not fashion models and prefer to be judged on their appearance on sidewalks and rooftop patios only. The natural way that I adapted to this environment was by depriving myself of liquids.

This particular detail has made being a New Yorker most difficult to bear. After two weeks of consuming little to no water, my lips are now cracked into canyons, and my skin sags almost to the ground. I suffer frequent headaches, and when I say the word “chocolate” I sounded just like the dried up old lady fish from Spongebob. I no longer have to leave my desk/car/bed for any reason during the day except to pick up one-hundred-and-fifty-dollar acai bowls for meals. However, seventy percent of my body is now composed of acai bowl, instead of water.

I have to say that I am a much better person, as a whole, now that I am a New Yorker. It is a much drier and more impoverished life, but even back in Rhode Island, I am benefiting from this identity. Among countless other advantages, it has provided me with a more cultured perspective on the world, a greater appreciation for green space, and another reason to despise Ted Cruz.

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